P.C. Cast - Burned

“Think about sending the energy back into the earth.” Stevie Rae’s voice was gentle, but insistent. He started to open his eyes and let loose her hands, but again she held tight to him, saying, “No, keep your eyes shut. Just stay like you are, but imagine the power from the earth as a glowing green light that’s coming from the ground under me, up through my body and hands, to you. When you feel like it’s done its job, envision it pouring from your body back into the earth.”

Rephaim kept his eyes closed, but asked, “Why? Why let it leave me?”

He could hear the smile in her voice. “Because it’s not yours, silly. You can’t own this power. It belongs to the earth. You can only borrow it, and then send it back with a ‘thank you very much.’ ”

Rephaim almost told her that was ridiculous—that when you’ve been given power, you don’t let it go. You keep it and use it and own it. He almost said it, but he couldn’t. Those words seemed wrong while he was getting filled with earth energy.

So instead, he did what felt right. Rephaim imagined the energy that filled him as a glowing green shaft of light, and envisioned it pouring down his spine and back into the earth from which it had come. And as the rich warmth of earth drained from him, he spoke two words very softly, “Thank you.”

Then he was himself again. Sitting under a big cedar tree on damp, cold ground, holding Stevie Rae’s hands.

Rephaim opened his eyes.

“Better now?” she asked.

“Yes. Much better.” Rephaim opened his hands, and this time, she, too, pulled away.

“Really? I mean, I felt the earth and thought I was channeling it through me into you, and you seemed to be feelin’ it.” She cocked her head, studying him. “You do look better. There isn’t any pain in your eyes anymore.”

He stood up, eager to show her, and opened his arms, unfurling his massive wings as if he were flexing a muscle. “See! I can do this with no pain.”

She was sitting on the ground staring up at him, wide-eyed. The look on her face was so odd that he automatically lowered his arms and folded his wings against his back.

“What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I—I’d forgotten that you flew to the park. Well, and from the park, too.” She made a sound that could have been a laugh had it not sounded so choked. “That’s stupid, isn’t? How could I have forgotten somethin’ like that?”

“I suppose you got used to seeing me broken,” he said, trying to understand why she suddenly seemed so withdrawn from him.

“What fixed your wing?”

“The earth,” he said.

“No, not now. It wasn’t broken when we came out here. The pain you were filled with didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Oh, no. I’ve been healed since last night. The pain was caused by the remnants of Darkness and what he did to my body.”

“So how did your wing and your arm get fixed last night?”

Rephaim didn’t want to answer her. As she stared at him with those wide, accusing eyes, he found himself wanting to lie—to tell her it had been a miracle wrought by the immortality in his blood. But he couldn’t lie to her. He wouldn’t lie to her.

“I called on powers that are mine to command through my father’s blood. I had to. I heard you scream my name.”

She blinked, and he saw realization flash through her gaze. “But the bull said you’d been filled with his power and not your daddy’s.”

Rephaim nodded. “I knew it was different. I didn’t know why. Nor did I understand I was getting power directly from Darkness himself.”

“So Darkness healed you.”

“Yes, and then the earth healed me from the wound Darkness left inside me.”

“Okay, well, good.” She stood abruptly and brushed off her jeans. “You’re better now, and I gotta go. Like I said, it’s tough for me to get away now that the House of Night is all freaked about a Raven Mocker bein’ in town.”

She started to walk quickly past him, and he reached out to grab her wrist.

Stevie Rae flinched away from him.

Rephaim’s hand dropped instantly to his side, and he took a step away from her.

They stared at each other.

“I gotta go,” she repeated.

“Will you return?”

“I have to! I promised!” She yelled the words at him, and he felt them as if she’d slapped him.

“I release you from your promise!” he yelled back at her, angry that this small female could cause such turmoil within him.

Her eyes were suspiciously bright when she said, “It’s not you I promised—so you can’t release me.” Then she swept past him, her head turned away so he couldn’t see her face.

“Do not return because you have to. Return only because you want to,” he called after her.

Stevie Rae didn’t pause and didn’t look back at him. She simply left.

Rephaim stood there a long time. When the sound of her car faded away, he finally moved. With a cry of frustration, the Raven Mocker ran and then launched himself into the night sky, beating the cold wind with his massive wings and heading up, up to find the warmer thermals that would lift him, hold him, carry him anywhere—everywhere.

Just away! Take me away from here!

The Raven Mocker swooped to the east, away from the direction Stevie Rae’s car had taken—away from Tulsa and the confusion that had entered his life since she’d entered his life. Then he closed his mind to everything except the familiar joy of the sky, and flew.

“Yeah, I’m listening to you, Aphrodite. You want me to memorize that poem.” Stark spoke to her through the helicopter’s headsets, which he wished he knew how to shut off. He didn’t want to listen to her run her mouth; he didn’t want to talk to Aphrodite or to anyone. He was totally preoccupied with turning over and over in his mind his strategy for getting himself and Zoey on the island. Stark stared out of the window of the helicopter, trying to see through darkness and fog for a first glimpse of the Isle of Skye where, according to Duantia and just about the entire High Council, he was going to meet his certain death sometime in the next five days.

“Not that poem, idiot. That prophecy . I wouldn’t ask anyone to memorize a poem. Metaphor, simile, allusion, symbolism . . . blah . . . blah . . . ugh. It makes my hair hurt thinking about all that crap. Not that a prophecy sucks any less, but it is—sadly—important. And Stevie Rae has a point about this one. It does read like a confusing poetic map,” Aphrodite said.

“I am in agreement with Aphrodite and Stevie Rae,” Darius said. “Kramisha’s prophetic poems have given Zoey guidance before. This one could do the same thing.”

Stark dragged his gaze from the window. “I know.” He looked from Darius to Aphrodite, then his eyes went to Zoey’s apparently lifeless body, where she was strapped in on a narrow litter between the three of them. “She already found Kalona on water. She has to purify him through fire. Air has to whisper to her something spirit already knows, and if she keeps following truth, she’ll be free. I already memorized the damn thing. I don’t care if it’s a poem or a prophecy. If there’s a chance it can help her, I’ll get it to Zoey.”

The pilot’s voice came through the headsets to all of them. “I’m putting it down now. Remember, all I can do is let you out. The rest is up to you. Just know if you step one foot on the island itself without Sgiach’s permission, you will die.”

“I got that the first dozen times you assholes said it,” Stark muttered, not caring that the pilot gave him a dark look over her shoulder.