SWEARS and sweat had been her companions for days on end. She couldn't even tell how many days or how long it had been since she and Zack went down that road that faithful evening.
When Gema said they were going to be training, she had envisioned it would start with light warm-ups to get her in shape, and they started with that. She just didn't expect them to progress as fast as they did.
One day she was running laps in The Vast, the next, she was dodging blasts and learning stances.
She always thought swords were medieval objects because what use were they in the modern day of pistols and rifles? But Jamie was insistent on not just learning swords, but everything there was to learn. He claimed The Red Guard he knew were already skilled in long and short-distance fights. If they were going to be their potential enemies, then she had to be better than them in every way.
He wanted her to remaster her astral projection, a power granted specifically to her by the Silver gem. He wanted her to learn spells, teleportation, and even how to communicate with his counterparts through the mind network they had.
His wants and needs were endless, and Karyn wasn't sure she could keep up.
She fell to her knees in rapid breaths and raised her hand to signal a stop, hoping Jamie would get the non-verbal message she conveyed.
There was no clock or way of knowing the time except by the watch on Jamie's wrist. She told herself that Jamie would soon leave to prepare for school and that was what she was using to push herself further until she couldn't anymore.
When they started, they would start training from 4:30 a.m. and on till 8 a.m. when Jamie would leave. She would then drag herself to freshen up and catch some sleep before heading down for breakfast. Which was usually whatever one of them had whipped up that morning.
Jamie would give her spells to memorize when he wasn't around and would grill her on them for hours in the evening, only leaving her to fall asleep between sheets of spells and wake to the same routine.
She'd been managing with it and gaining some strength, but for the past few days, Jamie had been around all day, which meant more physical training.
She moved her eyes to the bottle some distance away and, as Jamie taught, reached out to it, willing to find its core before gaining control over it, which she used to pull the object towards her. Despite her success at the act she'd been trying to master, she was too weak to even celebrate the small win.
"I didn't say we could take a break," Jamie's voice grated on her ears and pounded on her head as she rushed the water down.
"Aren't you going to school anymore?" she asked as she moved to sit on the cool floor. Jamie cherished his environment cold, and she had no choice but to adapt to it.
"For now. I'm sick."
Her eyes widened as she took him in because how could he be sick and still have so much energy to train her? Then he coughed—a fictitious one—and she raised an eyebrow.
"Or at least that's what Gema and Marcela are going to say if anyone asks," he said before he moved various steps back. They were in the middle of a lesson on stances before she fell after he had whipped her leg from beneath her without warning. "Now get up. We need to continue."
"Continue! Do you want me dead?!" she shrieked with as much force as she could, yet it sounded like a dying croak.
"Don't be dramatic," he dismissed with a bored look as he turned back to her.
"Is there a deadline that we are working towards or do you want me to die of exhaustion?"
In the next moment, she wondered if she said something wrong as Jamie stormed toward her with a furious look replacing the bored one he sported earlier. When he got closer, she had to look up at him, which made him appear all the more menacing.
"If I'm doing anything I like to do it with all my effort and I want my results to be nothing less than perfect," he said and she couldn't help but let out a mirthless laughter.
She pushed herself to stand because she didn't want him to feel superior, looking down at her.
"If you think I'm going to let you train me till exhaustion, then you're not annoying, you're just delusional," she said and a smirk slowly formed on his lips.
She gritted her teeth at the sight.
"Alright. If you want to dictate your time out and when you can rest," he got into his fighting stance, putting one foot ahead of the other, moving down some centimeters, and bringing his hands up into fists. "You'll have to beat me with the skills you've learned in the past days. Else, we keep training, and harder."
She clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes before she moved. Instead of getting into her usual fighting stance, which he had pointed out several times wasn't as steady, she imitated him. Then she lunged at him, aiming to wipe the smirk off his face. She threw a punch, which he easily dodged, but she didn't let that deter her. She tried again. He caught the punch and planted one of his in her side.
She yanked her hand out of his grip with a groan. Turning with a jump, she came back with a kick that connected with his midsection. He stumbled back, but before she could lunge again, he sent a blast of ice.
The impact sent shock waves rippling through her body as she flew centimeters back. Her collision with the floor added to the pain.
"That's cheating. I'm still learning my magic."
"No one's in a game of honor, so don't expect them to play fair. And frankly, you shouldn't either," he said and sent another blast, but she saw this one coming and rolled over to the side.
She shot back to her feet and lunged again. And that was how they continued, her lunging and missing most but also landing some. But with every lunge, every kick, and every jump, she was getting tired, and quick. When Jamie sent a blast, she knew she had no more strength in her, but her loathe for the incoming pain was greater than her fatigue. To parry the incoming blast, she threw her hands forward and squeezed her eyes, but nothing came.
