Page 38 of Degradation

“No dizziness?” she asked while making me turn in a slow circle so she could inspect me.

“None.”

“And your energy? Does it feel depleted?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” She sat in a chair and considered me.

“I want you to touch my well,” she said.

“I don’t understand.”

“You can see the energy I possess, yes? Connect with it. Feel it.”

Uneasy, I glanced at Garron.

“Don’t look to him for guidance, girl. Look at me. I’m telling you to touch my well.”

I shot an irritated glare at the grating woman and lashed out with my energy, touching it to hers. Her thoughts exploded in my head, and I realized I wasn’t simply touching her. She was using the connection to explore me. Not only my well but also my thoughts. All of them.

My promise never to again allow another’s will to impose mine swept through me, pushing away her touch as if blowing a leaf in the wind. I didn’t retreat from her, though. I pushed forward, exploring her well as her grip tightened on her chair. It was vast or had once been vast. It had cracks in it now, preventing her from storing the energy she’d once held. I could feel the attempts that had been made to patch it. Why? Who was she?

For a second, I hesitated.

“Do it,” the woman said. “Look and see for yourself.”

So I delved into her thoughts, and I saw things I wished never to see. A mountain of slain children. The execution of hundreds of people. A rebellion. A beautiful woman of vast power was at the center of it all. I felt Pogwid’s hate and fear toward that woman. But none of that explained the cracks in the well.

Sinking deeper and deeper still, I found Pogwid as a young woman standing at the edge of the Dark Forest. She was screaming someone’s name. A beast stepped forward. He had intelligent eyes.

“I will not lose you,” she said. Then she cast her energy into the man, attempting to lift the spell binding him. It was deep. Deeper than his bones. It was in the center of his being—his energy.

I felt her well fracturing even as she persisted through their combined screams of anguish until she lost consciousness.

When she regained it. It was nightfall. He was there, still a beast, pacing the confines of the forest. When she sat up, he paused and looked at her. Before her eyes, his form shimmered, and he became a handsome young man.

“Don’t return,” he said. “I will never again be the man I was.”

His form shimmered once more, returning him to his beast form, and he walked away. Pogwid sat at the edge of the forest, crying, for a long while. She’d given everything she’d had to save him, and it hadn’t been enough. Her hate for the curse and the Dark Forest became an obsession in that moment.

I withdrew from her, not daring to look further.

“Forgive my intrusion,” I said. “I shouldn’t have looked.”

“And why not? You have the power to do so.”

“Having power does not give one the right to use it against someone else,” I said.

She nodded and looked at Garron.

“When I touched her, I felt nothing dark. Only determination to save what remains of her family.” Her gaze found mine. “You were wise to bind your father to his memories rather than try to remove the curse. You’re not strong enough for that. I doubt anyone would be.”

I refused to believe that but didn’t say so.

“How do I stop a caster from looking into me while I look into them?” I asked.

She smiled.

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