Naomi runs ahead of the others on the road to Thaliron [https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/571846492780757003/1132319446778781718/Journey.jpg]

Naomi

Run like the wind, Naomi.

It felt wonderful to run, even after she’d spent the whole morning on her feet with a heavy backpack strapped to her shoulders. With her new reserve of strength—her vitricity—Naomi felt like she could run forever. She ran uphill without needing to catch her breath, exhilarated by the prospect of what she might see from the top of this hill, or the next.

She paused at the top to get a good look at the surrounding countryside, breathing deep the clean, fresh air. The wind was stronger up here, whipping tendrils of hair into her eyes and mouth, but Naomi didn’t mind. She closed her eyes and inhaled the mix of unfamiliar smells that it carried, scents that rhymed with things she knew like grass and hay, floral and herbal aromas she didn’t know the names for, a hint of something like pine. Leaning her head back, she opened her eyes to watch the downy clouds drift across the blue sky.

The world stretched out below her. Fields divided by windbreaks of trees, their leaves shifting from green to yellow or red. A few farmhouses were scattered across the landscape, with roofs of scalloped brown tiles and white stucco walls. To the west, a herd of sheep grazed in a pasture beside a large, crystal-blue pond. Beyond that the fields gave way to unbroken forest. And to the east, a pair of the enormous cylindrical supports that held up the linecar track.

That was enough standing still.

Run, Naomi, before your memories catch up with you.

She let her feet carry her down the hill. Vitricity was just part of biology for Esar, Kelsam, and the rest of the people of Elorhe. They’d been able to draw on this sort of innate power since they were children, using it to augment their stamina, fight off an infection, heal from an injury, or a thousand other things. Naomi had never known what she was missing, but already she couldn’t imagine living without it. True, her power did have a limit—bringing herself and Jason into this world had stretched her to it—but today she felt boundless. The hardest thing to do was force her legs to stop and wait for the others to catch up.

It’s even harder to look back.

The linecar track had been their companion all day. The road ran parallel to it, paved with flat, hexagonal stones that were for the most part well-maintained, though here and there a tenacious weed had sprouted up in the gap between them. Once that morning, they’d passed a young woman pushing a cart, but Naomi hadn’t seen any other vehicles. That was why they had to walk. Without the linecar, the only way to reach Thaliron was on foot.

Naomi didn’t mind, though she did feel sorry for Jason, who couldn’t draw on vitricity the way that she, Esar and Kelsam could. She heard him panting before she saw him crest the hill, even though his pack was far lighter than the others.

Jason stopped there and dropped onto a boulder that was enough like a seat to serve him as one, then wiped his forehead with his shirt.

“All right,” he said, looking up at Kelsam. “I want to try it now.”

Naomi jogged back toward them. “Try what?”

“I’m going to refresh him,” Kelsam said. “Ready?” Jason nodded, and Kelsam placed his hand on his arm.

“It’s a basic form of healing. Passing energy to another person,” Esar said.

Naomi watched, but nothing was happening that she could see. “Is it something I could do, too?”

“In theory, I suppose. In practice . . .” Esar looked over at Kelsam and Jason, then back to Naomi. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why not? I’ve got plenty of energy to spare.”

“Rather too much. It requires a degree of control that I fear you do not possess—not to mention a certain level of trust between the parties involved.”

“Fine,” Naomi sighed. Incredible power burned inside her, and all she could do with it was run or turn on a flashlight.

Jason got to his feet. He looked better, though his hair—Naomi still wasn’t quite used to seeing him with red hair—was still damp with sweat.

The road flattened out in front of them, with only a handful of gentle hills. Good news for Jason, Naomi supposed, though she’d miss running up and down the rolling landscape. There would surely be more sights to appreciate further down the road, though. Was that field filled with nothing but white and yellow flowers?

“How much longer till the next town?” Jason asked. Even from the top of that hill there’d been no sign of it.

Esar and Kelsam exchanged a look. “Maybe another hour?” Kelsam guessed.

Jason groaned.

“And from there it’s only sixteen and a half days till we get to Thaliron,” Kelsam added.

“Only,” Esar echoed him sourly.

