“What am I?” I whisper in horror, mostly to myself.
To my surprise, Penn answers. “When I found you, I suspected but wasn’t certain which of the four elements you controlled. After the bridge, I knew for sure.” He stares at me, eyes glittering. “You are a wind weaver. You are Air. Air, awoken.”
Something deep within me thrums, like the deep strike of a mallet on a drum, reverberating through every nerve ending in a silent current.
Air.
Air, awoken.
The mark on my chest prickles, a familiar ache of cold.
Awake, now.
Finally awake.
A breathy, borderline-hysterical edge creeps into my voice. My last gasp of denial. “Don’t you think if I could call the wind, I would’ve used it to my advantage these past few days? Against, let’s say…you?”
“I think if you’d bothered to learn to control your maegic instead of allowing it to lash out unpredictably whenever your life is endangered,” Penn says on a murmur, “yes. You might well have wielded it against me. But as things stand, you seem entirelyignorant of the birthright you carry. Of the untapped power within you.”
“Power,” I echo, my lips struggling to form the word as my mind struggles to come to terms with all he is saying. Impossible as it seems, there is a part of me—a very small part, speaking from the darkest recesses of my mind—that feels acute relief in hearing someone confirm what I’ve long suspected.
There is something wrong with me.
Something that sets me ever so slightly apart from others. More than just the mark on my flesh or the points of my ears. An innate strangeness, a peculiarity in the very marrow of my bones that whispers in the dark of the night that I will never lead a normal life. That I am destined for something else. Something far from the sunny shores of Seahaven. Something beyond a pleasant, predictable marriage to a soft-spoken man like Tomas.
Something greater.
That voice has been silenced for so long—first, at Eli’s urging.
Best keep it covered, Rhya.
Best not allow anyone too close, Rhya.
Best try to blend in, Rhya.
And, later, at my own.
Be good.
Be normal.
Be ordinary.
I had tried. Oh, how I’d tried. Day after day, year after year. I had pushed down my disquiet, forced out the voice that taunted that I was different. Wrong. Cursed. I had buried it over and over, every time it resurfaced, until I forgot it existed in the first place.
But now that voice is screaming out, each word strengthening from a whisper to a shout I cannot ignore. Cannot bury.
Wind weaver, the mark seems to mock, its murmur ancient astime itself, its cold sting so acute I actually shiver.Sylph of the skies…No more hiding…
I press my free hand against it through the fabric of my borrowed nightgown, trying to quiet the unwelcome voice. My heart is a mad tattoo in my veins as my eyes rise to Penn where he stands a handful of paces away. His grip is tight on the bedpost, his knuckles stark white in the darkness.
“And what if I don’t want it?” I ask, the words barely audible. “This…Remnant.This…power.”
The smirk that twists his lips has a cruel edge. His eyes are flinty with tightly leashed rage. “Then I should’ve let you swing and saved myself a week of wasted effort.”
My lips part on a shocked gasp.
“Now,” he says, pushing off the bedpost, “I’m exhausted. First light is four hours away. I don’t plan to use that time talking in circles.”