Page 100 of A Touch of Stars and Stones
“No,”I answer in my mind.“Why do you have the same teacup?”My temper flares as I think the question.
“Calm. Think of that lake. The water. You’re halfway, but you must use your mind like a muscle.”
Was this a trick to bait my emotions? If I have an emotional response, the mind-to-mind thing seems to just happen.
“You are rare. Rarer still that you did not grow up in our land. If you’d lived by our traditions, our ways, you would have realised at a young age that you were different. That has been the way of it for hundreds of years. We have nurtured the combined gifts and shaped them in others. But with you…”
Every single part of me silently begs for her to keep talking. The information she holds feels like a potent drug, and every syllable is my next fix.
She waves her hand, and a second teacup appears, another twin to the one in my room. The one I’ve always been too afraid to use.
The woman who brought the tray stands and pours the water over the herbs and spices in the bottom of our cups, and a bloom of fragrance erupts.
“But it isn’t just Aslendrix that balances a Fifth. It’s their own heart. What that individual wants or desires.” I listen so intently that the words almost take on new meaning.
“Like good and bad? Light and darkness?”
The Maker takes her tea and sips, a strange sight. And with no eyes, she seems to manage as if she still has the full use of all her senses. “A simplification, but yes. Aslendrix is only one side. Novandia is a part of her balance, to her dismay. A Fifth can sometimes be a consequence of their ongoing feud. A show of power.”
I drink in the information along with the floral tea and pretend to understand that riddle.
“You are learning that your gift can amplify or drain. But it is not confined like the other Orders. I see all because I was the first. You will see possibilities. For you. For others. To weave and thread and sow. To nurture or to destroy. But at the centre of it all is your mind and heart. And the way to rule them in harmony is to master your emotions. Something that takes years.”
She is open with her information, as if it had only been a matter of time until she would impart this to me. But I feel the pressure of the words and run them over in my mind so I don’t lose or forget any of them. This conversation has subtle inflexions and meanings, and no doubt, I’ll be poring over them in the middle of the night.
I glance at the Maker. Her sagging body and her hollow, empty eye sockets, scarred and worn, and I try to imagine her as a younger woman, a woman who worshipped the moon and was also granted this life—this gift.
“Would you like to see?”She breezes into my mind. “Would that help you to stop calling me Witch, child?”
I nearly choke but manage to keep the tea in my mouth and not splutter all over us. Her low chuckle is my answer.
A beautiful woman now sits in her place with raven hair and milky white skin, like it’s been bathed in moonlight. And just as quickly, it vanishes.
“I won’t call you a witch any longer. Thank you for the information. I still have…”I pause the words in my head.
“You will always have questions. Stop waiting for the answers. Act on what you know now. Carve your path. Stop being afraid.”
twenty-six
. . .
Ever
Kyra’s waiting, already in my room when we return to the residence, and I’m too glad to see her to worry about people coming into my room when I’m not there. It’s not like we lock the doors.
“Are you okay?” She stands in greeting, and I watch as her eyes sweep me in an assessing glance.
“I’m fine.”
“Rowan always wants to push people, but if you ask me, what he’s doing with you borders on cruel.” Her petite frame and sing-song voice don’t match the upset expression on her face. Her brows knit together with a scowl firmly in place.
“It’s fine. I appreciate you both helping and taking me to see her.”
“What did she say?” Kyra asks.
I look between her and her brother, debating if I want to share our conversation and what she divulged. There were parts of our interaction that felt private and just for us. Because nobody else here is like us. There’s a small amount of comfort inthis. I’d felt alone in my power until now. Even if this solidarity is with the woman I always thought of as a witch.
I walk around the bed to the nightstand where the small teacup I’d brought with me from home still sits with a sprig of dying flowers. My fingers gently lift it from its spot to examine the markings and the pattern, and I hold it in my hand for a moment.
