Tasia felt a little tempted to see how much faster she could run now that she had started trying to embrace her Dark, and now that she had been made whole again, but she knew she did not dare push her luck on her lungs or want to risk losing her friends. She settled for going fast enough to just scoot past them via the trees and then dropping back down to the road where it began sloping down past the cliff to head another direction.
"All in favor of going back and vetoing Tasia's order," Raine said as she walked out of the trees, "say aye."
"Aye," Emily and LeAnn both said.
Racine covered a smile. She had felt Tasia the instant she passed them. LeAnn and Reagan had likely sensed her but not known what they sensed since they were still learning their own skills. Racine really hoped she would not have to help everyone with the nuances; she may have been the oldest by eight years, but she did not have that much more experience.
"I'll help too," Reagan offered. "She can't argue with all of us . . . can she?"
"Why don't you ask her?" Racine offered. She pointed to where Tasia was leaning against the cliff and watching them all with lifted brows.
Beth took one look at her friend and then gave a delighted squeal. "You look amazing!" She dashed over to poke and prod and look closer at the Iris Defender armor, and her friend just smiled wryly as she obligingly turned in a circle. Beth discovered only one oddity, and caught the braid Tasia now wore. The tight packed weave felt like lifting a log, actually, thanks to Tasia's majik, but it seemed somewhat miraculous anything could confine her often chaotic hair. "Wow, this is odd to find."
"Actually," Reagan told her, "it's standard for Defenders! If your hair is long enough, you get a really tight braid to confine it to keep it out of the way. It," she glanced at LeAnn and then back, "is kind of is a symbol of being bound to our destinies, actually. We accept it willingly, but we're still bound to it. You don't always notice the presence or difference on people like my mother who often braids her hair, but on people who prefer their hair unconfined, you really see it." Softer, she added, "Like my aunt."
LeAnn dashed forward and jumped into Tasia's arms. As her twin's arms closed around her, she felt such a powerful feeling of safety that tears stung her eyes. Sure, she could handle most anything thanks to being Protean, but now knowing she didn't have to made everything better. "I promise not to make you have to carry me away from trouble," she said.
Tasia laughed. "Don't make a promise you can't keep. If I have to do it, I will, and I can. I might be only an inch taller, but I'm plenty strong—as a twin always is." She held onto LeAnn just as tightly and then sighed. "You're going to make my life hell." The words were more loving than annoyed. "I'm fine, Leslie Ann. Not a scratch on me."
"We were worried." Raine stepped over and hugged her as well. She caught LeAnn's eye and winked at her around Tasia's back, and it made LeAnn's shoulders relax since she had worried that Raine might be upset that LeAnn was closer to Tasia. In truth, Raine would have been fine with it even if she hadn't had her own twin. She had always thought her closeness to Tasia was a result of the bond between Logan and Tasia. They were siblings in their soul, and he was therefore the one Tasia loved most other than LeAnn. "How do you feel?" she asked her sister.
"Ridiculously comfortable, actually." Tasia removed her Mask and her armor went away to leave her in her regular clothes. She studied the Mask in her hand and then shrank it down to smaller size. Her other hand lifted and she conjured up a simple bracelet that she could attach the Mask to, and as soon as she did, a replica version of it appeared on the bracelet as well. "Communications mask?" she asked as she fastened on the bracelet.
"It is!" Racine held up her wrist to show her own bracelet which had both. "Once you find your Mask, you automatically gain the other. It basically works like a PCA where you say the name of who you want to contact. All Defenders wear their Masks as bracelets or earrings or on a necklace."
"Oh!" Ryan clapped his hands. "Tasi, don't you have access to your Ruler gown now? Can we see? Shanae called hers magically, so you should be able to as well, right?" He elbowed his sister when she scowled. "Em, come on. You don’t have to believe in yourself," for now, "but it's obvious Tasia is a Dual, so why can't we enjoy seeing what she can do?"
Purple and yellow swirled around Tasia and replaced her clothes with the familiar Ruler gown of an Iris Ruler Cultivator. She blinked and then looked down. "This is . . . remarkably comfortable, I have to say. I guess I didn't expect that, though I should have since Rulers wear these a lot. However, this is not practical here, so," magic shimmered and she returned to normal, "you all will have to suffer my lack of style."
