Chapter 51

Julie

Larissa and Bayla had found a list of the football team, but it was from the previous semester. The director of the university must have somehow filed it wrong. So, the whole thing had been for nothing, especially considering the risk Bayla had taken.

And here I was, back at square one, trying to come to terms with the fact that I would never know who Erik was and that it was okay. It should be okay. The distance between us shouldn't endanger our friendship. Quite the opposite...

It was already Friday, and somehow it felt like my whole sense of time had changed. It felt like it was only yesterday that Grace, Vivi and I had been playing with dolls in the gardens behind Moenia, and today at lunchtime we had driven from the university to our temple service...

We were becoming adults and everything about it felt like an ever-worsening nightmare.

Grace and I both had our temple lessons three times a week. Every damn Friday was a nightmare for me and I had no one to talk to about it. No one would understand. Not even Vivienna, or the other Air Quatura, because the serum seemed to work on them.

While Amara always went into the forest to the Terra Temple with Grace, Amber and the younger Earth Quatura Discipulus, I spent my afternoons with Vivienna in the underground main temple of Moenia. And our teacher was the woman for whom every Council member and Circle sister had the greatest respect...or fear...or both.

Vivienna and I were the only two Discipulus Quatura with the gift of air, as this was somewhat rarer than the gifts of plants and minerals – all the other Air Quatura in town were Novices or already Servus. And Novices were not allowed to use their magic until they passed the elemental tests in New York or Blairville. A test that showed how far the magic in a Quatura had already developed.

Kelly was an Air Quatura too, but she hadn't reached Discipulus status yet because her elemental magic was too weak.

And while Grace and Amber learned about the characteristics of certain plants and to control their powers for spells and potion mixtures, Vivienna and I either learned various defensive maneuvers from her mother Amara or, more recently, the highest form of this art with Gloria: Tempesta , the control of storm and wind.

Defensive maneuvers didn't work for me at all. I hated Tempesta because of the person who taught us.

Gloria was an elegant Westcode woman who, like her daughter Amanda, and Amanda's daughter Vivienna, had ice-blue eyes. She wore her straight white hair chin-length and her fifty-eight years didn't show at all, which was due to the power this woman held within her.

She was the head of the Councils, the controlling opposition to the Domini, Amara Blair, and wherever she entered the room, all eyes were on her. Because she symbolized power, control and superiority. Without exception.

We were with her in the temple of Moenia, the mother of the element earth. According to legend, she had been the daughter of the goddess Celestia , who had distributed her gifts of fire, water, air, and earth equally to her four children in order to bring balance to the world.

After eighteen years, I still didn't know whether to believe it or not. What did this legend even matter if we were all cursed anyway? What value did the gods have if they had imposed these burdens on us in the first place?

"You two are never on time!"

My whole body tensed, ready for a few torturous hours with this woman. Only this time it was different.

I hadn't had any control over my gifts since my strange power outburst next to the aquarium, which must have been due to the crystal on my neck being shattered from the inside.

This fact had had me searching Moenia's library and teaching floor for any information on the control stones a good five minutes ago, but time had simply been too short to find anything helpful.

"Amanda drove me," Vivienna snorted, earning a reproving look from Gloria.

"All the bad manners in this family come from your grandfather!"

Then Gloria looked at me as if she was referring to me, even though I had nothing to do with this family.

Whenever she looked at me like that, I had to be careful not to suffer a tremor. Because every time she was down here, it felt much colder than when I was here alone, even though this woman definitely had no influence on the temperature.

Telekinesis worked independently of the temperature and also did not affect it.

"Next time, I'll let you know differently that you're late. You have duties to fulfill. Both of you! "

Again, she looked from Vivienna to me and I looked down at the floor, embarrassed.

She seemed to be in a good mood today, because no objects had flown toward us, at least not yet, and Vivienna hadn't been disciplined yet. But that was probably coming soon.

"I hope that at least you've cemented the knowledge you've learned in the last few hours, even if one of you does like to cut herself off from her duties."

She walked past us both, toward the altar, where she took the gray robes and tossed them to us. She herself was already wearing her floor-length white robe with silver embroidery, which made her look almost elven. Only she was the complete opposite of an elf.

"I had appointments," Vivienna hissed and rolled her eyes in annoyance.

I remembered the last lesson with Gloria. We had been alone . It had felt like torture.

