Too many steps.
Meg snarled as she stumbled, and the whining blade of her energy saber took a chunk off a tree trunk. She released her grip on the saber hilt, and it snapped off with a hiss.
Grunting in anger, she threw the hilt onto the ground and sank to her knees.
Impossible.
What was she doing wrong? She’d done everything right, just like Velanna had said, and it still didn’t work. It still felt like trying to balance with an arm that weighed seven times more than the other. Running was awkward, standing was awkward, everything was off. But it was a difficult technique, so it wasn’t supposed to feel right.
Right? Isn’t that how it was supposed to work? Exactly the same?
Why can’t this ever be easy?
Cicadas droned with rattling ferocity in the trees of the dark forest, and somewhere a chorus of crickets were telling them to knock it off. But there were no birds. The further south they went, the fewer birds they saw or heard.
Meg suspected even the bugs would die out by the time they reached the mountain of fire.
Except for the mosquitoes. She and Danny had learned to deal with them, but apparently Andarian mosquitoes considered Terrans a delicacy. Mickey and Jim spent most of the journey swatting at them, regardless of how much repellent they layered on.
Meg shifted and crossed her legs, picking up her hilt and holding it in her hands.
What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she figure this out?
She sighed and lowered her head.
They’d passed the Crescent Canyon hours ago, but they’d only stopped for a brief moment at Atama Village for a meal. While Meg would have preferred to ask their fighters to join their fight, she didn’t dare. The Josharon High Council had made their decision, and any Josharon who joined their crusade to the Mountain of Fire had to do so without coercion.
Politics. Meg had always hated them.
Their little caravan had taken a rest on the edge of the last strip of forest that separated Rainbow Valley from the wastelands around the mountain of fire. It was one of the last opportunities they would have to enjoy cover before they would be traveling in the open of the dead foothills.
Centaur Mount glowed with hellish light ahead of them, even in the late afternoon sky.
They were taking too long. Barb and Jenny couldn’t possibly still be alive, could they? Meg clung to the hope that Velanna was right, that the new Outcast Lord hailed from the north and valued negotiation above slaughter.
Please, let it be so.
A rustling noise sounded at the edge of the clearing, and Meg glanced up. Her heart skipped a beat.
“Velanna.”
The Celtican woman was gray. She was exhausted, but she hadn’t given up. She wouldn’t give up either. That wasn’t her way.
Meg started to stand, and Velanna raised her hand. “Sit, Margaret. Rest.”
Velanna moved toward her and lowered herself to the ground across from Meg. “How goes your training?”
Meg shut her eyes. “Not well.”
Velanna sighed.
A soft wind blew through the clearing, cooling the sweat on Meg’s neck. The breeze smelled of sap and pine, but beneath the surface of its scent was a festering tang of ash and sulfur. This close to Centaur Mount, everything would smell like ash.
“I am sorry, Margaret.”
Meg frowned. “What do you have to be sorry about?”
Velanna tilted her head, the silver strands in her black hair shimmering in the dim light filtering through the canopy. She reached out her hand and took Meg’s wrist, bringing it close so she could wrap her fingers around Meg’s calloused hand.
“I am old.” Her voice trembled. “So very old. The horrors I have seen I thought I left behind me, but they have pursued me. And they are here. And I am sorry.”
“Velanna.” Meg sat forward.
Velanna planted her palms on either side of Meg’s face, pinning her with a fierce gaze, eyes still shining with tears she would not allow to fall.
“You will hear me, daughter.”
Slowly, Meg sat back, but Velanna didn’t stop staring at her, even as her hands slid away from Meg’s face.
“War is never glorious,” Velanna whispered. “It is bloody and horrible. It is mud and pain and fire and nightmares come to life, and it will follow you in your dreams for the rest of your days. Even if your actions were justified, even if you save many, the memory of your own personal cruelty will haunt you until you die.”
The tears fell now, streaming down her ashen face, tears the color of the silver streaks in her hair.
Velanna never spoke like this. Her voice shook with emotion, eyes dark with ferocity.
What was wrong with her? Meg feared to breathe.
“And it will not end with you.” Velanna’s voice broke mid-sentence. “Your valiant heroism will destroy your family. Your courageous sacrifice will haunt your children. Your battle wounds will hurt the one you love the most because he could not help you.”
Velanna clutched the collar of her robes.