Reagan giggled. "It's an Iris thing." She huffed out a breath. "And a good idea! I am so not dressed for this trip by wearing my Ruler gown."
"Me neither!" LeAnn rolled her eyes. "Long skirts and hostile environments are not my thing. I look like I need to be rescued or something. Sorry, only Tasia can rescue me, and I promised to make it easy on her!"
There was such disgust in her voice at the idea of being helpless that the others grinned. Ryan, however, thought back to something he had seen and asked, "You don't want to be rescued by anyone other than Tasia? Not even that creepy Captain of the Royal Knights? What was his name . . . Chance, right?"
A hint of red climbed LeAnn's cheeks as brows lifted at her. "It's just a crush!" she muttered.
"Oh, please." Racine rolled her eyes. "When do Cultivators ever have that sort of crush on anyone not their soul mate?" She held up a finger. "Raine! Back me up here. You're not even Activated yet, and you have your soul mate of the lover kind too, right?"
"Boy do I."
"Would you say that you're always wanting to be near him, always happiest when he is close? That he makes your entire world better because he protects your heart? That even if you're mad at him, you're happy just to hear his voice and look in his eyes? You know he will always Care and hold you together no matter how terrible things feel?"
"That is basically spot on for how it feels emotionally, for sure. And I felt that long before we were adults and I sort of had this weird 'wait, you're really hot' moment and wanted to jump him on the spot. Which I did. Which could have been awkward but at least we were alone. And it's worth noting I had been attracted to him prior to that but mostly in a 'huh, why do I want to kiss you' sort of way because, as he put it later, 'I was being adorably blind about us being soul mates.'" She looked at Tasia. "How did he not lose his mind over what I put him through?"
"Patience runs in the family, luckily," Tasia retorted dryly. "And you two were cracking me up the entire time."
LeAnn sighed. "Okay, yes, I'm attracted to Chance. Even Cultivators can feel a mild thrill for someone not their soul mate! I am twenty-one, you know. I started being able to feel an attraction to others when I was nineteen. Like I said, early bloomer."
"So anyone other than Chance?" Theo asked politely.
"Uhm. No."
"Is it status quo or sort of getting stronger?" Beth lifted a brow.
A look of surprise filled LeAnn's eyes. "Uh, stronger."
"And you're as happy near him as near Tasia, that he's as important to you as she is?" Storm finished dryly.
LeAnn blinked. Then, "Well shit."
It made all of her friends start laughing. "Don't worry," Racine promised her, "it'll be our secret! And if you ever need any help, you know we will absolutely chip in."
After a moment, LeAnn said, "I don't doubt any of you, but I think I'll let things stand as is until I'm an adult and can be one hundred percent sure. I mean, it's probably better that way anyway because if he is my soul mate then he's going to be an absolute pain to catch and therefore I will need every weapon at my disposal to land him." She nodded firmly, and black and pink magic swept around her to take away her Ruler gown and put her back into more casual royal clothing. It still looked formal, but not as bad.
Racine and Reagan, after doing the same, also looked a little fancier than would probably be practical or comfortable for the journey. After evaluating everyone, Tasia said, "Alright, conjuration coming up. This is fun stuff. Think what you want to be wearing, and my majik will provide it."
Silver-gold black and white majik welled up around her and moved to flow around the three princesses. With a blink, formal was replaced by casual and comfortable. Denims and shirts with light jackets, and shoes durable for walking. More stylish than could have been expected from Tasia casting, but as she had said, they had chosen their own clothes. "Anyone else?" she asked. "Evaluate shoes especially." She looked at Ryan and Emily's feet, saw non-practical shoes, and flicked majik at them to fix it.
"That . . ." Emily stared at her feet. "That is really kind of neat. And useful!"
"Question!" Reagan shot a hand up. "Why is Tasia's majik silvery-gold in color and Raine's just outright gold? I don't think I ever noticed that majik had a color before, let alone more than one."
Raine held up a finger. "It denotes whether one is closer to the Goddess or the God. Silver is a leaning to the Goddess, and gold is a leaning to the God. It doesn't change much in the overall scheme, but is more like saying you're a mommy's witch or a daddy's witch, so to speak, and it applies to all witches and not just those of the Faith. Tasia happens to be like LeAnn in being half of each parent, so she gets both." She grinned. "Also, the bonus black/white to Tasia's silver-gold is because of her core. Pay close attention, and you'll notice a black under color to my gold because I have a Dark core, and Storm has a white under color to his silver because he has a Light one. It's much harder to see on its own but for Tasia, there's totally both present, so you notice it faster."
