Chapter 16: Traumatized
"SEE, GIRL," DAX SAID. "Formally, you’re not an Emblem, since we can’t confirm anything yet, but right now the four of you are our only hope. 'Cause of that, you have a very important job. You got people like Sol depending on you, so you have to work hard. Here." He handed her her dagger. "Try and run your hands over the blade. There are places where the metal has been folded over and over again when the smiths were making it. You won't be able to feel them with your hands, but try anyway."
As she took them, she asked, "The depletion of the power stream or something, it doesn't affect you?"
He shrugged. "When it comes to Beasts, it's some more than others. I can't lift that anymore though." He went to the racks and pointed at a giant broadsword, even bigger than Robert's. "Or my axes - my weapons." For a moment a pained look crossed the goblin's face as he caressed the wooden handles of the pair of battle axes, the steel edges gleaming dully.
Deciding not to respond, Amber rubbed awkwardly at the metal. "All elemental magic is the same. What you do for one should apply to another," Sol advised. Staring down at the knife in her hands, she tried to see the metal like she'd seen the air. Time passed in silence and a headache started to pound just behind her eyes.
She sighed and set the dagger down. "It's not working. I'm sorry."
Dax hummed as if to himself. "It's okay, I didn't expect much anyway. Till now, there was no such thing as a Metal Adept, so I have no idea how to train you to even unlock your powers. They only put me here because in the closest thing they've got to a Metal Adept - me being a goblin after all." He turned away and she was left standing there.
"Mr. Dax!" The panicked tone of Sol’s voice was the only warning she got before the goblin was whirling around and hurling things at her. She dropped to the ground with her arms crossed over her head and the air rose up at a twitch of her fingers – the magic coming easier now that she was actually in danger – to knock the throwing knives out of the air. Rolling up into a crouch, she whipped around and glared. He was a Beast. Delegate or not and regardless of what Daniel said, trusting him had been a mistake.
There was a soft shinggg and Dax took several steps back. He's an enemy; he should be afraid. Fear is good.
"Miss Starling, please calm down. You have snuffed out the lights. It is completely dark now." Dark? She could see the Ethereal's cloth billowing, stark white against the grayness of the room. It wasn't dark.
"Oi, girl, that's the Demon doing things, not you. Snap out of it!" She froze and lowered her head, licking at her canines. They were sharper, her tongue rougher, her body parallel to the ground. In this form, she'd take him down. A threat, he was a threat. Snarling, she drew her back legs in and leapt onto the goblin to snap her jaws in his face.
Her teeth were a hair's breadth away from tearing his throat out when something changed. Something made her ears twitch against her scalp. She went to move towards the door but found that she couldn't even shift a limb. The door snicked open and light flooded in, blinding her. The figure in the doorway raised its hands, placating, and yet its voice was commanding and firm: "Amber. Change back. Now."
She bared her teeth. Daniel was telling her what to do? She could bite his head off in this form. But something about his voice made it compelling, enough that before she knew it the light seemed to be burning away her fur and her claws till she was left panting on the floor.
Daniel stepped into the room and offered her a hand. She grabbed it, whipped up and around and glared long and hard at the Beast Delegate. "You really have a Demon inside of you," he said blankly. "You're damn scary, you know that right?"
"You tried to kill me," she countered.
He shifted and spread his hands apologetically. "I was just testing to see if I could call out your magic spontaneously. And it worked! But Sol—”
"I am sorry to interrupt, but if Miss Starling were so kind as to set her weapons down..." Sol trailed off, his voice sounding strained. Amber turned as he said, "It appears that I find myself in an unexpected predicament. While retaining my dignity I would like to ask for some assistance. Yes, I would be extremely grateful if--"
"Sol," Dax ordered. "Shut up. Amber, bring down the knives, will you?" Sol's cloths whirled around him - well, they were part of him actually - as he tried almost desperately to fend off the barrage of knives raining down on him. They moved seamlessly, weaving in and out and under and over each other like a school of fish. But that wasn't the problem. The knives were zipping back and forth in the air, held up by an unseen force, and moving of their own accord, attacking Sol over and over again and cornering him from all sides.
The Ethereal tried to repel the knives and knock them out of the air and into a wall or a rack, but more simply appeared in their place, peeling themselves from the racks of weapons around them. She looked down and, finding her fingers twitching at her sides, curled her hands into fists. As her nails dug into her palms, the knives fell to the ground, still gleaming dully in the dim light.
"I... What?" Amber breathed, clenching and in clenching her hands and watching the knives on the floor float up and crash down each time. The headache came back, pounding painfully.
"You are a Metal Adept. The first one since the original elemental." Sol's cloth rippled like he was trying to shake himself off, but he was smiling. Dax was grinning too, behind his thick goatee, and yet she could see - no, feel the traces of fear that left his gaze just a little too blank.
