“Brydie!” Gage snapped. “Shut it down!”
His voice reverberated in the darkness of my mind, demanding that I take heed and follow his orders. But the doubts crept back in. Magic was impossible. How could I have magic? Nora had abandoned me all those years ago. There had to have been a reason. Was I really Dormant? The thoughts crowded in, building to a crescendo.
Gage’s voice was harsh and guttural. “Open your eyes!”
They flew open at his demand. His face was tight, his eyebrows dark slashes across his forehead. “If you continue to have no faith in this journey and let doubt overrule everything, you may as well quit now, Brydie. Because we’ll be dead the first time we come across danger.”
“Help me,” I pleaded. “What do I do?”
“You must become no one.”
“I don’t know what that means!”
“You must feel nothing. See nothing. Be nothing.” His face was unyielding. “Now try again. Close your eyes.”
Swallowing against my dry throat, I closed them, aware that Gage followed suit. Feel nothing, see nothing, be nothing. The words repeated over and over in my mind, slowly drowning out the self-doubt and the fear until, eventually, that chant was all I heard. Then slowly, without me being aware of it, the anxiety began to fade, and the images in my head slowly shut down until, eventually, there was only darkness where nothing lived, nothing breathed, and quiet reigned supreme.
Gage’s voice came again, almost like an echo down a long dark tunnel. “Good. Stay here, ground yourself in this place you’ve created. At the same time, open your mind further and seek the place where you first began, where your memories originate from.”
“Where should I look?” I projected the question in my thoughts.
“Trust your instincts. Follow where they take you.”
I was surrounded by darkness. There was nothing around me. I concentrated, searching for a shift in the void, but I could not see or feel anything. In my mind’s eye, I turned full circle in the dark, searching for a clue, a flicker of life. But again, there was nothing—just utter, complete darkness.
After a few minutes, my frustration overpowered my will to continue, and my eyes flew open again, the daylight searing. “There’s nothing there!” I cried. “This is pointless!”
Blazing cerulean blue eyes clashed with mine, contempt glittering in their depths. “Did you think it would be easy? That you’d find it on your first attempt?” he sneered, squeezing my hand in a sharp bite of pressure. I flinched as the fine bones in my hand ground together. I tried to tug my hand away, but he refused to loosen his grip. “Oh, we’re not done yet, Princess. Again!”
His anger buffeted me like a wave, dominating, and unrelenting. There was no escape. I knew it, he knew it. Steeling my anger, I honed it, shaping it to my will like a weapon. I would find my bloody spark! I would show him!
Jaw clenched, I closed my eyes, escaping his anger to jump back into the void inside my mind. This time, I found the silence with ease, and I embraced its darkness. Even though I couldn’t see him, I could feel Gage’s presence beside me, a silent, incorporeal force.
I stood there, waiting, but I couldn’t feel any spark of energy or an instinctive direction to take. Frustrated, aware that he stood there silently, observing me, I thought to hell with it and began to tentatively walk forward, following a blind path in the darkness. It was difficult, a hesitant, shuffling gait that lacked confidence. The fear of the unknown was crippling. Would I meet friend or foe? Was my spark an entity? Would it come when called?
A few more steps, and I was unable to go any farther. I’d banged into what felt like cold, hard stone. I reached out my hands and began searching, surprised that even though I knew Gage held my hand externally, in the darkness of my mind, we weren’t connected. My fingers grazed against rough concrete in front of me, to the side of me, and above me. And when I tapped my foot on the ground, I heard the echo of stone under my feet. It felt as though I was trapped in a concrete cage. What the hell?
I felt a tendril of fear, which instantly bloomed into crippling anxiety. Panic threatened to take over. I snatched my hand back, raising it to clutch at my throat. Suddenly, that feeling of anxiety was…gone. As if it had been wiped from existence. What?
I tentatively reached out again, my fingertips grazing that concrete wall. Fear instantly attacked me, and my body trembled with terror. I stumbled, unprepared for its violent onslaught. My fingers slipped off the wall, and the fear vanished as if it had never been.
My heart stopped as recognition bloomed: the wall was messing with my emotions.
I suddenly remembered Gage at that point. Wondered why he hadn’t warned me, why he’d remained silent the whole time I was panicking. Was this a test?
I didn’t ask the question, instinctively knowing he wouldn’t answer me, and reassured myself that if I was in real danger, he’d help me. He was chained by prophecy, so he had to. Which meant that this must be a test, and one I could pass only on my own. Just being aware that he was still here with me, albeit unable to be seen or heard, calmed me. It was a reminder that I wasn’t alone.
Steeling myself, I walked sideways, following the wall, determining its perimeter. And now that all my senses were amplified, I could discern the faint changes in the air around it. The wall had a sense of dense mass to it, a coldness that reached deep. I went to great pains to avoid touching it again, aware that the second time my fingers had grazed the rough stone had exemplified my fear. Touching it a third time could very well cripple me. Which meant the game would be over, and Gage and the wall would win.
I soon realized the wall was circular, and I was encased within its center. What next?
I couldn’t proceed any further forward; I couldn’t proceed any further back, or sideways for that matter, either. There was also no spark of energy, no instinctive direction to take, just a cold awareness.
With each passing second, I could feel Gage’s presence observing my actions. He didn’t vocalize his thoughts, but I could feel them. It was as if our outside connection was influencing our internal connection, the bond between us growing stronger the longer we maintained it. When I’d first felt the wall, I’d been barely cognizant of him. Now, I could feel a faint hint of his emotions down our shared line.
I don’t know how long I stood there, lost in contemplation as to what to do next. But eventually, exhaustion began to overtake me.
A breeze blew past my body, and I shivered, aware that the air was frigid and crisp. It was the first sensory feeling I’d experienced in a long time. As I dwelt on that point, I realized that the air was freezing, and I was very, very cold. My teeth began to chatter as gooseflesh chased my skin.
There was a sharp tug, not in my mind’s eye, but on the outside of my body. Gage had released my hand. The internal connection we’d shared was abruptly severed.
My eyes flew open. Gage stood in front of me. “We’re done here,” he said firmly.
“Wait—that’s it?” My voice sounded husky, unused.
His lips firmed. “It’s late, and you’ve reached your limits.”
I frowned; my vision blurry as I adjusted from complete darkness to twilight. Wait—twilight? How? I looked past Gage to where the sun had been in the sky when we started training. But it was no longer there; the last rays of light now setting to the west, behind the Cairngorm mountain range. Large gray clouds heralding more winter snow hovered over the dark mountains.