"And since you're casual," Theo teased the two High Princesses, "are you Rhya and Leslie again?"
"Yup!" Leslie grinned. "And Racine is Rachel." She nodded firmly, and her ponytails bounced. "So, what do we do next?"
Raine started to speak up, and she felt a sudden warmth moving through her soul. That something frozen melted and left her feeling secure anew. She closed her eyes to let the warmth move through her, and then opened her eyes slightly to look down. Sure enough, through the open buttons at the top of her shirt, a sprout Mark could be seen. She could feel the same tingling on her left arm as well. "I think . . . I thawed," she said softly as she saw the others staring at her expectantly.
Rhya moved closer and then brightened visibly. "I can feel your Seed and magic!" She started giggling. "You smell like daffodils!" She grabbed Raine's hand happily. "I like it. It makes me feel safe. Once you Activate, one of your Ruler magics will be to make weapons and armor from Metal. That could be useful! Kacey made the weapons for Leslie and me, but everyone else will need them too. And, there's a special weapon for Daffodil Defenders, too, that I guess is always just found on Activation, so you'll get that for yourself."
"That would be fine with me," Raine agreed. She smiled and ruffled Rhya's hair.
With everyone properly attired, they set on their way and followed the path as it left the forest behind and began turning into farmland. It was reminiscent of the farmland around Protea, but this land was dead and dying. Some crops looked as if they had simply withered away, and others had been burned to the ground. Smoke still drifted in the air. A crudely built cemetery stood as a sign of sudden, inescapable, death needing a place of rest.
It chilled Raine to the bone in a way very unlike her formerly frozen Seed. She crossed her arms around herself to conserve a little warmth, but it didn't touch what was inside. Some horrible scent drifted on the air with a thick and oppressive cloud, and though the others didn't know what it was, she recognized it instinctively. "Death." Her voice sounded flat, and her eyes had turned nearly peach in hue. "A massacre happened."
"Raine?" Storm whispered to his sister.
Rachel shook her head a bit. "She'll be fine. Just a new sudden sensitivity. The pink daffodil of her mother world represents rebirth and new life, and that includes a sensitivity to life and death equally."
"She also has Sensing," Tasia reminded him gently. "She effectively got hit with the perversion of the flow of energy on this world. The very Core of the planet is being affected by whatever is happening, and so the world is dying. That's why we with Empathy are also in pain; we can hear the cry of the land as loudly as the people."
Rhya moved to hold Raine's hand, and Raine let out a soft breath as their fingers laced together. Just that touch could soothe her. How curious.
What had once been a village near large enough to be called a city lay beyond the farmland. Its scale of size could be seen thanks to the number of buildings that had been burnt to the ground, and the ones that remained standing looked mostly gutted. Not as many people as could be expected for a city of that size could be seen, and few looked to be attempting to mount a recovery. Heads hung low, and they moved only to take the dead somewhere safe to be buried.
The grief and pain of the village was so strong that Beth felt a tearing pain inside her heart. This wasn't just empathic pain—something she was well acquainted with—but something strong enough it became real physical pain. When Emily put a hand on her shoulder in support, she clung to it gratefully and used her as a buffer against some of the emotions in the air.
They entered the village, and a man spotted them. He looked at them with surprise, for they did not dress like anyone on his world, and then hope filled his eyes. He walked over and asked, "Are you from Blossom Field?" That he asked it in Blossom implied he knew the answer already. "Are you the legendary Defender Cultivators of the Rebirth Era?"
"Your mother's going to hate that that has hit the rest of universe," Rachel muttered at Leslie.
"So will my aunts," she muttered back.
Tasia shook her head at them and then looked at the man. "Yes to the first, no to the second. We're the generation following, the first Defender Cultivators of the Resurrection Era for Blossom Field—call us Resurrection Cultivators for short." She chose to name them first for most Eras did have multiple generations per each. It had only been the oddities around Royal and Rebirth that had ended up making it one per, and it would surely end with things realigning. "If I may, how do you know Blossom since I know we're not in that galaxy anymore, and for that matter, where are we, what the icy hells is going on, and where are your Defenders?"
