Her destiny is her greatest fear.
Seventeen-year-old Halen Windspeare will do anything to extinguish the flames that spark beneath her fingertips. But, returning to the place where she witnessed her father drown forces the fire to ignite. Refusing...
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"Dax. Are you there?"the muffled voice of a girl called from the other side of the door.
Halen stretched out her stiff muscles. Her cheek pressed against something hard and the wind pricked her bare skin. Where was she? When she opened her eyes and finding the cracked curved walls, she groaned. She was still in Elosia. She had hoped to wake from this nightmare, but she feared it was only the beginning.
The door slid open and a girl with shaggy brown hair stared wide eyed. "Who the hell are you?"
"What are you doing here, Nelia?" Dax rushed in from behind and shoved the girl inside. He threw his hand over the copper dial.
"I could ask you the same." She widened her stance. A corset the color of patina pennies touched her hips; the collar lined her breastbone with a necklace of swirling fish and matching swimsuit bottoms below. "You're not supposed to be here. Do you have a death wish?"
"I came back for the map." Dax glanced around the broken sphere, his gaze landing with Halen. "What did you do?"
"Me? I didn't do this." Halen's head spun as she sat. She leaned against the wall, catching her breath.
"Are you okay?" Sidestepping the broken glass, Dax crouched next to her.
"I'm fine," she said, though her bones ached with a fevered chill. She wished for a vial of her mom's medicine.
"You need to learn to control your emotions." Dax picked up a long shard of mirror and angled it so the light from outside cast rainbow rays along the floor. "There's so much more you could do with your powers."
"You honestly think I did this?" Her throat bubbled with a nervous laugh as she eyed the fractured ceiling.
"I know you did," he said.
Halen swallowed hard. She hadn't meant to blow out the window. She never meant for things to get out of control. But she didn't know how to stop them. This thing, whatever it was burning inside her, didn't want to be tamed.
It wanted to be free.
"Do you know what's wrong with me?" Halen asked.
"Everything." Nelia unwound the hammock. Then, taking the blanket from inside, she used it to sweep the shards of the mirror into a pile. "I can't believe you brought her here." She stepped back and leaned into the curve of the wall, eyeing Halen.
"Nothing's wrong with you," Dax said. "You have a gift—magick runs through your veins. You just need to learn how to wield it properly."
Halen stared blankly, her mouth agape. "You don't know what you're saying." She thought she had lost her mind, but clearly, Dax was the delusional one.
"There's no simple way to put this." Dax's gazed darted to Nelia and then back to Halen.
