Unbound (Unbound, Book 1) ~Formerly Casting Power~

Chapter 17

I watched my mother watch me. When she didn't say anything right away, I started to feel antsy. I wanted to move but was holding my breath, scared of missing any insight that could help me figure my abilities out. Even if it was only a guess, my mother was right. She'd been more connected to my power than I ever was, and her assumptions were probably accurate. Obviously, she'd spent time thinking about it.

"So, explain it to me," I finally demanded.

"You burst." She spread her arms out and tipped her face to look up at the sky.

The simplicity felt like a bucket of cold water. I blinked, then narrowed my eyes. "I burst?"

"You burst," she repeated and resumed looking at me with her arms back at her sides. "You've spent your whole life bound, so your powers were not only unavailable to you, but they had no way to release any excess that built. That's part of the reason you always became unbound during your sleep—you weren't awake to fight it."

No, I had become unbound during my sleep because I'd been burdened with nightmares. I rolled my eyes and said, "Yeah, so confused over here."

"What happens to a can of pop if you shake it up and then open it right away?" She waved her hand in front of her. "Scratch that. What happens to a can of beer if you leave it in the freezer?" She stared at me, expecting a response, but I was drawing a blank. After a minute, she sighed. "It expands until it bursts."

"You're equating my problems with the Craft to exploding drinks?"

"It's fitting." She shrugged.

"Unless you're the beverage."

"Noreena, you have always been bound. Your powers built until you provided them with an outlet for release. Every time you become unbound, your power is unrestricted, and that allows you to be bound again. Think of it as the radiator system of a car. If you don't have antifreeze, your vehicle will overheat and die on you. It won't run. Antifreeze is like your energy. You can't function without enough of it. If you have enough fluid in your rad and less in your overflow, you'll function well enough, but not forever. It's the same when your overflow is higher than the actual radiator, though if that happens, you need to get it checked out right away."

"I don't even have a car."

"Moot point." She waved her hand in dismissal. "If the fluid in both the overflow and the radiator are filled too much, the pressure builds and can burst."

"I understand that part, Mom," I said, "but I didn't do anything to build my energies."

"Not on purpose, no, but every time you rest or sleep—or simply don't use your magic—your reserves replenish. You gain natural energy from everything around you. Nature—being connected to it—is abundant in its ability to refuel you. The more in tune you are, the more you'll reap. If you learn to balance the levels with what you use, you'll have better control. Right after you become unbound, it's unlikely that you have any control because your energy is finding that equilibrium."

"So that's why..." I trailed off and darted my teary gaze away.

Since I'd been an extension of my clearing four years ago, it made sense that my first real attempt to use magic had been a disaster. This summer, I'd spent all my time concentrating on learning to relax. All the while, my efforts were sabotaging my goal.

"This is why you helped me learn to relax, isn't it?" I growled through clenched teeth. My body, unbound and sensitive, shook with anger. "You know, I figured that you had helped me because you loved me, or maybe because it didn't matter what I did. You have always had control of my binds anyway, right? You could've just unbound me whenever you wanted."