Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

C arter disappeared for most of the afternoon. They spent the remainder of the day resting their magic. Rose’s wind was tired from the morning, her water eager to take over, but she didn’t think that was what this task required. She didn’t know if she’d be up for trying to close the hole again this afternoon.

“So, we’re just going to sit in this village?” Juliette asked.

Rose could understand her frustration. But she didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else we can do. We could continue to head south, but without the compass to guide us, we’d just continue to the southern sea.”

Juliette crossed her arms over her chest. “Should we return to Compass Lake?”

“I think we can give it another day,” Luc said.

“We don’t have time to waste,” Juliette pressed.

This was the first time Rose really saw another Compass Point’s sense of urgency about the mist plague. She wasn’t exactly happy to see it, but it helped to know she wasn’t the only one worrying about it. “I understand,” Rose said. “Let’s go find Carter. We can try again now.”

They didn’t have to go far, as Carter walked back into the inn. He made a beeline for where they sat in the middle of the large dining room. Rose was a little surprised as he met her gaze directly. “I want you to try to make me a weapon.”

Rose looked to Luc at her side and across the table at Juliette. “We were just about to find you and try the hole again.”

“No.” Carter shook his head. “I think we’re all too tired for that this afternoon. But your weapon master magic has a different reservoir, doesn’t it?”

She tilted her head from side to side. “Not exactly. All of my magic shares the same core, they just pull on it a little differently. But I can give it a try.”

This appeased Carter. “Then let’s go. I found a forge we can use on the edge of the village.”

“You think this is the best use of our time?” Juliette asked.

“I do.” Carter sounded the surest Rose had ever heard him.

“Why?”

“I know we’ve all been worried about what our magic will do together when we actually find Aterra. Don’t look at me like that, Juliette. I said we all felt that way. But we’re each too stubborn to acknowledge it—except Rose, of course.” He nodded toward her. His energy was contagious. It was such a turn from what she was used to. “I think I discovered something that will help me contribute.”

“Carter,” Rose asked, “what did the coin do?” She needed to understand what had happened wherever he’d been before she agreed to work on his weapon.

The old Carter returned with her question. He looked around the room, considering what to share. He sat down next to Juliette, across from Rose and Luc, his voice no more than a whisper. “Similar to what the Norden elder shared about the Suden artifact, the Vesten artifact enhances the power of the wielder. I’m not sure what it would do for another shifter, but for me, it allows me to reach a shifter form I’ve not been able to grasp in some time.”

“You have more than one form?” Rose asked.

“Shhh, Rose, please.” He held up his hands as if trying to stop her words. “Not exactly. It is hard to explain. It is the same form that I usually take, but my form hasn’t been seen among shifters in hundreds of years. And it has…unique gifts. My ability to access those gifts has been intermittent. The coin, so far as I can tell, gives me unrestricted access to them.”

Rose couldn’t help but smile along with the Vesten Point as he spoke. He had a childlike wonder about him now. She wanted to ask more questions but understood he had shared all he currently would. “What does that have to do with making you a weapon?”

“Well,” he said. “Considering this unlocks a part of my magic I’ve struggled with for years, I want to know if you’ll be able to see it, sense it.”

“You want me to know what it is?”

He shook his head. “From what I understood of your work with Juliette, you won’t necessarily see what it is, but you’ll instead get flashes associated with it. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I just need to know if it’s really with me now.”

This was what Rose had wanted. She wanted Carter to trust her—wanted him to let her evaluate his magic. She wouldn’t argue with his conditions. Glancing at Juliette and Luc, she asked, “Any objections?”

With no objections, Carter led them to the forge. He’d already spoken with the owner and had been granted time for their use. With all the change they’d experienced that day, her hands were eager for a familiar task.

“Do you think you can keep the forge lit while I explore your magic?” Rose asked.

“For a while, of course,” he replied. He looked side to side. “Will I need to be in my shifted form for this?”

Rose was silent for a moment. Would he need to be? She hadn’t made a weapon for a Vesten. If Mom had, Rose couldn’t remember any of the specifics. “I think we should try without first. If it’s working, I should be able to feel the shifter within you. And whatever other magic you think you’ve found.”

Carter nodded. His gaze locked on the flames before him as he asked, “Will you be able to tell what it is?”

He seemed so confident before, but she guessed it was becoming more real. “I’m not sure. I’ve never made a weapon for a Vesten before. Is it a problem?”

“No, I suppose it’s not,” he replied.

Juliette and Luc joined them, each sitting on the periphery of the workshop. Carter wasted no time starting the fire as she joined him at the forge.

Heat warmed her face as she contemplated the weapon she would make Carter. She really didn’t know what it would be yet. Her eyes closed as she wrapped her hand around her hammer. Hopefully, the repetitive activity would calm her mind. She sought the comfort of the tool raising and lowering. The peace of an action she knew she excelled at.

Lost in her work, she jumped as something warmed her left palm—the one not holding the hammer. Part of her wanted to recoil from the surprise of the heat but realized quickly what it was. Carter had placed Arie’s artifact there. It felt different. He’d done something to activate it—something she’d been unable to.

Eyes still closed, she smiled to herself. She was glad Arie had made them take this coin, though she would never tell him. He was still wrong about when to give it to Carter. But she’d be more than happy to tell him that when he returned. As much as she understood his decision to go—to try to find his friend—she missed him.

Chocolate and sandalwood filled her nostrils. Carter’s magical scent didn’t fill the air around him when he called it. It was more like a slow seep into the area. The fire had burned for minutes, and his magic fanned the flame. The scent of his magic grew, just like the fire itself. It started as a spark before burning hot and fast. Once she smelled it, though, she couldn’t miss it.

