The wave hurls back in. This time tenfold, and I’m terrified because I know at once it will engage and there will be no stopping it.
“Now acknowledge it without allowing it to take over.”
What? How? I concentrate on “acknowledging it,” but I have no idea what he means. Except the next instant the already-darkened day is dimming even further as the clouds above us swirl and dip lower again. I try to imagine the danger to Colin is coming from the tree line—away from any of us—but the storm keeps assembling and my sense of panic rises as it drones through my blood.
“Good. You’ve got it. Now close your eyes and aim for the trees,” Eogan says, as if he can read my thoughts.
I beg the curse to aim for the forest, but the panic presses against my chest, overwhelming in its control, and I know I’ve already lost. As if I needed proof, my chin jerks up, and a thin strand of lightning sizzles the ground between Colin and me.
“Aim for the trees, Nym.” Eogan’s tone is firm. Focused.
I can’t do this. Oh hulls—I can’t do this! I shut my eyes and strain my mind for the trees.
Crack! The ground shakes and the scent of burning erupts as thunder rips through the clearing, and suddenly Eogan’s hand is at my neck and his voice is a cool breeze in my ear. “Perfect!”
I open my eyes to see a tall pine tree still standing with a black slice right down the middle.
Colin shouts and runs to embrace me in a giant, awkward hug while I stand, mouth ajar, staring. Then I’m shaking and laughing and embracing him back because somehow we’re all alive instead of miniature pyres of charred flesh.
We go through the exercise another four times until nothing is left of the tree and the poor thing finally tips over with a loud, crumbling thud. Colin jogs over to hug me again, and even though I pull away this time, it feels good to share this victory.
Even Eogan smiles and socks Colin in the arm in what almost looks like affection. “Now, see that fir over there?” he says when Colin socks him back. He points to the shortest one sticking out away from the rest. “She’s going to aim for that, and you’re going to stop her. I want you to shift the ground beneath the tree and move the entire thing out of danger. You’ll have five minutes to see who wins.”
Colin grins and moves eight paces from me. He hunches down. Then he stretches out his arm and beckons me with the tips of his fingers. “C’mon, storm girl. Do what you do.”
“Just like before,” Eogan says from behind me. He squeezes my hand.
I plant the tree in my mind and close my eyes. Scared. Thrilled. In the recesses of my chest, I command the storm above to obey.
A snap followed by a crack rips through the air, and my ears and whole body shudder at the effect. I open my eyes expectantly, only to discover that the tree’s still standing.
It’s just moved four feet closer.
My eyes go wide. The ground behind it is burned to a crisp.
“Blood of a bolcrane!” Colin shouts. “Did you see how I did that?”
“Yes, we’re stunned at your magnificence,” Eogan says. “Four minutes.”
I give in to the crushing weight over my fingers again and the exercise repeats itself. Colin wins again.
“Three minutes.”
And again.
“Is there a reason you’re not trying?” Eogan’s voice asks at the two-minute mark.
I squint. “I am.”
“Liar.”
I swallow. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s that you’re having me strike a tree? Or maybe it’s that I’ve spent my whole life destroying, and I want to learn to defend. Instead I’m standing here murdering helpless plant life.”
“I can only help you if I show you exactly what you’re capable of controlling on a small scale. Because at some point, when your attitude takes over and your emotions get in a huff, you’ll need to be able to feel the difference between attack and defense.”
When my emotions get in a huff?
“One min—” He doesn’t finish before the tree is split into a perfectly neat, burnt lump of wood.
CHAPTER 11
Spattered tracks in the ashen snow. I count them—one, ten, twenty-two tiny, bloody footprints spreading out behind me. Like squashed fairy angels someone played hopfrog with.
What am I doing out here? I cough in the thickening smoke and begin to cry, but this time when I call for Mum, I already know she won’t come. Because I’ve caused something dreadful.
There’s a strange sound on my right—a male voice, I think—and then Mum’s and Dad’s screams start in as the fire hurls the chateau’s roofing to the ground. I feel my heart hurl down with it.
Except the fire doesn’t just consume my heart, but my fingers and bones and body. I start to scream, begging to make it stop, to get back to my parents, but the heat is tearing me up and eating me alive. I drop to the snow and watch the blood ooze from my fingers. At some point I become aware that they are no longer my fingers curling into fists.
They are the hands of a monster.
And the blood covering them is that of my parents.
“Pst!”
A thick finger stabs my cheek.