She could hear her breathing slow down as she tried to pinpoint where the blast had hit her, but she couldn't locate the familiar striking pain.
Silence kept her still until she heard a grunt and a strangled voice.
She peeled her eyes open, but the sight she met was not the menacing stance of Jamie as she expected.
There, suspended in the air, was Jamie with shining silver ropes ensnaring his arms, legs, and body. The ropes moved on their own, wrapping, wrenching, and tugging each limb away from his torso as they floated in the air.
Her eyes were the size of saucers as she sputtered, "I... Did I do this?"
"Yes... and you need to undo it. It's tearing me." His strangled voice converted her shock to panic as her breathing quickened.
A hand came up in a fist over her stomach, clenching at nothing as she said, "B...but I...I don't...I don't know how."
Then she did the only thing she could think of.
"Stop!" she cried out, but nothing happened. "Stop!"
She tried reaching out to the core like she would for any other object, but it felt like she was reaching for herself. Just as she took a step forward, she heard someone yell and turned to see Marcela, who sent a ball of green light charging toward Jamie. The impact seemed to stun the ropes as their movements ceased for a second. In the next moment, the ropes rushed back at her with maddening speed and Jamie plunged to the ground.
She tried to shift back and further away from them but was too slow as they soldered into her fingers. She could only watch as if frozen by a spell, as they crawled back on her skin before melting and merging into her body.
Her eyes were a variety of emotions as she kept staring at her hands, with fear, anxiety, and confusion raging in a terrible mix within her.
"Jamie!" Marcela's shriek pulled her out of her reverie and she dashed towards them, but as she neared, "Don't! Worry," Marcela said with a swift raise of her hand before it went down to massage Jamie's face, which had turned a deathly shade of blue. His lips had parted and his eyes, although open, had a dazed look over them.
"I'm... I'm sorry," she managed in a small voice before she rushed out. For her sake, they had placed a nearby door that led to the hallway since she had yet to master the teleportation spell they used.
She bounded down the stairs and stormed out the main door. In a split second, she moved on impulse to the main grand gate, only to find it without a handle. Despite the bars, it was smooth as a wall, with no space in between. She slammed her palms on the gate before clenching them in fists. Realizing this wasn't a way out, she stormed towards the gardens until she found the bench she and Zack had sat on.
She fell to her knees before resting her head on it, and that was when the tears fell. Tears of fear and frustration intensified as her mind tortured her with a mental image of Jamie suffocating mid-air, strangled by shiny silver ropes. The same ropes that melted back into her body. The image didn't leave her and forced her to open her eyes. Marcela's shriek resounded in her ears and the reality of what had just happened sunk in.
She could have killed Jamie.
She blinked the tears away as she focused on her breathing, but her mind kept taking her to the scene and making such a simple task seem herculean.
Since she couldn't close her eyes, she looked up at the sky, which was the perfect reflection of her mind. Thick clouds as murky as her whole being, loomed above, suggesting an imminent downpour.
She knew she had to get up and head back inside, as she couldn't afford to come down with a cold. Jamie would probably persist that they continue training, regardless.
If he could still train her.
Small tears blurred her vision. No matter how annoying or intense he was, she didn't want him dead and most definitely didn't want it to be by her hand... or her ropes.
♛ ♛ ♛
THE sound of thunder woke her up, but she remained in her position with her eyes closed. She used her hands to feel what she was lying on. Soft, like the sheet on her bed in her room. Not the room in her aunt's house.
She opened her eyes to the familiar beige-themed room they gave her. How had she gotten here?
Just as she sat up, the door opened and Zack walked in with a bowl set upon a tray. She could see the steam rising out of it and beside it was a glass of liquid, presumably water, as it was clear and colorless.
She wanted to assume it was something Marcela had concocted for her but wasn't sure Marcela would do that now.
His steps were soft as he ambled in and set the tray down on the nightstand beside her bed.
As she looked out the window, she could barely make out the usually peaceful view, which was now a blurry, indistinct scene, distorted by the heavy downpour. She wondered how the pattering rain and howling winds that rattled the window didn't wake her.
"You don't want to be out there. It was madness the moment I stepped inside with you," he said, and she realized that was the answer to her question. She must have fallen asleep, and he brought her in. Was she that tired she didn't sense when he carried her?
A feeling stirred in her at the thought of him carrying her.
"Thank you," she said
"Don't mention it."
The silence dragged on till Zack broke it. He must have sensed her question because he answered.
"Jamie's fine. He's up and about again, thanks to Marcela. She does wonders with her drinks," he said with a smile, and she tried to ignore the light flutter at the sight. That was easy, as a truckload of guilt replaced it.
Her eyes rested down on her hands, which became blurred as she struggled to keep the tears from falling.