“I wished to shield you from this fate.” Her lower lip trembled, eyes unfocused for a moment. “To protect you from what I had to become so long ago. I never thought this day would come, never imagined for an instant that I would need to ask—to beg you to bear the burden of my family’s shame.”
Meg’s stomach lurched. Her mouth felt dry.
“Velanna, what are you asking me to do?”
Velanna straightened her shoulders, but the tears didn’t stop flowing down her face. She reached around her neck and unfastened a clasp at her nape, pulling the shimmering white crystal medallion from her robes and folding it in her hands.
As it had before, just like every other time Meg had seen it, the crystal glistened every imaginable color, sparkling like a diamond in sunlight spinning on a turntable. Meg could see the colors between Velanna’s fingers.
“I cannot ask this of you,” Velanna whispered. “But I must. For Tzaitel has refused it.” Velanna shook herself. “If I could guarantee I would win—”
Meg shifted from her cross-legged position to her knees and knelt closer to Velanna, her heart racing. “Nothing is guaranteed,” she said. “And you don’t have to ask me anything, Velanna.”
The Celtican blinked in surprise.
“You can’t use it,” Meg said. “It’ll kill you. So let me.”
Velanna stared at her.
Emotion clogged her throat, and Meg swallowed hard.
When Tzaitel had turned against Velanna at the campfire and said those horrible things, the need to speak up had set her brain on fire. But it hadn’t been the right moment. Velanna had been too upset. Everyone was too upset. But now?
If Velanna would let her try—Meg would give her last breath to save her family.
“I’ll wield it,” Meg said. “I’ll carry it for you. I’ll do what needs to be done. Just teach me what to do, and I’ll do it.” Meg swallowed the lump in her own throat. “You’re my mother. Let me help you.”
Velanna reached out to cup Meg’s face, cold fingers brushing the burned skin on her cheek. “I never wanted this for you. For any of you. That my failures have led to this horror—I shall never forgive myself.”
Meg eyed the saber hilt, laying discarded in the fallen leaves beside her knees. “You only fail when you give up, Velanna.”
Velanna dropped her hand. “Is that not what I am doing?”
“No,” Meg said. “Giving up would be believing that Tzaitel meant what she said.”
The stricken expression that crossed Velanna’s features made Meg’s heart twist.
“She didn’t,” Meg said. “Tzaitel hasn’t meant anything she’s said recently. You’re not giving up. You’re doing what needs to be done, what you’ve always done.”
Slowly, silently, Velanna uncovered the medallion and let the colors sparkle in the night, brighter than fireflies.
“It is not without pain, Margaret,” Velanna whispered.
“Nothing ever is.”
“You must still your mind,” Velanna said, holding it toward her. “You must seek a quiet in your soul. Then, the Light will rise. And if it does not devour you, you will be victorious against the Darkness.”
“If?” Meg raised an eyebrow.
A smirk tilted the corner of Velanna’s lips. “Confident, as always, Margaret.”
“I think the term is reckless.”
Velanna’s eyes shone. “Yes. Perhaps, though, a little recklessness is what we need.”
Meg smiled and took the medallion out of Velanna’s open hand.
The skin of the shimmering crystal burned her fingertips, like a metal plate held over an open fire too long. An electric shock crawled up her right arm like feeling trickling into a numb limb, and her heart throbbed in her ears, burning behind her lungs as if it had become a live coal.
Meg cupped the medallion in both her hands and watched the colors play inside the crystal, deep at its heart, as though the light itself were alive, ribbons of its very soul shimmering with playful joy.
You see me?
As before.
The same thought, a breath of a question, tickled at the edges of her mind. When she’d first touched it, she’d heard it then as she heard it now, pure ecstatic joy filing her from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair.
Velanna’s voice pierced the tumult of ecstasy like an arrowhead through a target.
“It seems a bauble, I know.” Velanna settled to the ground, her legs crossed and her expression almost wry. She brushed the tears on her cheeks away and rested her hands in her lap. “But it is powerful.”
“It,” Meg whispered. “No. Not it. That’s not right.”
Velanna frowned. “What, Margaret?”
Meg stared deeply into the crystal, watching the play of light within it. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”
The change in Velanna’s expression shifted so slightly Meg might not have noticed if she didn’t know her so well. The narrowing of her eyes. The furrowing of her brow. The angled downturn of her lips.