Opening her eyes, she stared at the flame. Getting past her own fire trauma was not part of this journey. A Vesten had not controlled the flame that took her home and nearly her life. She instead thought of bonfires on the Norden beach as a child. She thought about reading in front of the fire with Arie curled up in cat form. She imagined the fires that heated her forge, connecting her to Mom through their love of making weaponry.

Finally, she let her magic reach toward the flame—toward its connection to the Vesten Point beside her. Before sinking into the heart of it, she instinctively felt the connection to life that Carter had mentioned but had yet to explain.

The flame gave life to the shifter. She couldn’t help but sense the opposite as well. The fire ended the shifter’s existence as the Vesten went back to their fae form. It was a cycle of life and death. Well, that wasn’t quite right. What had he said before about the Vesten having an interest in existence? The shifter didn’t die—it could be brought to existence again at the fae’s command. Maybe it was similar to how most humans and fae on the continent believed in an afterlife. That felt closer. The cycle of shift and flame didn’t feel like death—an end—so much as a constant connection to new beginnings.

Maybe the Vesten connected to whatever was beyond death on the continent.

Rose was confused by this part of her exploration. She really hadn’t even made it to the heart of his magic—too distracted by this tangent. One would imagine she had more experience thinking about the afterlife given the loss of her family, but for her, it hurt too much to look too closely.

She took a deep breath as she pulled her magic back. Meeting Carter’s eyes, she noted his quickly darted away. “I think that’s enough for tonight,” she said.

“How’d it go?” he asked hesitantly.

She wondered how many of his secrets she had begun to unearth and how much more uncomfortable that would make him. “I got caught up in a cycle thinking about the new beginnings between flame and shift, shift and flame,” she said. She expected him to be disappointed. She thought she’d failed with the fragile trust he’d offered her—but when she looked, his smile burned brighter than the forge.

They had an audience the next morning as they walked into the market square. Word had spread that the Compass Points were here, and they were trying to close the hole. Rose nervously tugged on her compass chain, checking to see where it led. Unmistakably, it set her on the path she was currently on, heading straight for the center of the square.

In her heart, Rose knew the compass direction wouldn’t change. She still felt this was the right thing to do. It exercised their power together. It healed old wounds. And it just might be a new start for Luc and his relationship with his magic.

Luc squeezed her hand as they made it to the center, pulling her from her thoughts. At least he’d stopped wearing his cloak hood up while they walked through the village. Not that there was ever a possibility of hiding their presence.

“Are we trying anything different than yesterday?” she asked as they came to a stop before the hole.

“I think the roles are the same, but we might know a bit more about what we’re doing,” Carter said. He still seemed energized from whatever her magic evaluation had told him the night before. Honestly, it was a bit of a failure to her, but it seemed to be exactly what he was looking for.

“Alright, everyone to their places then.”

Luc stood before the hole. Rose could already feel him gathering his power. He would focus it on pulling the hole closed. Carter stood next to him, a fire lit in the palm of his hand, ready to toss it into the abyss. Juliette and Rose stood a little to the side, where they could send their wind circling the hole, helping to tighten its circumference.

Wind rushed from Rose to the hole. Juliette’s stream encased hers, following the same path. The feeling of rightness from yesterday snuck back into Rose’s mind. The tighter Juliette’s wind stream circled around hers, the more something in her said they were getting closer. Rose glanced at the hole. She saw Carter’s fire lighting up the darkness of its depths. Luc was throwing off so much earth magic, she thought he might be trying to move mountains. Or maybe move the village of Loch away from the hole and call it a solved problem.

She didn’t know how long they would last, using this much magic. Rose closed her eyes, diving into her power, searching for the door she found yesterday. Finding the lake, her power reserve, was easy. Using this much wind magic meant that the gust blowing across the lake was also present. She let it sweep her away. It had led her to the door yesterday.

The wind blew and billowed, carrying her around the lake, but didn’t seem to have a final destination. Rose opened her eyes, searching Loch’s market square again as the Compass Points used their magic in tandem. Luc never seemed to run out of power, but Rose could feel hers waning already. The hole seemed to suck her magic into it without letting it do anything. Carter didn’t appear to tire, but the newly returned coin probably had something to do with that. She wondered how Juliette was faring.

At the thought of Juliette, the wind guiding Rose around the lake of power inside her, tugged her back to it. Not one to ignore signs, Rose closed her eyes and let the magic lead. The wind blew across the lake, and back to the familiar door she saw yesterday. Unwilling to let another interruption stop this exploration, she flung open the door. Though no house, no path, was attached to the door in her center, peering through the opening revealed a set of steps. It was remarkably similar to the way she’d explored Juliette’s magic when she made the daggers. She searched around the door before going through. There was still no building attached that would indicate where the stairs led. The door was almost like a portal to another place. She shrugged and followed the magic down a set of steps.

She didn’t make it far before being met with a powerful burst of wind. It funneled toward her like a cyclone, billowing past and back across her lake. The door, an opening to a new power reserve. Her wind needed the boost, and the power funneling through the door was more than willing to oblige.

Rose opened her eyes again as the encasing wind Juliette had been providing thinned. The overall stream size didn’t change, though. More wind power pushed through Rose’s initial blast. Luc grunted in surprise as the circumference of the hole shrank. Each of the Compass Points seemed able to feel the change, pushing their elements with a final boost.

“It’s working,” Carter said.

The hole continued to get smaller until, finally, it closed.