“How long did it take on the mono—the linecar?” Naomi asked.

Kelsam gave the empty track a longing look. “Fourteen hours,” he said. “You could leave Norana in the evening and wake up the next morning in Thaliron.”

Naomi remembered the horrible screeching sound as the linecar veered sideways. The boy falling from the broken side of the cabin. Not fast enough. He got hurt because she wasn’t fast enough. She had to run faster today, outrun the memories of the night before. She would have kept running forever, but she wasn’t supposed to get too far ahead. She stopped to wait, watching a bulbous insect hover around a white flower at the side of the road. Such an odd little thing, shaped a bit like a bumblebee, but iridescent green like a beetle.

“Those sting,” Esar warned her when he caught up.

“Oh, and there’s tons of rashweed along here, too,” Kelsam added.

Naomi stepped back onto the road and decided to have another go at pressing Esar with some of the questions that were bothering her.

“Who am I?”

“If you don’t know the answer to that question, I don’t see why you expect me to be able to help.” Esar quickened his pace without looking at her.

Naomi groaned, hastening to keep up with him. “I didn’t—I mean, what am I?”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“A headache in human form.”

Naomi forced a laugh. “I already knew that.”

“Why ask me these questions if you already know the answers?”

“Because there’s still so much that I don’t know. I know you dreamed something about me. You said I’m a Rispara, but I still don’t understand what that means, except that I have a lot of vitricity. And you know something about my—do you always just try to walk away when you don’t like where a conversation is going? You’re not used to people keeping up with you when you do, are you?”

As Naomi spoke, Esar walked faster and faster, until he’d nearly broken into a run. Naomi couldn’t match the length of his strides, but she didn’t have any trouble matching his speed. Now Esar stopped in his tracks. Momentum carried Naomi a few steps ahead before she turned back to face him.

“Did it occur to you, Naomi, that I may have a good reason for not wanting to talk to you about some things?”

“I figured that you had some reason. I just don’t think it’s fair for you to keep secrets from me about me.”

“I’m not keeping any secrets.”

Naomi snorted.

“I’ve already told you what I know about you. I don’t think you understand just how dangerous you are, Naomi, and how much danger you’re in.”

“You’re right, I don’t understand, because I still don’t know what you mean!”

They had outpaced Jason and Kelsam in their race, but the other two were catching up to them, now, and must have heard Naomi shout.

“Maybe you just have to trust me.” Esar didn’t shout it back at her, but Naomi knew exasperation when she heard it.

“But you don’t trust me,” she said, staring a challenge into his eyes.

“I just met you,” Esar said.

Naomi coughed. “I just met you!”

“I think there’s enough time for you to practice some more before we get to town. Get out your incand.”

Naomi drew in her breath, preparing her next retort—and then she let it go. So Esar didn’t trust her? She would have to prove to him that she could be trusted. She’d show him that she wasn’t just a flake. She was going to master every lesson he threw at her, starting right now.

She checked one pocket, then the other. Empty.

“Don’t tell me you lost—”

Oh, right. She had dropped the incand into a side pouch on her backpack. It was so dang easy to lose a stone that wasn’t much bigger than a quarter, but she fished it out again and immediately clamped down to keep it from shining. It was like the thing wanted to shine, the way it pulled vitricity out of her every time she touched it. The false door in the museum had done the same thing, when she’d touched that—

“This time I don’t want you to shut it down completely,” Esar said. “Just maintain a constant, dim light.”

Naomi couldn’t suppress her annoyance entirely. “Oooh, how exciting.”

Esar leveled a look at her that told her exactly what he thought of her sarcastic remark. What, it was okay for him to say everything in that snarky tone, but nobody else was allowed to use it?

Naomi looked down at her incand, letting just enough power flow into it that she could see it glowing in the daylight. There was lightning inside her, and she was using it to be the battery for a stupid flashlight. She couldn’t even run while she was doing it. Less than five minutes later she was so bored that it hurt.

“It feels like you’re just teaching me how not to do things instead of how to do them.”

“I’m trying to teach you to control your power in a way that doesn’t put you, or anyone else, at risk.” Esar sounded like he was explaining to a preschooler. “You lose control of the light, the worst that happens is you hurt our eyes a bit. Before you try anything else, I want that control to become instinctive.”

