Heritage of New Heaven

Chapter 30

Robert

I look into her eyes and wait for her to make the first move.

She blinks.

And I let loose a breath I didn't know I had been holding. Blinking, not much but enough for me. If she didn't trust me she would be staring, never taking her eyes off the threat.

I move slowly back onto my feet and walk to her legs that are covered in dirt.

I kneel back down next to her feet and lean forward to see what I can do in the position she has her ankle in. If that is how she has placed it then that is how I will deal with it, clearly that is where it hurts least.

I send a web of my magic into her foot easing the pain and truly examining what she has done. It picks up on all the torn ligaments and swiftly sooths the pain reverberating up her leg.

She lets out a small, barely audible, sigh. Clearly I'm doing the right thing and the pain is receding.

'I'm surprised that your still in your head with all the death around' a soft female voice says from behind me, giving me a start.

'Always with the entrances isn't with you hey Elise?' I shoot back as calm as I can.

I look over my shoulder at Elise who seems to have materialized out of nothing. There is a strange fog curling at her feet, it only adds to the she-came-out-of-thin-air feel.

Her storm grey eyes follows my gaze;

'It happens when I'm close to burnout, as I like to call it. When my power is, ah low' she explains in her calm, quiet, voice.

I quickly look at Rose, who has shut her eyes, and then get up and quickly move to my little cousin.

She almost rolls her eyes at me.

'I'm fine Robert' she scolds me 'I've dealt with it before'

I'm shocked, she got so close to- to whatever a burnout is and didn't tell me? I say as much;

'Why is now the first time I hear about it then? Elise you can't not tell me things like this. What if you had burnt out everything? What then Elise?'

She ignores my question 'don't call me that' she says quietly not changing her calm tone.

'Don't call you what? Elise?' I'm getting angry, and slowly louder 'look at the facts, your going to have to face them sooner or later, Elise' I spit her name out aiming to hurt 'you will kill yourself doing these stupid things to yourself, and no-one will be able to save you. You will die like your family and then do you know what will happen? Who will have to deal with it?' she is shocked that I pulled it out, but she has to understand.

'It will be me Elise. Me' my voice cracks as I point to my chest 'I will have to bury your body alongside your parents, and your siblings up in Our Glade, and I will not be able to live with myself if I had to do that, if I had to be the last to see your face before I buried you under cold earth. You know Elise that if you kill yourself with your powers that I can not bring you back. That is the rule; I can bring you back if its natural, mundane, or by Storm~' I say referring to Luna's lightning.

'But by our power or fire, it's impossible! You and I have both read what Kate and Victax have written on those boards and you have seen the proof of it from over the last millennia since the battle between our Hearth Mother and Solis. Don't make me have to prove it myself, please' I finish in a plea.

Elise just looks down at the ground with silver-rimmed eyes. I don't feel sorry for making her understand, I'm just sorry I haven't been able to make her see before. She took her life for granted and would have been happy to throw it away.

When Rose saw her vision in the cave she was happy she was going to die, but I would have brought her back regardless of what she wanted, I couldn't go bury her in the Glade.

That was a place of sanctuary for us both. The Glade was high in the surrounding mountains and you had to hike for half a day to get there. Elise and I used to hide there when she first came to the labs. We had seen Kate and Victax bury her parents there, the other gravestones of her family already there. The next day her and I had asked if we could go exploring. Kate packed a bag for both of us and said to get out of her sight and to not return until the next afternoon at least, which was her way of saying yes.

Elise and I got there and stayed for three days and got back before tea on the third night. We would have stayed longer but we ran out of water.

Kate and Victax hadn't cared less.

But we had enjoyed it. And we went back several times that year to camp and stay out of the Labs for weeks at a time.

I would not go back with Elise, only to leave alone.

I look at Elise and a single tear slips out of her eye, down her pale cheek and drops off her chin and falls with the rest of the rain into the mist at her feet.

'I'm sorry' her voice has become a horse whisper 'Robert.'

I move forward and cradle her in my arms, cupping the back of her head and holding her close to my chest. A few tears of my own fall on her drenched blonde head. I'm not afraid of being close to her, she is the sister I never had.