My hands suddenly began to shake...

Come on Julie... Come on. Just control yourself.

"I'm sorry if I can't be like Miss Perfect over here."

Vivienna squinted at me, her gaze disparaging.

I didn't envy her living under the same roof as Gloria Westcode, but I did envy that she wasn't currently any better with her magic than I was.

But I was far from perfect, especially now, with my broken crystal.

To be clear, Vivienna was miles ahead of me in combat, and even though I had used my powers for the first time when I was six, when I hadn't been supposed to have any powers, they had only returned later and Vivienna had been miles ahead of me by then.

The only thing that got me Gloria's attention was my ability to control myself and everything around me with my air powers. I always hit the exact speeds and made the maneuvers on the first try, which made me excellent at Tempesta. But none of the Quatura understood that this meant nothing . Vivienna would forever believe that I had it better than her, but she didn't know the price I was paying for it.

Gloria ignored Vivienna's last words.

"I don't care if you have appointments, girl, as long as you're here when I want you to be, and you have your magic under control."

"I have..."

Gloria wheeled around to face her granddaughter with anger. "You don't!"

Vivienna fell silent.

"We both know that your emotions control your powers, not the other way around. And emotions are poison for your elemental powers."

Vivienna now also looked down.

Whenever I had lessons with her, I always felt sorry for her. It was her own grandmother who treated her like that. And if she was perhaps treated the same way at home, then that explained a lot.

"Maybe you can convince me otherwise."

Gloria went back to the altar, where there was a pile of ashes.

As far as I knew, we didn't have Fire Quatura in our Circle, as they were very rare. There was only one Fire Quatura in the world, and it was a man from the Salem line, but he lived in New York, from where all the Quatura Circles were managed. So, this pile had to be part of Gloria's lesson.

If I had been little, I would have been curious. But I was no longer a child. I was down here with Vivienna, and we were both puppets on Gloria's strings.

She pointed to the pile with both hands and took three steps to the side. I did the same because I knew what was coming.

Vivienna looked at the pile because she didn't know what to do with it. She looked back at me, and I made a circular motion with my finger. Gloria gave me a punishing look, and I looked down. Then Vivienna took a step forward and began to move her hands in the air as if she were spinning a ball, which of course wasn't there. Her irises began to glow grayish, and it didn't take long for the ash to rise into the air and spin.

"Faster!" Gloria ordered; her eyes fixed on what was happening.

I noticed how Vivienna tensed up a little under the command. She was the one who didn't like to be told what to do and had always found it difficult to please her family.

I knew her mother. Amanda did what was asked of her. At the same time, she allowed her daughter to do anything. And I didn't even need to start with Gloria.

Vivienna seemed to have difficulty controlling the speed of the ash whirl. The gray and white pieces all flew in circles, but every now and then, a few pieces shot out, and the speed was just as inconsistent.

"Steady, Vivienna!" Gloria called out to her, but the more Vivienna tried to concentrate, the more pieces of ash shot back and forth.

"Stop!" Gloria shouted and the pile of ash fell back onto the altar. "This is disastrous!"

Vivienna stepped back with her head down, and I knew a storm was raging inside her.

"You need to work on your fine motor skills. Still!" Gloria put a hand to her forehead, barely able to look at Vivienna. "Why is hardly anyone here able to learn anything ?!" She seemed to be controlling her anger. "If you had grown up in my time, your education would have been different. More structure, discipline, and the value of the temple as a key to greater things..." She turned in circles, upset. "You have no idea how important it is right now that you master your skills properly! Especially when you're studying at this poacher-infested university!"

She looked at both of us and then stopped at me.

Knowing what was about to come my way, my heart began to beat faster.

"Don't be a disappointment like Vivienna, and show her how it's done properly."

She pointed her bony finger at the altar.

I stepped closer.

Come on Julie, you can do it. Just try like you did last lesson.

I took a deep breath, then exhaled.

"Today, child!" Gloria hissed impatiently.

I put both my hands on the altar, hoping that something would happen. The dust remained motionless on the altar. My hands began to tremble with nervousness, but still nothing happened.

"Julie, I want you to..." Gloria began impatiently as the dust suddenly rose. "Finally."