“It is a crystal,” Velanna said. “Like any other. Like a quartz.”
Meg stiffened. “Quartz?”
How could Velanna say that? Quartz was milky, dull, lifeless. The crystal in this medallion had a pulse, a living soul that danced with every color of the rainbow.
That’s what she sees. The thought sat like lead in Meg’s belly. She held up the crystal again. “You see a quartz?”
“Yes.” Velanna tilted her head. “Margaret, what do you see?”
Meg stared at the medallion. Why does it look different to me? Am I just imagining it?
She could tell Velanna what she thought she saw, but Velanna likely wouldn’t believe her. Velanna might claim it was merely her human emotions raging out of control, might declare that she wasn’t fit to bear the weapon after all.
“I see all sorts of colors inside,” Meg said. “Every color. All colors. Colors I don’t even have names for.”
Velanna frowned thoughtfully. “Fascinating.” She shook herself. “Regardless, you must quiet yourself, Margaret. You must focus on nothing. Seek the void, stillness in your heart. Without emotion.”
Meg nodded and fastened the medallion around her neck. It felt warm against her chest, even through her blouse.
“This is not something you have been able to achieve previously,” Velanna mumbled. “But you have surprised me on many occasions.” Velanna smiled, her eyes shining. “I believe you will be victorious, Margaret.”
Velanna stood and brushed the pine needles from her robes.
“I’ll do my best.” Meg stood as well and froze and Velanna folded her into a tight embrace.
“You always have, Margaret,” Velanna whispered into her hair.
Meg melted into Velanna’s arms and clutched the back of her robes in her fists. Velanna cupped the nape of Meg’s neck in her hand.
“I am proud of you, Margaret. Thank you.”
Meg pulled away and met her eyes. “I haven’t done anything yet.”
Velanna set a soft kiss on Meg’s brow, smiling. “Yes you have, beloved. More than you know.” She stepped back. “Come. The others will wonder where we have gone.”
“Jim’s probably sending out search teams.” Meg rolled her eyes.
Velanna chuckled. “I am fond of him.”
“Jim?”
“Yes.”
Meg laughed. “Me too.”
Velanna stopped and pinned her with another look, this one different than the other, warm but firm. “He is a good friend, Margaret.”
Meg stared at her. “Yes, he is.”
“You should hold him close.” Her voice shook again. “He knows you very well.”
“He does?”
Velanna’s smile was strange, almost as if she were smiling at an inside joke. “He may be in need of a few more years, but he is wise. More so than I.”
Velanna started back toward the camp, leaving Meg to stare at her back.
And they were back to being cryptic. Oh well. The openness was nice while it lasted.
As Meg followed Velanna back toward the camp, she turned the medallion over in her hands. Even in the darkness, the light inside sparkled like a river of different colors. Maybe she was imagining it. Maybe it was just her overly emotional state making her see something that wasn’t real.
But she didn’t think so.
You see me.
The whisper echoed at the back of her mind, setting the edges of her soul on fire. The joy from before had faded, but the certainty still remained that the crystal in her hands was unlike any jewel that existed anywhere. Not because it was powerful. Not because it was a weapon. But because—it just was.
Meg let the medallion fall against her chest as she hurried to catch up with Velanna.
But she couldn’t ignore the strange sensation burning through her brain. Relief. A sense of weight finally taken away. A deep understanding and fierce need to be recognized.
None of that made any sense.
Too many feelings to sort out. But then, she hadn’t slept. And she hadn’t eaten either. It had been a long day, and tomorrow would be longer. Tomorrow would be scary.
Tomorrow they would save Jenny and Barb and make the Centaurs think twice before they attacked Prism Castle again. Tomorrow, the Centaurs would understand what they had done, and they would pay the price for their actions. Tomorrow, they would experience justice in a way no one had since ages past.
Meg froze, hand pressed against a tree trunk, heart hammering in her chest.
She blinked.
“That was weird,” she mumbled, her thoughts tangling even as she tried to straighten them out. Where had all of that emotion come from?
“Margaret?” Velanna called from ahead, a slight edge of concern in her voice.
“Coming.” Meg hurried after her.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow was important, so she had to sleep tonight, to rest, to eat, to prepare for the day to come.
Tomorrow, they would save Jenny and Barb.