Bloom (17 page)

She imitated his motions as best she could.

“Good,” he said. “Now.” He stepped toward her and brought his left hand down to her face in slow motion. She stepped away and swatted his hand to the side. “Okay, good,” he said. “Except opponent moves much faster in real life, yes? You want to keep one arm close to your body, always, in case they get near you with knife or something else. Always push
away
from your body, like this…”

Marius swung at her again in slow motion, a wide swing that Haven easily deflected away from her body. She turned as his arm swept past her.

“Ah-ah,” he scolded.

She looked down to see the fingers of his other hand barely touching the side of her ribcage.

“Bye-bye lung,” he said, grinning.

Haven pushed his hand away and replanted her feet. Marius looked down at them and frowned.

“Wider stance,” he said.

She spread her feet farther apart.

“No pigeon-toe,” he said. “Line them up the same way. Good. Now move that one back a few inches. Very good. This way you don’t lose balance when I do
this
.”

He kicked out his leg and hooked his foot behind one of her ankles. He yanked back, taking her leg with him, but Haven hopped forward on her other foot and managed to stay standing.

Marius laughed. “Very good! Still much to learn, but I think you will be good student, yes? It will be many weeks before you are ready to fight a real opponent, but a few hours a day and you will be better than Marius, I think.”

She sighed and crossed her arms.

“Oh, don’t look so sad,” he said. “Tomorrow, we get back your brother and everything is okay again.”

“It won’t
ever
be okay again,” she said with more venom than she had intended. “My parents are
dead
. They’re not ever coming back!”

Haven turned and wiped away the tears running down her cheeks—tears that had fallen more often as the hours wore on.

“Oh, my,” said Marius. He walked over and rested a hand on her shoulder. “I did not mean that you should forget them. I did not mean that at all.”

She sniffed. “My home is gone. Burned to the ground. Even if I get Noah back, there’s nowhere to go.”

“You stay here!” he said quickly. “You both stay here. We have food, water, gymnasium.” He gestured grandly to the empty room in which they stood and Haven smiled. “All the things growing girl and boy need. Okay?”

Haven could think of a hundred other places she would rather stay than a damp underground shelter, but until she knew that Noah was one-hundred percent safe, she didn’t see any other option.

She nodded and Marius clapped his hands together loudly.

“Excellent!” he said. “But training not over yet. Best to teach you something you will definitely use tomorrow. Now is time for the fun stuff.”

He twirled his finger to indicate that she should turn to face him. She did so and moved one foot in front of the other as he had shown her.

“More of that later,” said Marius. “For now, relax. Hands by side. Good. Close your eyes.”

She raised one eyebrow and looked at him.

“Trust me,” he said.

She closed her eyes and waited for his instructions.

“Listen carefully,” he said. “There is a light inside of you. It burns brighter than anything else in this world.” He spoke softly and his voice circled around her. “It is your soul—it is everything you are and also much more. It is life, it is energy, and you feel it growing stronger within you.”

In her mind’s eye, Haven saw a vast nothingness. A dim blue light sparked to life in the distance and grew stronger as it approached.

“You can hold this energy inside of you,” said Marius, “but not forever. You must guide it as it grows. You must shape it for its true purpose. Otherwise it will fade, and you will lose it forever. Control it, keep it close. Once it is strong enough, release it slowly…carefully.”

The blue light in the darkness expanded until it was a small star in Haven’s imagination. It turned slowly and its surface shifted like blue lava—swirling and bubbling with immense power. Strands like solar flares arced from the expanding ball and snapped in half, sending strings of blue plasma spinning into the blackness.

Heat traveled down her spine and spread across her entire body. It pushed through her blood and muscle tissue until it ran along the surface of her skin as if she stood under a waterfall of boiling water. It didn’t hurt her—even when the heat intensified—but she could still feel its presence.

Haven heard Marius step away and she opened her eyes.