What might look like acceptable performance to her felt like a loss of control to me. I felt no connection to what was happening in front of me. It was my pure fear of Gloria that had sent the ash flying. It had started to form a small, compact ball that kept moving higher and higher. And with every movement, it developed a life of its own and began to spin at breakneck speed.

"What the hell are you doing?" Gloria didn't sound thrilled that instead of a tornado, a small gray and white ball was flying upwards, toward the ceiling, which was decorated with a large painting of the legend of the goddess Celestia and her four children: Moenia, Haizea, Amphetrite and Tanazar.

"Do what I told you last lesson!"

Her icy voice rang out behind me. She was getting closer, I could feel it, and my body began to tremble again.

I could see small ice crystals forming on the tips of my dark blue fingers.

What the...

"No..." I said shakily and pulled my hands back into my robe so that no one else could see.

As soon as my hands were no longer in the air, the ash shot in all directions, and finally it slowly rained down on us, making the temple look more peaceful than the situation was.

Vivienna dodged behind a pillar.

I stared motionlessly at the altar. My whole body was shaking, and I couldn't tell whether it was because of the cold around my heart or because of what was about to happen.

With a growing emptiness inside, I stood in the rain of ashes.

"Vivienna, I want you to go."

A moment later I heard Vivi's footsteps, then a door sliding loudly across the stone floor until it had closed.

Gloria was still standing behind me without saying a word. She must be seething inside, but if anyone could control her emotions, it was her. As long as she wanted to...

I tried not to focus on her, but on my trembling hands. I wanted to prevent anything worse from happening.

Very briefly, I had felt what I had felt last week. The feeling that something had to break out of me without me having any control over it.

I felt a hand on my shoulders and flinched as Gloria forced me to turn around. A thousand images flashed through my head.

"Hold still, stupid girl!"

I squinted my eyes. It didn't help, I still saw him with his ugly skull tattoo on his neck, the fake smile, the pain.

My stomach tightened.

"Should I tell Mommy you're crying again?"

"No!" I sobbed.

He came closer and put his hand on my chest.

I felt sick.

"What's wrong with you, Julie Blair?!"

Gloria snapped me back to the present. Her hands clawed lightly into my upper arm and I suppressed the rising pain. It wasn't half as bad as what was going on in my head, eating me up, devouring me.

Gloria grabbed me and dragged me to the huge temple entrance. With a swift movement of her hand, the two massive doors opened, and she pulled me through the hallway into the room to the right: Her office. There she pushed me down on the leather-upholstered chair and closed the door which made the candles flicker. Then she fetched a glass vial of white cloudy liquid and poured it into a glass. She pushed it toward me.

"No..." I shook my head.

"Drink it!" she said tensely. But I refused. "Drink it, Julie Blair , or he'll have control over you!"

I looked up at her, startled. Memories flooded my head.

She's standing in the doorway, handing him money.

"You have your duty to fulfill, and anything that prevents you from doing so must be eliminated!"

Little did she know that this wasn't helping, that it hadn't been helping for a while and that she couldn't make me function anymore.

I was broken and all she was trying to do was cover it up.

She only had the prophecy in mind, the fact that Grace was the chosen one and that I, as an Air Quatura, existed to protect her. I had no more value than that.

She didn't know how much I would love to just forget everything, but this time everything ... forever .

I had tried once, but she had given me back all my memories. From that very day, her elixirs no longer worked flawlessly on me. I was broken for good.

She held the glass out to me.

"Drink it, or I'll have to make you!"

I swallowed.

One look in her eyes told me how serious she was. Her ice-blue irises had begun to glow grayish.

With numb fingers, I brought the glass to my lips. And then I drank.

I simply drank, because I was used to the bitter taste by now. I ignored the burning in my throat. Nothing burned more than the pain of my memories. And Gloria had me in the palm of her hand. Every portion of this potion increased her power over me. I was no longer forgetting, but I was losing my feelings, losing them more and more. I was still okay, but I knew it would soon get worse. I also wondered when I would no longer feel anything, when I would have complete control over my powers.

I knew one thing for sure. I would envy Vivienna forever. She thought I was Gloria's favorite, a role model, Grace's future protector. But everything had its price.

"Feelings are our greatest enemy!"

Gloria's words penetrated my clouded consciousness.

For a brief moment, I wished I was Erik, wished I had his carefree human life... Then a second later, the longing feeling faded and I felt a deep inner emptiness.