"Right," she said. Her voice sounded strained. "Are we done for today?"
Dax nodded, maybe a little too quickly. "We need to think about what we're going to do with you anyway."
Wordlessly, Daniel offered her his arm and she touched his elbow as they walked out the door. He’d appeared out of nowhere, but she wouldn’t question it. They walked a little ways before he said, "It's getting more frequent, isn't it? And easier?"
"Yeah," she replied. "Where are we going?"
"Where do you want to go?" He glanced at her. Amber shrugged, and turned down a corridor at random. They stepped into what looked like a library, with towering bookshelves that stretched from the floor all the way to the ceiling. They walked among the musty smell of books and Daniel began to flip through some of them, as she ran her fingers over the titles.
Daniel stopped suddenly. "You know, I need to confess something." She nodded for him to go on. He said, "You remember the night we first met? Feels like forever ago? Heh, that sounds like a romance story." She waited for him to finish chuckling to himself. He probably realised that it sounded strained and fake, so he continued, "That night, you came at me and I tried to stop you. I was panicking; I didn’t know what to do. Someone was shouting then, but I’m not sure who it was: me or you. But you kept coming and slashing at me and attacking and I had cuts on my arms. You still wouldn't stop so I reached out and found a mind I could get into--"
"You're rambling, Daniel." He fell silent and her fingers curled into fists. "So your point is that you got into my head. You've explained it before - it's permanent, isn't it?"
"Yeah. And even without trying I can pick up your thoughts. Sometimes I think you're talking to me when you aren't." She nodded like her neck was stiff. "You're angry?" he asked.
Amber shrugged. "I am. I'm really pissed and I don't want you listening to whatever I think all the time or something. And yet I get what you're feeling. That's all." He gave a hmm in response and after a beat she continued, "But you only managed to stop me just now because you're in my head or something, right?" She hesitated, then said, "Thank you for that."
"I think I'm going to have to do that even more in the future. I hope you're okay with that."
"Why?"
"I mean," he explained. "Your Metal powers are linked to your Demon side, right? As in, you can't use them unless you go all Demon on our butts. When that happens, I'll be around to stop you." He gave her a smile, but it didn't look real.
"Thanks," she said again. "But I'll get rid of it soon enough that you don't have to do it again."
He looked hesitant. "Don't you want to know how you were born with it in the first place?"
"No," she said. Some part of her brain registered that she was sounding childish and obstinate, but she didn't care. "I don't want to know, as long as I don't have to deal with it anymore."
"Okay," he agreed, sounding resigned. "But if you ever find anything out, I'm curious, okay?" She grunted her acceptance, gaze unfocused. Something was off about him this time, and it wasn't from their earlier conversation because by now it should've been gone. It had been around since he’d made her change back, and maybe even since before he’d gotten to the weapons room. Crushed pine under your feet, wind heavy like lightning lingers in the air.
It made her uncomfortable, like she was twitching a little, an itch that wasn’t on her own skin. Coming to a split second decision, she grabbed him, making him drop his book, and slammed him into the nearest bookshelf. When she levelled her gaze at him, apart from the initial shock and confusion, his eyes hadn’t changed.
Regarding him with her eyes narrowed, she lifted her hands off his shoulders, saying, "You're always a little afraid when you're around me." He winced, opening his mouth as if to say sorry. She waved it off, continuing, "But this time there's more. I know now that it isn't me. What happened?"
Daniel sighed and pushed his glasses up. "And again I'm found out. It's like you're reading me like a book. Can't my fears get some privacy?" he joked, but she simply levelled a sideways stare at him and he seemed to relent. "I ended up breaking into my Mind tutor's head just now," Daniel admitted. "I think he's traumatized... and he could be terrified of me."
"Did you do it on purpose?" she asked.
He shifted slightly, picking the fallen book up and putting it back where he'd found it. "He provoked me. And tried to influence me. I didn't catch it till he was unconscious. But I've told you before, I don’t want to see everything about everyone. I hate—"
"He was being stupid. So he deserved it," Amber said. "That's it."
"No, that's not all." He shook his head. "I touched his mind. Felix – that's his name – doesn't like the four of us. It's...kind of hard to explain, but I get the sense that someone is blaming us for something. It isn’t actually him, though, more like a collective belief, or something that’s just generally accepted as true? But, I mean, he doesn’t subscribe to that opinion, so maybe he knows of people who blame us and doesn’t agree? I don’t really know; I backed out as fast as I could."
Amber swiped the dust off a few book covers. "So what if some of the Delegate people doesn't like us, or something? It doesn't matter to me."
"It might not," a new voice cut in. "But it should."