He had to smile at her. "The first is easiest to answer. My son learned it from a friend, and he taught it to his mother and me, and then it spread over many years to eventually fill the whole of Aria—which answers the second as to where you are. This is Aria, a world in the Tarmol galaxy just beyond Blossom Field. The black poppy is the flower of our world, and our Flower Element is the unusual Shadow."
Tasia's heart skipped a quick beat that she ignored. "I see. And where are Aria's Defender Cultivators?"
He slowly shook his head. "Aria has never had need for them until now. We have had a line of Ruler Cultivators for millions of years, but never a Defender. Evil has just never come here."
"Until now."
"And it came in such a way we could never have been prepared." He gave a quick and graceful bow. "My name is Aevan Juephi. I am the leader of this village, in interim. What you see around you not just here but on Aria as a whole is the result of the break in lineage. Aria is very sensitive, more than most other worlds. Perhaps by nature of our flower. The man sitting on the throne at this minute is not the Ruler Cultivator of Aria. Oh, he is of that lineage, but he was the second born, and therefore he is Deactivated. A year ago, he murdered his parents and drove his elder sister and her family into hiding. Aria nearly immediately began stagnating without a true Ruler on the throne, and as people rose back, Armand unleashed evil magic on all of us in retaliation."
"He can't become Activated unless he kills his sister," Rhya whispered, "so he had to turn to evil to find magic he could use. I . . . I can't say I'd be surprised he turned to evil. It sounds like he didn't have much good in him to start with, though that's a little painful to think if he has any sort of Seed at all." She studied Aevan. "You have magic, too. Minimal. Metal Flower Element?"
He nodded. "I do, as some humans can. My son is far more powerful than I am, however, in all ways. He set off recently to find and destroy the false king, determined that if we do not have Defenders, he will act."
"That . . . sounds stupid and dangerous," Theo muttered.
"Perhaps, but of anyone on Aria, he has the best chance at succeeding."
"Other than us!" Storm said decisively. "We can go kick the king's ass with a lot more ease. Don't," he ordered Emily as she opened her mouth. "Now is not the time to be stubborn. Powers or not, you wanna just stand and do nothing?"
"No," Emily reluctantly admitted.
"Then shut up."
Aevan hid a smile as he studied everyone. "You all have majik as well?" he asked.
"Several of us do," Rachel agreed. "You can sense that?"
"Anyone on Aria would. Majik has become as critical to the world as magic, thanks to it being possessed by the Ruler Cultivators as well. Another reason the False King has thrown off the balance. Majik inside our Rulers also is either Activated or not, and only goes to firstborn. So anyone on Aria, ordinary or not, will be able to sense if there's majik inside someone they meet. Some of you are . . . more recognizable than most."
"Shut it," Tasia muttered at her friends.
No one dared say a thing, though they smiled. Aevan studied each in turn again, especially the locks of colored hair, and then focused on Raine. "You are of Daffodil." At her nod, he asked, "Tell me you have physical healing skills." Another nod. Relief nearly made his knees weak. "Then you can help us! When healers are of Daffodil, they have particular potency in one of their gifts. A Defender can use metal blasts that poison enemies, but a Defender with healing power can remove poison from others." He caught her wrist and pulled her along. "Please come with me."
"But!" Raine frowned. "I haven't Activated, Aevan! I only have my Physical Healing as a witch, and Sensing, but I can't remove poison or disease from anyone. I am willing to try, but I can't promise to be of any use!" She broke off as he opened a door to a still-standing building and tugged her inside. Bile rose as she saw what lay inside.
Cots had been lined up in rows of seven all throughout the room. In every cot was a man or woman or child, and all suffered in the grip of the poison. Their skin slowly turned black and the marks covered them from their head to their feet to eat away at their life. Those not consumed by the poison were injured to various degrees and had bloodstained bandages wrapped around their bodies.
"What happened?" Rachel asked softly. Her stomach lurched violently. She had never seen anything like this, ever. She hoped to the gods she never saw it again.
"I mentioned Armand's evil magic. Here is a result. Rather than just outright kill everyone, he chose to make many cities suffer far worse. Poison. It slowly eats away at the owner's lifeforce until there is just a shell that has to be mercifully killed. Disease would have been a blessing for it may be terrible, but it moves fast and does the murder itself."
