Page 83 of Gift from the Source
I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad for your feelings toward me at the time. You had every right to feel it because you had no way of knowing any different. I never told you differently and had no intentions to because I couldn’t. But in my heart, I know you’ve come a long way and can handle the truth.
The tip thatcame in that led your Aunt Tilly to you came from Dillon and Pran Gale. The moment they found out where you were and told me, I had a vision of what was to come.
I told Tilly the information I’d received and informed her there was an additional tip that came with it. I made up a story that my informant let me know of a planned attack elsewhere that would be happening.
I convinced her it would be best that I head that mission as a distraction and hopefully interference while she took care of you. She needed the best of the best with her if she wasn’t taking but a certain number of E.F. members, and I’d handle the rest.
Truthfully, I had a choice to make.
Run interference on the Summum-Master or go with Tilly and face the small army he’d bring with him when you weren’t brought to the forest.
I saw the difference between sacrificing one life compared to many. Tilly and her Nexus would’ve survived. Corentin and Tillman would not have. You would’ve been recaptured and by the time we got you back…it would’ve been too late.
I chose to keep him locked in the forest waiting for your arrival that would never come.
I chose that path, knowing my sister was going to be killed.
A part of me died that day.
In the vision, I saw that Tilly didn’t shield herself even though she could’ve easily done so. She was so worried about Tillman, Corentin, her men, you, that she chose to protect all of you above herself. She cared more about what she saw in front of her than the danger coming from behind her.
The entire time I held a ward and air shield around the forest, I sobbed. The entire time I told myself I should’ve told her to protect herself.
I should’ve done more.
I drank myself into a stupor many days following that.
Poor Willow sat in silence with me at her tree. We barely spoke for nearly five days. I didn’t drink in front of her, but the second I felt myself sobering up, I’d tell her I loved her, then I’d leave.
It wasn’t untilyour mom snapped at me to cut the shit that I forced myself to sober up. So many truths hit me like an earthquake when my mind cleared once again.
Firstly, it wouldn’t have mattered what I told Tilly.
She was the smartest, most capable, fiercest, and strategic leader I had ever known. She didn’t shield herself purposefully because she had already weighed the likelihood of everyone surviving. She was determined to keep you all protected, no matter the cost.
She never would’ve forgiven me if I’d swayed any decision she made and had cost her Tillman. She would’ve perished either way, sooner or later, because the grief of losing her only child would’ve destroyed her.
Secondly, when I went to the nonmagical realm that day, it was the first time I saw Willow and her silence clearly. The month you were gone, I searched endlessly for you but visiting her daily was always a priority. I was so distracted in that time frame, though. I hadn’t been paying attention to the shift in her.
That mommy and me day at her school that led to me telling her about her mom gave her a sense of strength. She began fighting back. Something she’d never done much, and I always warned her against. That month that you were trapped, growing stronger, darker, so was she.
So while I was blocking the Summum-Master and Tilly was saving you, Willow was refusing to allow Drin to draw her blood. That was the first time she was strapped to Franklin’s table and tortured.
All simultaneously…
A ten-year-old Draken was sitting on his bed in that barn, crying and healing from being beaten earlier. He was praying for Elementra to send him a savior. Someone who would love him.
You were praying for Elementra to end your life.
Corentin was praying for Elementra to save it.
Willow’s soul screamed out in pain. Begging for someone to save her.
Tillman’s soul screamed out in pain. Begging for someone to save his mom.
Theheightened emotions from all five of you caused Tillman’s and Willow’s stretching souls to collide and the power boost he’ll one day have again burst free, wiping out the entirety of the Mastery members there.
I’ve never been able to get a straight answer from Elementra, but when I gave Willow that dress Tillman made from Corentin’s shirt, that was my experiment. I’ve always had the assumption that those two occurrences, Corentin’s gift coming through her and Tillman’s power boost, tied a piece of her to all of you and her smelling them triggered her emerging.
