Page 16 of The Coveted
“You’re finding your way again. I can sense it,” Amos said with his eyes closed. He sat across from me on the purple cushion like last time. The air smelled of incense and herbs, similar to the New Age shops that my friends always dragged me into back in New York City. They enjoyed teasing me about my psychic gift, all in good fun, of course. If only they knew the power I’d come into…
Thinking of them and the life I’d been forced out of without so much as a goodbye hurt my heart, so I cast it aside. Change was the only given in this world.
I sighed. “I’m glad you think so, because I’m not so sure. I still feel so lost and in the dark.”
“By design, child. It’s where everyone here is kept.”
“I’m starting to see that,” I muttered. “How are you here, then? You’re clearly not one ofthem. You’re one of us, but you aren’t even hiding it. It doesn’t make sense.”
“We’ve all done what we had to do to survive,” he said again, just as Daelon had parroted. “I earned my place by offering Lucius something valuable, something of use to him.”
What did Daelon offer Lucius to end up here? I thought back to what I’d overheard Lucius say last night—that he wanted to find my own use to him. That for now, he wanted to use my energy reading gift against the elite, I assumed to read their intentions, nature, and loyalty.
“What did you offer?” I asked, fearing the worst.
“Insight. I offered him access to energy he would never see or understand himself. As much as the people in this palace like to scorn the old ways, mostly because they have been taught that they’re weak, ineffective, and downright blasphemous, Lucius himself knows that they’re the source of all magick. Well, all magick before him, I should say.”
“Where doeshispower come from?” I asked, my head spinning. This was something I’d been wondering since I first met him. My heart sunk at the thought of Amos giving him any kind of access to the energy we both knew—the energy that flowed through everything in the universe, tying it together and breathing life into it all.
“That’s a part of the past that you need to uncover yourself. It’s something that cannot be said aloud, not here. He has an impenetrable binding spell over his own history and origins. Though I think you feel some of these truths already.”
I couldn’t hold back a sigh of annoyance. “Right. Well, then can you at least explain more about your role here? If Lucius is so powerful, why does he need your insight? Can’t he use his own source of power for everything?”
Amos shook his head. “As I’m sure you were taught, the entirety of this world—Earth, Aradia, the astrals, and the unknown realms—are all held together by energy. This energy comes in many forms, on many frequencies, from the destructive to the nurturing, the sickly to the fierce.”
I nodded, feeling power echo his words as it moved through me. I closed my eyes, letting the images and sensations channel through.
“What separates witches from humans is that we know innately of this unseen reality. Many humans come close, but it’s not common anymore. We are not only in tune with it, but we can also use and channel it. In this way, this vast and sometimes unknowable, invisible force not only creates and sustains us, but we also influence it right back. It’s reflexive. It makes a circle of influence, rather than a single causal line. It’s a balance. We are only given what the Universe—the Goddess, or other conception of the ultimate Source one subscribes to—knows will uphold this delicately woven fabric of reality. We have a capacity for power inside each of us, some greater than others, and the rest is gained by prayer, calling upon nature, working with the realm’s natural cycles, and working with each other. Ritual, tradition, ancestral and land-based magick…”
Impatience bubbled up, and I resisted the urge to interrupt and ask what in the hell this had to do with Lucius. I already knew all of this from my time with Daelon.
“…Or at least, that’s how itwas,” he continued. “And is meant to be.”
Wait.Maybe I could see the connection after all.
“So, hypothetically,” I said. “If someone were to come along and seek more power than what they were given, it would break the circle. It would disrupt the balance.”
My eyes flew open. It was just as I’d felt, just as Daelon mentioned to Lucius when I’d first been kidnapped. Lucius had almost struck him down for it. He denied this disruption. He wanted everyone to believe his unnatural power was divinely given. So then, whathadgiven it to him? Where did this power come from? Had he taken it somehow?
“I’d say that sounds plausible,” Amos said, staring at me intently. His eyes were crinkled with humor like we weren’t discussing some seriously horrific revelations. “And if the circle is broken, then that person would be cut off from the natural energy. Hence why they might need someone who was still in touch with it all. Especially in case the Universe found a way to fight back.”
And my mothers. My coven. All of the witches I sensed in my vast ocean of power. They found a way to fight back—withme. Everything was starting to fall into place. I might not have known the specifics yet, but I was at least headed in the right direction. All my feelings and intuitions had been leading me to this moment my whole life, as if pulled along by an invisible thread.
And in that moment, I regained more trust in my power and my purpose. Enough to push forward. “If the people here have stepped outside of this circle and abandoned their true nature—the old ways—does that mean they gain power from Lucius and wherever he gets it?”
Amos smiled, and I knew I was right again. “The witches here still have their natural gifts, but they can also receive blessings from Lucius that fortify and expand their influence. With their loyalty and devotion, comes power.”
Lucius created an unnatural loop of power that began and ended with him. I thought back to when I fought Nathaniel, and the magick he’d used affected me the same as Lucius’s energy. It was the same as the spell Daelon had cast in the clearing to buy us time—the one that apparently had caused all sorts of apocalyptic trouble here at the castle—which Lucius had wrongfully assumed had been a disloyal noble. Daelon had no idea that Lucius’s power would affect me in that way, as it moved through me like shards of ice. It nearly destroyed me, because it ran contrary to my very existence.
I wasn’t here just to destroy Lucius. No. Just as my mothers drilled into me, as Daelon whispered to me in the dark, I was here to bring back hope. To restore balance. To remind all witches of their true nature and return this dark realm to its original, aligned splendor. No big deal, right?
“You—you helped Lucius and Daelon find me, didn’t you?” I asked.
Amos’s humored eyes faltered, a faint shadow eclipsing his features. He nodded. “I helped Daelon find himself again. I played the role I needed to play to set everything in motion, nothing more. Sometimes we end up in dark places not because we did something wrong or fell off the path, but because it’s where we are needed most. Not every road on the way to deliverance is beautiful. Most aren’t, in my experience.”
I mulled over his words for a long while, both of us sitting in comfortable silence. The sunlight that trickled through the windows behind him warmed my skin as my mind spun in circles. This was a lot. Too much to figure out on my own.
But I was not alone.