"And I could handle it personally," Tasia admitted.
Heads swung around. "You can heal disease?" Rhya blurted at her. "Oh, wow. Only my mother has ever been able to do that. What makes disease and poison different?"
"Disease can be outright healed in a manner exactly alike normal Physical Healing so long as the healer has the ability to do it. Poison has to be neutralized. The careful introduction of an anti-poison into the victim that will kill the problem and allow their body to heal naturally. Very, very different. That's why poison is a high priority of medicine for finding antidotes, and why Metal Flower Element Defenders are very judicious in how they use that skill." Tasia shrugged one shoulder. "Sayena can probably heal poison as well, though she may not have known she could or have reason to try. It is rare for a poison to be found in Blossom that cannot be countered by medical science before it becomes too late, and they have Kacey on top of it as a healing Daffodil Defender."
Raine took a long breath. "I don't know what I can do, but I am going to try. Perhaps this will help me Activate. I don't know." She looked at her friends. "Go on without me. I will catch up as soon as . . . something happens. I want you all away from this poison."
After a moment of reluctance, the other Cultivators filed out of the building. Tasia stayed behind with her best friend and then caught her chin to look her in the eye. "I know you will follow us," she said confidently. "I know you will Activate and find your magic, save these people, and catch up. There is great power inside you, my sister." Their hands met and their fingers meshed. "We were meant to meet. Did you know that?"
"More than Logan?"
"He's the biggest part, but our ties go back to the Rebirth Era." She smiled. "So when I say I know what you can do, believe it as fact."
"I believe anything you say." Raine leaned up to kiss her cheek. "I'll be there when I can."
"Of course." She got to her feet to leave but found the door blocked by a new figure. A young woman in her early twenties who had pitch black hair, hauntingly beautiful features only describable as perfect, mocha skin, and nearly opaque black eyes with a magenta hue. Tasia's heart skipped a beat as her Pattern Mastery leapt into overdrive. There was something . . . familiar inside this other young woman. "May I help you?"
"I'm Megan." The young woman took a step forward. "I'm Aevan's daughter. You're of Iris, aren't you? You would have to be, since I can feel the Ice Flower Element inside you, and you have the right colored locks."
"I am," Tasia agreed. "Is there something I can help with? Other than the patently obvious."
Megan nodded firmly. "You bet there is. Dad told you that my brother had gone off to challenge the king. Well, yeah, he has a great chance of succeeding but he sure has no damn armor. He's also hot-headed as hell, so I figure an Ice powered Defender would be a perfect choice as his C—er, protector. I want you to find him and make sure he doesn't die." Her lips trembled briefly. "Our mother . . . was weakened a few months ago. Terribly. And she was stolen when it happened. She bid us not to find her, to let Destiny act as needed, but . . . it hurts. We know she still lives, but I can't . . . I can't lose my brother, too. Please?"
"You think he'll just appreciate me showing up and saying his younger sister wants me to protect him?" she asked dryly.
Megan grinned. "Well, no. That's fair enough." She dug in her pocket and then came out with a beautiful hair clip lined with gemstones. "This is labradorite, the special stone of Aria. It only comes from the dew of black poppies. This hair clip has been in the family for generations. It's part of a matching set; he has the other one. If you're wearing this, then he knows I sent you to help him."
Tasia took the clip and found that it had been carved with ancient symbols that formed the words together as one. It felt old. Powerfully so. She could nearly count the years, and she could feel a distant kinship that meant one or more owners of the clip had been a witch as well. No surprise there. The clip itself looked like a poppy blossom as well, and after a pause, she went ahead and clipped it into her hair. Perhaps deliberately or not, she affixed it right above her purple streak of hair. "There. So I just show him the clip?"
"That's it! Simple, right?" A hint of satisfaction lingered in Megan's eyes. "Thank you, really. I know I can count on you." She waved as Tasia left the building, and then almost jolted out of her shoes when a finger tapped her shoulder. She swung around and found Raine behind her. The taller female had a lifted brow. "What?"
"What did you just set my sister up for?" Raine asked bluntly.
"Something very good," Megan assured her. "Something that needs to happen, I promise. I recognized her from my brother's visions, so I knew she needed to find him."
