Chapter Text
Her hand.
Rocks stone hard broken hard underfoot. Hard to stand. Her legs ached and her bones ached, and her hand her hand her hand…
Ached. Seared. Burnt.
Burning. The world was burning. She couldn’t see for the smoke, thick, choking the air, choking her. The air was red, green and red, green and soft and slippery as silk and, behind it, red with flame.
Her hand —
Crackling, like the first whisper of lighting, shards of it stabbing through her fingers, spearing up along the bone. She heard a cry.
A sound in the distance. Skittering, snapping, closer. Getting closer. Coming towards her. She tried to push herself up, and her hand… She tried not to scream.
Don’t scream, don’t, they’ll hear you.
But the pain, Maker, pain… Hers. Wrong. Not like lighting — not like lighting at all. Lightning never hurt like this. This bit through bone, arrowed to her very core, and pulled —
Focus.
It was…
Calm yourself and focus.
It was…like the first time she had reached for lighting. Senior Enchanter Maxim had shielded himself well ahead of time — and then, after, smiled at her expression and squeezed her shoulder. The smile was rare. The touch was even more so. Physical contact was discouraged in the tower, but Enchanter Maxim would chance it, once or twice, if the Templars weren’t watching. It was odd how comforting that small gesture was; she wondered, later, why the Templars would want to deny them comfort. If it was caution, or fear, or hate.
“Everyone scorches themselves the first time,” Enchanter Maxim told her, and for a brief moment his eyes had been kind. It had surprised her at first. She hadn’t expected kindness. No one was cruel in the tower — they were civil, they were calm, they were polite — but they shied away from anything that could be seen as weakness.
Then he had said: “It is not a dagger, to be picked up and thrown haphazardly at target. You are the dagger, Selena, and this — ” lightning snapped tamely across his palm “ — is only the blade. Lighting, fire, or ice, it is all the same. It is not about controlling the power. It is about controlling yourself, and letting the power flow through you. If we can teach you nothing else, we must teach you mastery over yourself.”
Focus.
Hard, so hard, when this sensation clouded her head and sang along every fiber. When the only feeling that was clear at all was — power. Even beyond the pain. Power, raw and brutal, the force of it fire-working from her hand and searing every breath to ash.
Faster, go faster, they were coming. A figure. Light in the dark. A hand reaching for her, and she pushed, feet slipping out from under her, reaching out, and her hand…
Stop. Don’t feel. Think. Think past it. Think through it. The power, the pull —
Good.
That was…Enchanter Maxim’s voice. She recognized it now, sluggishly, struggling to push her mind beyond the pain. It was his voice. She thought it was, but there was something skimming just along the surface. An echo. A voice that wasn’t his. She heard it, she thought she did, but her head was so heavy…
Focus. Do not fight it. Hold onto it.
The power flared again, her fingers, like glass under the skin. A fractured rope of it, twisting up into her chest, wrapping tight, binding her fast.
Yes, a rope. Imagine it’s a rope, running to your hand. It is yours. Your hand. Your power.
Now hold on.
She heard the cry of pain again, because there was pain — there was pain. So much of it that it seemed to exist outside of her, like something dim and huge and lurking in the shadows. The power in her hand seemed to rear and buck and splinter.
That is it. Do not let go. Embrace it.
A wave. The pain was a wave that threatened to crash down overhead, and she could feel it cresting. The pressure in her hand built like a scream. She forced her fingers to tighten, forced herself to hold on.
Do not let go.
She held fast, as pain thundered in like an avalanche.