"I... almost... I didn't mean..." She couldn't muster the strength to speak and her tears finally broke free before Zack rushed to embrace her, bringing some comfort with him.
"It's alright, Karyn. It's alright." His voice was like a soft caress, as warm as his embrace.
"I... didn't say I want to be a princess or want to do all this," she said in between sniffs. "I just wanted to find Elowen and Kara, who are probably where they are now because of me and I—"
"Hey," Zack said as he pulled away and clutched onto her shoulders. Then his hands reached out to cup her cheek before he used his thumb to wipe the tears away. "That is not your fault."
"But it's—"
"No Karyn say it. It's not."
"It's... not... my fault," she sniffed and looked down at the space between them, but he held her chin and brought her eyes back to his.
"I know you didn't ask for it and it must be tough going through all these things at once, but you are stronger than all of it. You weren't born the princess for no reason. Fate chose you for a reason. You are stronger than your circumstances, no matter what they are."
He pulled her in for a hug again, one that she easily melted into.
"Thank you," she said as he began tracing shapes she couldn't identify on her back with his hands. She didn't focus on figuring out what he was drawing but zoned in on the comfort they brought.
A knock on the door made them pull apart, even though she would have preferred to stay in his embrace for a little while longer. The door opened and in came Gema, who paused after a quick assessment of them.
"Am I interrupting? I can come back later," Gema said and moved to turn, but Karyn stopped her.
"No, no, it's fine," she said and put some space between her and Zack.
"I want to apologize."
"Why?"
"I'm sorry because I made a mistake. The mistake wasn't in placing Jamie as your trainer because I knew no one would be better. The mistake was in my words to Jamie after the meeting yesterday. You see, Jamie is a sort of perfectionist."
"No doubt about that," she muttered, but Gema heard and chuckled.
"When he feels or knows he has control over a situation, he wants nothing less than perfect," Gema paused. "And I may have pushed that idea deeper when I spoke to him after the meeting we had."
Karyn recalled the meeting. It was the same one Gema told her that her future lies in Wlerden. The one that opened her to her first real chance at justice for her parents.
"For that, I am sorry."
"It's alright Gema. How is he?"
"He's back on his feet. Currently in the library, searching through his journals and diaries on your abilities or something," Gema said, and she breathed a small sigh of relief.
"Told you he was fine," Zack said with a playful nudge at her.
"And Marcela?" she asked. The shriek Marcela had let out and the pain she heard clearly in it still pinched her.
"Oh, yeah...Marce."
She picked up on the uncertainty that tinged Gema's tone. "That doesn't sound too good."
"Marce was quite shook up about the whole thing. After all, Jamie is very close to her heart, but she understands it wasn't intentional."
"So she's angry with me," she stated with a drop of her shoulders.
"She's not angry, she's just... don't worry, she'll come around. Marce is a sweet soul."
Karyn said nothing, so Gema continued, "Jamie would still be your trainer, but he's gonna pump the brakes on the intensity. Is that alright?"
"Yeah."
"Great!" Gema clapped. "Now that's cleared. I'll uh, leave you two to... you know," she said, gesturing between them with a small smirk and a wink at Karyn before she left.
"I think she thinks we are a couple... or close to being one," Zack said and she whipped her head towards him.
"A couple?"
"Yeah, you know, like Jamie and Marcela."
"But they aren't one."
He shook his head in disagreement. "That's just what they tell themselves, and by extension, others."
She couldn't help but smile.
"What?"
"Is this another one of your conclusions?"
"You can say so. But it's more of a fact."
She chuckled. "That's true. But it's nice to hear them again."
"Hear what?"
"Your conclusions."
This time, he joined in her smile. "It's nice to share them with you."
They kept looking at each other, the air slowly changing around them until he sharply inhaled and turned to the long-forgotten bowl of soup he had brought in earlier.
"That must be cold now," she pointed out.
"Don't worry, I can heat it."
She watched as he muttered some words. His eyes seemed to hold the bowl captive in midair, with one hand above and the other below it.
After a while, she could see the steam slowly rising from it before he finally placed it on the tray and then on her lap.
"There you go."
"Can you teach me how you did that?" she asked after a sip of the soup.
"Sure, it's just a basic spell. Not all magic comes from gems. Some are from spells that you learn and master with time."
He started with a brief history of spells, which she caught on to, thanks to the knowledge gained from Jamie's classes. It wasn't a necessity for her to learn the particular spell, but he simply wanted a reason to keep talking to her, and she wanted a reason to keep listening to him.
So they continued on her bed, wrapped in a comfortable solace with the rain pattering hard to drown her concerns, but soft enough for her focus to remain on his soothing voice.
♛
ITNC: A frightening message forces Karyn out into the storm, unprepared for what lies ahead.
♛
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~
The Sparkling Authoress,
Mis-A
❤️