Naomi groaned.

“But I suppose this task may be a little bit monotonous. Jason, would you mind helping out?”

Naomi and Jason frowned at each other. How was Jason supposed to help her with this?

“You need practice handling distractions, Naomi. If you must react, do it by shutting down the flow of vitricity, instead of letting it flare. If you could startle her every couple minutes, Jason?”

“Is it safe for me to do that?” Jason asked.

“Yes,” Esar said, but it wasn’t until Kelsam confirmed that answer with a nod that Jason agreed. He fell into step beside her.

“So, um, how are you holding up?” Naomi asked.

Jason shrugged. “I’m kind of numb right now, I guess. I mean, I’m still worried, but—look over there!”

Naomi stifled a laugh—and stifled her vitricity. “Was that the distraction?”

“Yeah, I don’t know.” Jason shrugged. “How can you—how are you smiling? How are you okay with all of this?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m okay.” Naomi’s light fluctuated as her control wavered. “It’s not that I’m not scared, it’s just—I look around and it’s so beautiful, and it feels right. Like I’ve come home. Kind of.”

“Home?” Jason’s voice rose, and he was making the sort of face that people always made when she said something awful and wrong. “Naomi, what about your home? What about your mom and your brothers—”

“They’re fine. They’re safe. We’re the ones who are—”

“They’re probably worried sick about you. Doesn’t that bother you at all? Do you ever even think about anybody except yourself?”

“It’s not that I don’t care! It’s just . . . I can’t do anything about that.” Naomi’s face burned, and she was actually grateful for the task that Esar had assigned her, because it gave her something else to think about besides her shame at saying everything all wrong. She wasn’t being selfish, but there was nothing that she could say to make Jason understand that.

Her mom and her stepdad, her brothers, they were all better off without her.

The conversation ended there, but Jason continued to distract her until, at last, they approached a town. Naomi did well controlling her vitricity in spite of his distractions, for the most part, until she felt something crawling on the back of her neck. She yelped, and light exploded from her incand.

What she’d thought was a bug turned out to be a long stalk of grass that Jason had brushed against her neck.

Naomi grimaced. “Sorry I just flashed you all again.”

Jason snorted.

“I mean—you know what I mean.”

“That’s enough for now,” Esar said.

“I mean, other than that just now, I was doing okay, right?” Naomi couldn’t stop herself from asking.

“Yes, excellent work. I can almost imagine a world in which you don’t get us all killed.”

Why did Esar have to keep talking like that?

The town in which they’d arrived wasn’t even half as big as Norana, but it was the first place they’d come to with a stop for the linecar. Nothing so grand as a station, just a platform with a staircase and an elevator. The transition from country to town had been gradual, farmhouses along the road getting closer together until they weren’t farmhouses at all, just . . . houses. There were a few taller buildings up ahead in the town center, maybe four or five stories high, but nothing near as grand as the cathedral had been.

A group of children who’d been playing in front of one of the houses stopped and stared as they went by, and Naomi stared back at them. Six of them, all under the age of twelve, all with curly black hair, but they couldn’t all be siblings. For one thing, their skin tones varied widely, from a darker brown than Kelsam’s to an olive tan shade like her own. A woman came out of the house behind the children and waved. She was a bit older than Kelsam and Esar, and she had one of those braided belts that meant she was Devoted, like Kelsam.

“You’ve come from Norana, haven’t you?” she asked. “Do you have any news? What happened last night?”

Kelsam told her about the crash, about how everything had stopped working. He didn’t say anything about Naomi, or Jason, or the boy who’d gone to the Ocean. And Esar didn’t say anything at all.

The woman shook her head. “I suppose we’ve been lucky here. No one’s hurt, and we’ve enough food to last us a bit, even without the preservers. But it’s so strange . . . it’s almost enough to make you wonder if the Second Intercessionists are on to something, after all.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Kelsam said stiffly.

“Second Intercessionists?” Naomi repeated.

“Let’s go get something to eat,” Kelsam said. Now even he was ignoring her questions?