Electric blue light cascaded over her vision like the flicking flames of a violent fire. Marius stood twenty feet away, on the other side of the room.

“Close your eyes!” he shouted.

She did, but something was wrong. The energy that had been building within her shifted to the side like a heavy weight and slipped off her body. She opened her eyes as a blue stream of burning plasma shot from her left arm and hit the wall just above Marius’s head. He shouted and dove out of the way as the stream seared into the wall.

Haven screamed and stepped backward. She raised her left arm and the blue stream scraped up the wall to the ceiling, leaving behind a blackened streak on the metal.

“What do I do?!” she shouted.

The energy was already dissipating. The stream shooting out of her arm faded like a dying flashlight beam until it disappeared. Haven dropped to her knees, sweaty and exhausted. She gulped down air as if she had almost drowned.

Marius ran over and knelt beside her. He gripped her shoulders firmly and supported her when she started to shake all over.

“It’s okay,” he said. He lowered her to a sitting position and smoothed down her hair, which was sticking out in every direction. He looked up at the long strip of blackened metal on the wall and ceiling. “That was…that was good, for first time. Practice makes perfect, yes?”

“I lost it,” said Haven, still breathing heavily. “I felt it but then I lost it.”

“Happens to everyone,” said Marius. “Still happens to me if I am distracted. What did you see?”

She thought for a moment. “A blue light in the darkness, like a star. It grew brighter and brighter and came close enough that I could see every detail.”

Marius was nodding. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Good. For me, I imagine it building up in my hands until I can no longer keep it inside. It is different for everyone, but the important thing is that you find something that works. Eventually you will be able to skip the seeing and jump right to the zapping.” He looked back at the black scar on the wall, then down at his own hands. “Maybe next time I try your method. Maybe I get something a little stronger! But listen to me. The goal is to
control
the energy—to not let go all at once. This way it is not all gone in five seconds and then the bad guys get you.”

Haven sat up straighter and took a deep breath. “Why are you fighting?” she asked. “With Bernam and the others.”

Marius frowned. “There is always fighting. There is always someone who wants more power, and who will take it from others. And always there are people willing to help that person. It is a terrible truth, but one that we all must face.” He shook his head sadly.

Haven smiled and pushed his shoulder. “I think I need some water.”

He slapped his forehead. “Of course you do! How stupid of me.” He stood and helped her to her feet. “Very thirsty work. But don’t worry, is worth it. Everybody has limits, but with more training you will not believe what you can do.”

Haven followed Marius to the door. She looked down at her hands, then gently rubbed her forearms. Her skin was cool, and there was no sign that fire or any other kind of destructive energy had been flowing over her body. A shiver ran down her spine when she thought about the power that had been available to her a few moments earlier.

It felt like she had tapped into a nuclear generator and was pulling unlimited power from its core, weaving it together into a giant sphere of energy. Up until the moment she had lost control, Haven felt as if she could have blown up a building.

As she followed Marius out of the training room and into the dome, she had a hard time convincing herself that having that kind of power was a good thing.

18

E
lena was waiting for them just outside the room.

“How did she do?” she asked Marius.

“Very good,” he said. “One day she will be stronger than you, I think.”

Marius’s praise made Haven blush.  “I lost control,” she admitted.

“We all do, from time to time,” said Elena. She glanced over at Marius, who was trying to make a motion with his hands without Haven seeing him. He pointed to his own shoulder-blades and then fanned out his fingers and traced the outline of invisible wings. Then he nodded at Haven and Elena looked at her, one eyebrow rising higher on her wrinkled forehead. “Is that right?” she said.

“What?” said Haven.

“You have wings.”

“No, I—” Haven stopped and thought for a moment. “Well, in the cafeteria, yeah…sort of. Not really wings, though, just
shaped
like wings.”

“Oh my,” said Elena softly.

“What are you talking about?” said Haven, hesitant accusation in her voice.

