Page 127 of Beasts of Briar
Now. I had to go now. I reached for the starlight above, and then I drove straight into Khalasa’s mind.
Unlike last time,Khalasa’s mind wasn’t completely blank. There were windows, doors, pathways I could take. So our plan was already working. She was distracted fighting my brothers, unable to completely guard herself from me.
The question remained: where would this memory be? I reached for my power, letting the stars guide me. They knew all. They were timeless. They had the answers, and they could lead me to them. So I asked the starlight for help.
In the corner of Khalasa’s mind, a door creaked open, the starlight shining on it. There. It was telling me to go there.
I wove my way toward it when the ground ruptured underneath my feet. A huge crack fizzled across her mind, creating a chasm in the black space between me and the door.
I scrambled backward as the chasm grew wider, threatening to swallow me whole. My father had always warned me about star elementals who had gone too deep into someone’s mind, getting lost and unable to find their way back out. They became like blank voids. Alive and breathing, but their minds were no longer present. It was a horrible existence, and as a goddess’s daughter, I didn’t know if it could happen to me.
I didn’t know much about my powers. Khalasa was likely the only one who could teach me, and she never would. So I needed to be careful.
I heard the distant cries of the battle, and Khalasa’s mind trembled around me, sending vibrations up my legs. Maybe one of my brothers had gotten a hit on her. Either way, she was still able to keep me from whatever it was she didn’t want me to see.
I backed up a few steps, then took a running leap over the chasm. My body slammed into the other side, and I slid down, my hands catching on the black edges of the smooth surface. I dug my fingers into the floor, trying to keep myself from falling down into the void below, where I’d surely be lost forever.
I grunted, screaming out as I heaved myself up. The chasm rumbled, widening again, and I had to run toward the door before it swallowed me.
I threw myself through the open door, and it swung shut with a loud crack.
Chills skittered over my arms. I was in a cave somewhere now. I gasped. And there was Khalasa. My heart hammered in my chest as I walked toward her.
She knelt down over something that I couldn’t see, her purple gown flowing around her. I edged closer just as Khalasa stood, turning and staring straight at me.
“You really thought it would be so easy?” she asked.
My breath hitched. Was this a memory? Or was Khalasa somehow here, in her own mind, toying with me?
“Maybe it’s both,” she said. “You could have been great, you know. We could have worked together. Mother and daughter. An unstoppable force.”
Her black hair hung around her shoulders, the same color as mine, but whereas her strands were melded into perfect waves, mine were wild and untamable. Just like my father’s.
“No,” I said, “we couldn’t have been. I am my father’s daughter, and my father would never ally with someone like you.”
“No, he’d just sleep with me, then discard me like I’m the one who’s nothing.”
I circled her, legs braced and hands out. This was a mind, just like any other mind, and that meant I had some control. I looked down, and a sword unraveled in my hand.
“How utterly human of you,” Khalasa said. “Your brothers are using the same kind of weapons against me right now. And it’s not going well.”
A cold sweat broke out over my brow. I needed to hurry. To get the information and get the bloody stars out of here so I could help them.
“You’re not going to find what you want,” Khalasa said as I lunged at her.
I jabbed my sword toward her stomach, trying to force her out of the way so I could see what she was looking at.
She spun, then stretched out a hand and threw bolts of starlight at me. I rolled to the ground, tumbling to my feet as the bolts flew over my head.
She sucked in a sharp breath, doubling over. My brothers. One of them must’ve gotten a hit on her. She groaned, then cracked her neck and set her attention back on me.
The sword in my hand disappeared, and I imagined two daggers. They appeared and I hurled them straight toward Khalasa as another blow wracked her body. Something was happening out there. My brothers were gaining ground on her. The daggers drove straight into her dress, pinning her to the cave wall and giving me the extra second I needed to stretch out my hand and summon what she’d been looking at in this cave.
Small rocks flew into my palm, and I stared down at them, brows bunched. Shimmery dust covered each of the rocks. Seven rocks. Seven different colors.
Khalasa appeared in front of me, the daggers I’d imagined now gone, her dress perfectly in place.
“Confused? So was I when I found these rocks. These glittering pieces of magic. All my research led me to them.”