That sounded interesting. Her brother had Sight as well? Putting it aside for now, Raine mentally rolled up her sleeves and prepared to do what she could to help.
A few hours later, she left the building and went around back to lean against the wall and stare blindly at the landscape. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Useless. She was utterly useless. She had tried but she just could not remove poison. She had eased pain, had healed injuries, but poison lay beyond her reach without Activation.
Something shimmered, like light off a piece of metal. She frowned and walked over to a line of blackened trees. Only one of them still seemed to have any life: an old yew. No surprise when the yew represented death and rebirth. She drew closer, and she discovered the shimmer to have come from a small metal plate embedded in the tree. She pulled it out, and she could just barely see her reflection in it. Inside her mind, she heard a beautiful woman's voice say, Hello, Daughter of Daffodil.
Her heart beat a little faster. "Hello," she whispered. "Is it . . . are you . . . are you helping us thaw? Can you help me Activate?"
I am, and I can. It is the only gift I can give for what you give this world. You must help me help you, however. I cannot do everything for you.
"But what can I do?" she asked achingly. "I've tried. I can't do anything."
You do more than you think you can. You only doubt yourself because the limitations you encounter are only encountered when you most need to push past them. You never doubted yourself until that time. That time when Tasia walked away from a fight with a broken nose, bloodied knuckles, and gouges across her soul from where the Dark had taken over against her will.
Raine could not dispute the words no matter how they hurt. She had been too late that day. She had not been there for her friend, not known what she was suffering. She had barely been able to heal the broken bone, and her ineptitude had left it with a slight curve that was a permanent reminder of what Tasia had endured. "I failed her," she whispered. "The one thing I needed to do most was the one thing I could not do."
You could have done it if you had believed you could. You had begun to doubt yourself, and your majik responded. You doubt yourself now, and you will not Activate.
She opened her mouth to respond when she heard screeching behind her. She whirled around and saw a blood red bird attacking Megan. The young woman had been looking for Raine, and now she desperately tried to use a stick to beat off the monster. There was nothing anyone else could do except watch and pray. Fury beat upwards in Raine's heart and her eyes began to glow peach and copper. "I've always let other people fight my battles for me. I never stood up for myself and fought for myself, or the people I cared for. By doing that, I let them win by default."
Will you let them win still?
"Never!" Metal magic the same color as her streaks began to pulse coolly around her body. The plate in her hands melted and revealed the familiar Mask of a Daffodil Defender. Her sprout Marks pulsed brightly and then began to blossom with daffodils. She grabbed the Mask without hesitation and pulled it on to call her armor.
Understanding of her magic seemed to flood her mind. She lifted her hands and Metal magic swirled around her gloved hands to form into a powerful three-headed spear. Only a true Metal Defender could use the weapon for it relied on their magic. And more than her magic seemed to have expanded; she could feel a rush of stronger majik as well, as if it too had been muffled in her Seed being frozen.
She started running. "Drop down!" she ordered Megan.
Megan dropped flat at the commanding tone, and Raine hurled a blast of molten metal at the monster. It screeched in fury as feathers caught flame, and it swung around to charge at her inside. She held her ground and then ducked and shoved her spear into its belly as it tried to go by. It cut itself in half, and the parts dissolved in the air.
She released the spear and it disappeared into her magic for holding. Anyone with strong enough magic could use whatever magic they did have to hold objects of particular importance, and Defenders and Caretakers alike kept weapons there for ease of convenience. The gesture felt natural to Raine since witches had been using majik the exact same way to hold their wands or sacred items for millennia; it was the only place where the two forces acted identically. She had a yew wand tipped with ametrine—which suddenly made great sense as to as how she had stumbled across the stone sitting on the floor of her house one day. She walked over to Megan and knelt to offer a hand. "Are you alright?"
"A little ragged, but intact." Megan got to her feet and smiled wryly. "I didn't intend to get in trouble. The monsters that have arisen from the imbalance have usually avoided this village. Thank you for saving me!"
"Hey, it's what Defenders do, right?"
"Yes . . . indeed." She brightened. "Can you help the people?"
Raine pulled her Mask off and sent away her armor. "I'm going to damned well try!" The Mask shrunk down and she put it into a pocket until she could have Tasia conjure her a bracelet to put it on. "Let's go."