Marius coughed politely. “Time for food,” he said. “Marius is hungry.” He smiled at Haven and hurried away, disappearing down the hallway that led to the dormitories.

“Let’s sit down, Haven,” said Elena.

The older woman led her to the center of the massive domed room. A ring of short chairs surrounded a small, circular rock pit that Haven had not seen before. Softball-sized grey rocks were piled in a small mound in the center of the pit. Haven chose a seat. Elena sat next to her and waved an open palm in the direction of the rock pit. Blue flames ignited on the stones and danced brilliantly in the darkness. Light flickered across their faces and warmed Haven’s skin.

“It’s an issue of balance,” said Elena at last. She stared into the flames, unblinking.

“What kind of balance?” asked Haven.

“
The
Balance. Nature. The world. Everything. It is my belief that our kind came into existence to repair an imbalance in the fabric of reality. Something shifted too far in the wrong direction and we represent nature’s attempt to solve the problem.”

“The Sources and Conduits, you mean.”

Elena nodded. “You already know that I’m called a Phoenix. The man named Bernam is a Void—the strongest of his kind. We are here to balance the forces that have been given to us, to guide the others down the proper path so that the power does not shift too far to one side. However, one cannot exist without the other. Bernam and myself—we are linked in that way, but in that way alone.”

“He’s not your counterpart?”

Elena shook her head. “He lost his true partner long ago, as did I.” Her eyes glossed over as she remembered. She shook her head again and sighed.

“What happens if one of you dies?” asked Haven.

“That is what we need to talk about. My power is fading, Haven. It has been weakening gradually over the last several months. My guess would be that it started around the same time that you first noticed you were different.”

Haven looked into the blue flames that danced over the rocks. A long strand of fire flicked out from the pit and snapped in the air like a whip.

“You think I’m a Phoenix,” she said.

“I think so, yes. But nothing is certain. There could be others like you in the world—ones with other shades of blue fire that have the potential to become a Phoenix. You and I manifest our excess energy in a very specific way—a way that, until now, I thought was completely unique to myself.”

“The wings,” said Haven.

Elena nodded.

“What are they?”

“I can’t say for sure,” said Elena. “They don’t always appear when I am expending energy. I have only noticed their presence on rare occasions when I was attempting to channel more power than I should have—perhaps half-a-dozen times in my entire life. They are beautiful, but I think they might not serve much purpose beyond that.”

“Have you ever seen them on anyone else?”

Elena shook her head.

“So wait,” said Haven. “If you’re getting weaker, does that mean that
I’m
killing you?”

Elena laughed—an old, slow laugh full of humor and wisdom. “No, Haven. This would be happening with or without you. It is the way of things.”

Haven sat back in her seat. “How did it happen with you?” she asked.

“When I received my ability, you mean?”

Haven nodded.

“I never met the person who came before me. I like to think that they were able to live a quiet life, far from the worries that plague our kind these days. It was no slow process for me, as I am noticing with you. The energy was practically slapped into me not long after my seventeenth birthday. I always assumed that the one who came before me died suddenly, without the time for a gradual transference like the kind I believe I am experiencing. I was working in a shoe factory at the time, lacing work boots—just one of many girls on a long factory line.” She giggled. “Oh, you should have seen their faces! I lit that place up like a five-story Christmas tree. I had to leave town after that, of course.” She sighed happily. “Those days were just
full
of adventure.”

“If I’m getting my power from you,” said Haven, “then where do the others get their abilities?”

“You aren’t getting your power from me at all!” said Elena, laughing softly with amusement. “At least, not yet. Besides the few people who were given their powers by other Conduits, each one of us is born already possessing an ability. But those like me and Bernam—and every other Phoenix and Void that came before us—are given something extra.”

“What is it?”

Elena smiled. “There are many theories, and of course I have my own. I think it’s different for each of us. Only
you
can know for sure.” Her smile faded and a look of worry deepened the shadows on her face.

“What’s wrong?” asked Haven.