Today, our last day before the raid, she’s in a particularly foul mood. She takes it out on her training targets. Namely, Lory and me.
“Enough,” Lory hisses through gritted teeth. She falls to a knee, waving her hand in Cameron’s direction. The teenager clenches a fist but lets go, her ability falling away, pulling back the stifling curtain of silence. “You’re supposed to knock out my sense, not me,” Lory adds, fighting back to her feet. Though she’s from frigid Kentosport, a craggy, half-forgotten harbor town already assaulted by snow and sea storms, she pulls her coat closer around her. Cameron’s silence doesn’t only take away your blood-born weapons, it shuts you down entirely. Your pulse slows, your eyes darken, and your temperature drops. It unsettles something in your bones.
“Sorry.” Cameron has taken to speaking in as few words as possible. A welcome change from her blustering speeches. “No good at this.”
Lory snaps back in kind. “Well, you better get good, and fast. We leave tonight, Cole, and you’re not just coming to play tour guide.”
It’s not like me to end fights. Instigate them, yes, watch them, definitely, but stop them? Still, we have no time for arguing. “Lory, enough. Cameron, once more.” Mareena’s court voice does me well here, and both stop to listen. “Block her sense. Make her normal. Control what she is.”
A muscle twitches in Cameron’s cheek, but she doesn’t voice her opposition. For all her complaining, she knows this is something she must do. If not for us, then for herself. Learning to control her ability is the best thing she can do, and it is our bargain. I train her, she takes us to Corros.
Lory is not so agreeable. “You’re next, Barrow,” she grumbles to me. Her far-north accent is sharp and unforgiving, just like Lory and the harsh place she came from. “Cole, if you make me sick again, I’ll gut you in your sleep.”
Somehow, that gets a crinkle of a smile out of Cameron. “You can try,” she replies, stretching out her long, crooked fingers. “Let me know when you feel it.”
I watch, waiting for some sign. But like Cameron, Lory’s abilities are a bit harder to see. Her so-called sense ability means everything she hears, sees, touches, smells, tastes is incredibly heightened. She can see as far as a hawk, hear twigs snapping a mile away, even track like a hound. If only she liked to hunt. But Lory is more inclined to guard the camp, watching the woods with her superior sight and hearing.
“Easy,” I coach. Cameron’s brow creases in concentration, and I understand. It’s one thing to let loose, to drop the walls of the dam inside and simply let everything spill out. That’s easier than keeping hold, reining yourself in, being steady and firm and controlled. “It’s yours, Cameron. You own it. It answers to you.”
Something flickers in her eyes. Not her usual anger. Pride. I understand that too. For girls like us, who had nothing, expected nothing, it’s intoxicating to know there is something of our own, something no one else can claim or take away.
To my left, Lory blinks, squinting. “It’s going,” she says. “I can barely hear across the camp.”
Still far. Her ability remains. “A bit more, Cameron.”
Cameron does as I tell her, throwing out her other hand. Her fingers twitch in time with what must be her pulse, shaping what she feels into what she wants it to be. “Now?” she bites out and Lory tips her head.
“What?” she calls, squinting harder. She can barely see or hear.
“This is your constant.” Without thinking, I reach over, putting my palms against Cameron’s shoulders. “This is what you aim for. Soon it’ll be as easy as flipping a switch, too familiar to forget. It’ll be instant.”
“Soon?” she says, turning her head. “We fly tonight.”
Without thought, I force her to look back at Lory, my fingers pushing her jaw. “Forget about that. See how long you can hold without hurting her.”
“Full blind!” Lory shouts, her voice too loud. Full deaf, too, I think.
“Whatever you’re doing, it’s working,” I tell Cameron. “You don’t need to say what it is, but just know, this is your trigger.” Months ago, Julian told me the same thing, to find the trigger that released my sparks in the Spiral Garden. I know now that letting go is what gives me strength, and it seems Cameron has found whatever enables hers. “Remember how this feels.”
Despite the cold, a bead of sweat rolls down Cameron’s neck and disappears into her collar. She grits her teeth, jaw clenching to keep back a grunt of frustration.
“It will get easier,” I continue, dropping my hands back to her shoulders. Her muscles feel tense beneath my fingers, wiry and taut like cords drawn too tight. While her ability wreaks havoc on Lory’s senses, it weakens Cameron as well. If only we had more time. One more week, or even one more day.
At least Cameron doesn’t have to hold back once we get to Corros. Inside the prison, I want her to inflict as much pain as she can. With her temper and her history in the cells, silencing guards shouldn’t be too difficult, and she’ll carve us a clear path through rock and flesh. But what happens when the wrong person gets in her way? A newblood she doesn’t recognize? Cal? Me? Her ability might be the most powerful I’ve ever seen or felt, and I certainly don’t want to be her victim again. Just the thought makes my skin crawl. Deep in my bones, my sparks respond, bursting into my nerves. I have to push them back, using my own lessons to keep the lightning quiet and far away. Even though it obeys, fading into the dull hum I barely notice anymore, the sparks curl with power. Despite my constant worry and stress, my ability seems to have grown. It is stronger than before, healthy and alive. At least some part of me is, I think. Because beneath the lightning, another element lingers.
The cold never leaves. It never ends, and it feels worse than any burden. The cold is hollow, and it eats at my insides. It spreads like rot, like sickness, and one day I fear it will leave me empty, a shell of the lightning girl, the breathing corpse of Mare Barrow.
In her blindness, Lory’s eyes roll, searching vainly through Cameron’s blanket of darkness. “Starting to feel it again,” she says loudly. The hiss of her words betrays her pain. Though she’s tough as the salty rocks she was raised on, even Lory can’t keep quiet against Cameron’s weapons. “Getting worse.”
“Release.”
After a moment too long for my liking, Cameron’s arms drop, and her body relaxes. She seems to shrink, and Lory falls to a knee again. Her hands massage her temples and she blinks rapidly, letting her senses return.
“Ow,” she mutters, angling a smirk at Cameron.
But the techie girl has no smile in return. She turns sharply on her heel, braids swaying with the motion, until she faces me fully. Or, I should say, she faces the top of my head. I see anger in her, the familiar kind. It will serve her well tonight.
“Yes?”
“I’m done for the day,” she snaps, teeth blinding white.
I can’t help but fold my arms, drawing my spine up as straight as I can. I feel very much like Lady Blonos when I glare at her. “You’re done in two hours, Cameron, and you should wish it was more. We need every second we can get—”