It was dusk before she finally left the village and began to follow the traces of magic left behind by her friends. They were probably far ahead of her in the forest, and she wanted to find them before the clouds gathering overhead became a full storm. Storm hated lightning, oddly enough, and Raine had the feeling that he would be next to thaw and then Activate. It sure as hell felt damn symbolic that there would be a thunder storm when a Gladiolus Cultivator needed to find himself.
She had just stepped into the start of new farmland when she felt a familiar presence. She skidded to a stop and sighed as she turned to see her elder sister leaning against a tree. "Damn it, Tasi!" she complained. "You said you would go on ahead."
"I did. I just never said how far I'd go."
Really, she should have been used to that after twenty years, but it was still vexing sometimes. "Fair enough," she groused. She walked over to hug her friend tightly. "I'm sorry I never did anything to protect you."
"Did I ever say I expected you to protect me?" Tasia eased back and smiled. "I do the protecting stuff, and you mop up the blood if I bite off more than I can chew. That's how it goes, hon. I don't think you've ever realized just how important it was to me that you were the first thing I saw when I walked away from that horror." She caught Raine's fingers before she could reach for her nose. "Nope! The crook can stay. It's part of who I am now. We can't change the past. We can only move forward."
"You think you know everything," Raine teased.
"I do know everything."
"Including how to remove poison from people?"
"I'm not admitting it if so. You needed to Activate, and that was the right time." She offered a bracelet on a smile. "C'mon. Let's go catch up with the others before this storm breaks our Storm. We're going to need to build a shelter, and if we do it the old-fashioned way, it'll take an hour at least."
"No majik?" she complained as she jogged alongside her friend.
"You are so spoiled by me and Logan conjuring stuff for you."
"Yes, I am, and if we're going to be stuck in this dying world, we deserve some luxuries."
They moved together down the path, and they could both sense as they drew closer to their friends. Tasia, unexpectedly, began to sense something more as well. Her entire body began to throb with her majik as if she had been magnetized and was being drawn closer to her perfect match. Her heart tripped into overtime.
She and Raine spotted their friends at the same time, but they stopped abruptly as they spotted someone else as well. He stood facing their friends who faced them, and all had varying levels of confusion, wariness, and outright appreciation on their faces. He stood a few inches taller than even Tasia, and had the familiar strong physique of someone who had trained hard his entire life. His clothing looked both durable and comfortable, and a sword hung casually from his hip. Shoulder length black hair had been pulled back at the nape of his neck, and what could be seen of his side profile revealed mocha skin not unlike Tasia's as well.
Tasia's heart raced faster and faster as premonitions rose to choke her. She could feel his majik—and his magic. A Seed flowered inside him with the same force as inside herself, but with the Shadow Flower Element. Another Cultivator; surely a Ruler and not a Defender, for Aria did not have Defenders. She would not have been bothered by such a thing, if she had not recognized him.
Raine had recognized both the majik and the magic, and the Seed, and while she would normally trust another Cultivator, nothing about this scenario made anything trustworthy. "Who are you?" she demanded.
He went very still and visibly made a head count. "Six, seven, eight. Dammit. Of course there would be two missing, and they would be the two strongest." He pointedly held his hands out at his sides. "Don't attack until I can explain."
The nearly velvet tone of his voice echoed all of the way through Tasia's sensitive ears and into her Mystic soul. The clip in her hair pulsed softly. She could feel her majik react with sudden greed to the majik inside this other witch, and her core even stirred. She could nearly taste the same inside him, that tangle of Light and Dark. He was like her. He had both in his soul. Yet . . . he felt different. It was as if he had fused the two into Gray. How had she never noticed that before? Maybe she had been afraid to notice. She was afraid then, for if he was who she knew he was, they could never be together.
"So." She kept her voice even with effort. "This is where we finally meet."
His entire body went still and then a tremor went through his muscles. He slowly turned around to look at her, and she saw a face she knew as well as her own. She had seen it as a child, a teen, and now an adult. Him. Her eyes began to glow as waves of blended magic and majik rose to make her hair flutter. Him. His rare and perfect beauty had been engraved inside her. Him. His shocked black eyes with their magenta shadows. Him. His power moved across her soul like the intimate caress of a lover. Him.
Her soul mate.
©Stacy J. Garrett. Do not reprint or redistribute without permission.
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