Naomi

“I can put in a request for the records from the university archives,” Adrin said. “They’ve probably got their hands full at the moment, but if the request comes from the Prince Ethereal . . .”

“They’ll have to get you the records,” Naomi finished. “Thanks!” She looked over at Zafrys, who had joined them in Naomi’s dreamspace as usual that night.

The former queen was frowning.

“What’s wrong?” Naomi asked.

“I lost friends in Bhadrat,” Zafrys said. “But I think it’s a good idea to look at the records. You said you were in Ursena tonight?”

Naomi nodded.

“You’re near one of the unbroken seals.” Zafrys went on to explain, “There are four seals that have never broken—not counting the three in the Ocean. One of them you already visited, near the old capital of Sulair. We never knew why those seals never broke, but your vision of the Rispara’s sacrifice may explain it. I wonder if the construct sealed away near Ursena was damaged somehow, too, and that’s why it’s never broken out.”

“I can go check it out,” Naomi said. “Where is it?”

* * *

The next day Naomi set out on a mission to examine the unbroken seal. Esar was reluctant to let her undertake this errand on her own, but he couldn’t overrule both a former queen and the Prince Ethereal. He grudgingly admitted that there was less trouble she could get into out here in the wilderness, far away from people she might be tempted to punch. She couldn’t get lost, either—she had a compass, and once she completed her mission, all she had to do was head straight back east until she got back to the linecar track.

Truth was, he was probably glad to be rid of her for a while. And Naomi was glad to be able to run off some energy. She’d discovered a love for heights. Hard to believe that the first time she’d tried climbing up a tree, about a week ago, she’d been slow and cautious, clinging to the trunk like an anxious koala. When she lost her grip and fell twelve feet to the ground anyway, then walked away with nary a scratch, she’d laughed it off, relishing the looks of horror on everyone’s faces. Why bother being careful after that?

Naomi’s strength and endurance never failed her, but channeling those assets into agility and dexterity presented a challenge. She enjoyed the effort, though, especially because she seemed to be nigh-invulnerable as well. She even came up with a running monologue for herself as she jumped from branch to branch of the enormous trees in this old-growth forest.

What’s that rustling high in the treetops? Surely it’s just the wind. Surely no one could guess that high over their heads, light as a passing breeze, a girl was leaping through the canopy with superhuman agility. If only they could see her now, the ones who snubbed her and snickered every time she came near. If only they knew that the awkward, unpopular girl with the creepy eyes was more powerful than they ever imagined . . .

No, that wasn’t it. Better yet—

They never guessed that within the chest of the girl they shunned, beat the heart of a hero.

When she fell out of the tree that first time, Jason had asked her, “What happened when you fell down on Earth?”

The answer was, she did get hurt. Naomi had just as many skinned knees and bruises as any other kid. Maybe more, even, as she’d never been terribly coordinated. Had she healed more quickly? That was hard to say. She’d never stood out for athletic ability, and the flu could take her out of commission just as well as it did anyone else. Why had that changed here and now? Why did it feel so natural to use her vitricity? If anything, it worried her that it was too easy.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

But if worries wanted to drag her down, they would have to catch her first.

Something very large took off from the canopy nearby. Naomi nearly tumbled to the ground at the sudden movement, but she caught herself and swung back up to see what had taken flight. It was an enormous black bird, shaped like a raven but closer in size to an eagle. Like Naomi, it was headed west, so she challenged it to a race.

The bird had the advantage of flight, while Naomi was limited to finding branches that could bear her weight. She thought she acquitted herself admirably for a mere human, but she longed to know how the man in her vision had managed to walk on the air. She could leap farther and higher than she’d ever dreamed, but she wanted to fly, and Esar wasn’t any help in that department.

“Cheater!” Naomi hollered after the bird when she ran out of trees to jump between. The land before her opened to bare stone with only a few small trees hanging on in crevices, and then fell off sharply into a deep rift. It was too wide for her to attempt a jump, and so deep that she couldn’t be sure that she could survive a fall. She’d gone too far and missed her destination. Maybe she should have been paying a little more attention to where she was going, instead of composing her own narration and chasing birds. She wasn’t even sure if she’d gone too far north or too far south.

Well, she couldn’t be too far off. She’d pick a direction—south, she decided, she thought perhaps she’d veered a bit too far north—and go that way for a while. If there was no sign of the seal she’d head the other way.

That was the plan, but she’d only gone a few steps along the edge of the gorge before something glittered at the corner of her eye.

It was the same sort of light that she’d seen in the ruined city in Sulair a week ago, flecks of light that glimmered in her peripheral vision but vanished when she tried to look directly at them. Adrin had experienced those, too, in the sunken city in the Ocean. She’d figured out what those little glitters meant—this place held a memory.

Reality quickly dashed her excitement. During the last vision, she’d basically been sleepwalking. If she did that here she was likely to step right off that cliff. Even if she did survive the fall, was she going to be able to get back up?

What if she could anchor herself somehow? She looked around for something she could use to keep her body safe while she dreamed, but the surroundings weren’t promising. There were a few large rocks—boulders, really—but was she strong enough to move them together and make a barrier to keep herself still?

She tried to push one. Maybe she could have moved it if more than half of it wasn’t buried underground, but the task proved impossible. The glimmers at the corners of her vision seemed to mock her.

Maybe she didn’t need to move it.

The man in her vision had just held out his hand, turned it over, and he made buildings liquefy. Surely it wouldn’t hurt anyone if she did that to a stone, right? Just to make a crevice that she could wedge herself in, so she could see what memory this place held without sleepwalking to her death.

Naomi focused on the rock, reached out her hand, and turned it over, as the man in her vision had done. Nothing happened.

A shadow passed over her. It was that giant raven again, watching her.

“Don’t you dare laugh at me,” she told it.

Naomi tried to reach out with her vitricity, seeking a connection like the one she made when she held an incand. Immediately the lights multiplied, and her surroundings started to dissolve, the drab landscape turning green. No, not yet, not yet! she thought desperately, trying to reject the vision before it claimed her completely.

A little boy ran towards her, a look of pure terror on his face.

“No!” Naomi shrieked, and the boy was gone, the glimpse of the past was gone, and her feet were blessedly, thankfully, still on solid ground.

Good to know I can cancel it, she thought.

The smart thing to do would have been to cut her losses, leave the glimmering memory behind, go find the seal she was supposed to find and then run back to Esar and the others.

Only problem with that plan was that it sounded an awful lot like giving up.

If she really was going to be a hero, if she really was going to live up to the potential inside her that burned to be unleashed, she needed to master her abilities. Yes, she’d been listening when Esar told her that her powers were dangerous. That she was dangerous. But there was nobody here for her to hurt, just a rock.

She tried to remember everything she could about the first vision. She’d gotten a sense of bonds breaking, something happening on the most basic level of atoms and molecules. Was she going to have to master university-level physics just to make a stupid rock melt?

“This is supposed to be magic, not science!” Naomi groaned. She touched the rock, rested her hand flat against it. There weren’t any glimmers in the rock itself, could she reach into it with vitricity?

She reached and pushed and pulled and turned and twisted, until finally, something snapped. The stone beneath her hand was suddenly as soft as wet clay, and her hand sank into it. She let out a little cry of triumph and tried to pull her hand away, but it was stuck. The stone had become solid once more, with her hand trapped inside it.

Oh shit, what did I do, what did I do?!