Page 67 of This Dark Descent
“What is it?” Damien asked, but she was too caught up in the magic shifting through her, passing from her hand to the emerald.
Binding the energy to the physicality of the stone was like embroidering a cloth. Normally she worked with powders, since the materials then had to be folded into clay. She found the stone more resistant to her attempts to infuse it. It was like forcing a needle through canvas instead of silk.
In the end, she succeeded at binding it, the magic combining fully with the stone. This was the point at which an enchanter would bind the charm to the object or animal while forming a specific enchantment in their mind, guiding the magic through sheer intent.
She tried to pull the magic back to her from the stone, beginning the spell, but it resisted. She pulled harder. The magic snapped, dispersing, and she gasped against the sudden loss of it.
“What happened?” Damien moved toward her.
She held up a hand. “I’m fine. I bound the magic into the stone and then tried to bring it back into my body, but it didn’t work.”
Damien picked up the journal he’d left on the table. Flipping to a marked page, he ran his finger along several lines. “I don’t think you need to bring the magic back into yourself. With normal enchantments, the stone, magic, and target are all one. I think the same is true when you’re holding the stone.”
“So once I bind the enchantment with it, I have it?” she asked.
He retreated to his spot across the room. “Try it.”
Focusing on the flow of magic once more, she performed the same steps. Except this time when she threaded the magic into the stone, she left it there while she spoke the spell. A soft glow emanated from her skin, just like when she raised a golem.
“Lift the table!”
Damien’s sudden shout almost broke her concentration, but she managed to lean down and heft the table edge with one hand. Two legs came clean off the ground with ease, sending books toppling. Gaping in surprise, she forgot to funnel the magic, and her sudden strength began to dissipate. The table grew heavier. She pushed more magic into the stone, burning through it like kindling in a fire, and the strength returned. Then all at once the magic store inside her vanished and the table thumped to the ground, nearly taking her with it.
She fell to her knees on the soft carpet, the absence of the magic leaving her panting. That feeling—the strength, thepower. She felt the soft purr of something satisfied deep inside her, heard the voice whisper her name, and she wondered if once, hundreds of years ago, the Heretic who’d stolen this book had felt the same.
She flexed her fingers, marveling at the remnants of strength flowing through them. If those men had attacked her just now, what could she have done to them? Damien had offered her a chance for revenge once, and she’d refused it, because revenge was not what she wanted. Control was. Control of herself, her power, her fear. She wanted to show herself that she was master of them all.
Then do it, said the voice.Crush what remains of your fear.
But to do that, she needed to understand this power. Then she would find those men and show them just how unafraid she’d become.
A slow grin spread across her lips. She lifted her head to find Damien staring at her like he too might fall to his knees.
“That was incredible,” he breathed.
“Let’s do it again.”
She tried a couple more times before Mikira and Reid returned. Finding them in the midst of an experiment, Reid promptly told them everything they were doing incorrectly before setting up a proper series of tests for them to conduct. They worked only with emeralds and the strength enchantment. The amount of verillion she consumed and the size of the emerald were their variables, though they only changed one at a time. The more verillion she consumed, the larger her magic store, and the bigger the stone, the more magic she could funnel through it, and therefore the stronger the enchantment.
The other thing they discovered was how utterly, bone-achingly tired it all left her.
An hour later, she was sprawled across the chaise like a corpse, head propped on a plush pillow, where she swiftly fell asleep.
She woke around noon to Mikira’s worried voice asking, “What did you do to her?”
“She’s the one who didn’t want to stop,” came Damien’s reply. “You try telling a woman who can lift an entire marble table no.”
“I’ll be fine,” Ari murmured as she pushed herself up. Damien had laid a blanket over her, and she pulled it tight around her shoulders. “I just need something to eat.”
“Food is on its way,” Damien replied, already hovering over the Racari again.
“Ari? Ari!”
Ari blinked, finding Mikira beside her on the chaise, her brow furrowed with concern. A tray sat on the table stacked with empty plates, and her stomach was full, yet she didn’t remember eating. Had she blacked out again?
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Mikira asked softly, as if to keep Damien from hearing. Did she think he was pressuring her into this?
Ari seized hold of the conversation as an anchor. “I’m better than all right,” she replied with a fervency that surprised her. “I wish you could have felt it. That kind of strength… I wish I could give you some of it.”
