Page 35 of The Discovered
As I’d found myself doing more often than I felt comfortable with, I chose my heart over my head.
For now.
I sat facing Daelon in the basement, not bothering to hide my disappointment after he refused to train outside where he deemed it to betoo cold.On the flip side, the first snow had begun to fall, which guaranteed my good mood. Winter and the holidays were tied very deeply to the most sacred parts of my childhood—times when my mothers and I were at our happiest. We celebrated Yule, or the winter solstice, rather than Christmas, but it was virtually the same besides a few witchy twists thrown in. We decorated a tree, gave gifts, baked sweets, and cooked elaborate meals. We celebrated with our neighbors in their homes and at the local pub, but I also remembered plenty of candle-lighting and spells, ancestral devotion, and a Yule log that burned with wishes for the new year. I just wished I remembered more of the specifics.
My mothers also made sure to tell me about their coven—our family, related through community if not by blood—and how much they all wished they could be with us during these holidays. My mothers cried when they told me, each year, that my people loved me so much that they gave up their chance of ever knowing me. I never quite understood what this meant, but I knew it had something to do with my mothers’ escape from Aradia. If those witches in white were my mothers’ people, all dead… did that mean I was the only one left? The only one who could preserve centuries of tradition?
I frowned. They did say that I would always have friends where I least expected them. Were some of my mothers’ coven still here, somewhere?And could I find them?
“You’re not paying attention.”
“Sorry.” I gave my head a shake. “I’m back.”
“Learning how to defend yourself is the most important thing I can teach you,” he chastised, finishing with a sigh. “I’m going to try to enter your mind again, and I want you to say when you detect me.”
I cleared my ruminating thoughts and brought myself back to this moment. Today we were working on psychic defense, in particular my ability to detect external influence. I centered myself and waited, sending out probes to detect any sense of Daelon in the outskirts of my energy field. In a few moments, I felt the slightest shift, like a spider creeping through the tiniest of holes in the wall.
“I feel you,” I said.
“Now block me.”
He was searching for something. Instead of blocking him immediately, I followed him around the edge of my mind. His energy was unreadable by nature of his shielding gift, only detectable by its imprint that told me it wasn’t my own. What was he looking for?
I grew distracted again, thinking of my dreams, in particular the dream where Daelon looked at me like I belonged to him, and his muscles flexed as he—
I suddenly realized it was Daelon who brought forward this vision. In a burst of strength, I banished him from my psyche.
“Hey!” Flustered, I swatted at his arm, but he caught my wrist midair.
He grinned devilishly, kissing my hand before releasing me.
“Talk about an invasion of privacy.” I glowered.
“I would never seriously breach your mind in that way. You know that.”
I did. Daelon was all about consent, if nothing else. He still looked all too pleased with his harmless intrusion, though.
As we worked through a couple more exercises, I realized that these lessons were very much tied to yesterday’s attack. I’d always known we were preparing for some kind of battle, but it all felt real now. I needed to be ready for the pretend-devil and whoever else wanted us dead. So, we continued working, only partially distracted by the renewed and undeniable tension between us.
The snow continued to fall, and by the time neither of us could work any longer it had even started to cling to the ground. We faced the basement’s wall of glass panels, and I sat in between Daelon’s legs, looking out at the winter landscape. His arms snaked around my torso, a hand resting on my thigh.
“You fascinate me,” Daelon said. He traced circles on my bare skin, drawing out a shiver of goosebumps.
“In what way?” I tried not to show just how much his touch affected me. How the skin-on-skin contact consumed my every thought.
“For reasons like getting so excited about the snow. It’s… endearing.”
I thought about it for a moment. “I cling to things that make me feel nostalgic and safe—that remind me of the part of my childhood I most cherish.” I shrugged. “The part of my childhood before I learned that everything could change—that your loved ones could be there one minute and gone forever the next.”
The difference between my early memories—memories where everything was magickal and untainted by the rise of my power and my mothers’ growing fear—and my later memories of constant anxiety and confusion was astounding. It was like two completely different childhoods. I clung to the former whenever I could, to remind myself that things could be truly amazing in spite of their inherent transience.
Nothing was permanent. I wished I could live in these moments of warmth and security forever.
“Sometimes I get scared that the memories you and I make now are like those—fleeting and liminal, as if we are caught in a happy limbo before the impending storm.”
“I’m glad you at least think we’re making some good memories,” he murmured, sadness creeping into his tone.
“But they’re bittersweet. Because I know that we can’t stay here forever, and I feel the darkness and struggle that awaits us on the other side.” And the selfish part of me didn’t want to face that other side. I wanted to stay in Daelon’s arms watching the fluffy white flakes fall to the earth.
