For a moment, I thought he was replying to my thoughts, but then I opened my eyes and saw my dress flickering to life at their proximity.
“Take it off,” Helki grumbled.
“Here I was thinking our new agreement had somehow reformed you five, but no, here I am getting naked again.” I shoved the dress from my arms, lifting my hips to draw it down over my legs. I threw it away from me, watching as it skidded slowly towards the dressing room.
“That’s not naked,” Vidrol pointed out. “Though I’ll admit, it might as well be.”
I glanced down, realising that the single, silken lining of that particular bodysuit might as well have not existed at all. I quickly grabbed a blanket and threw it over my body, before curling onto my side. I found myself face-to-shoulder with Andel, but he was the only one who didn’t seem to care about my varying states of dress or undress—unless the lights on certain dresses were annoying him.
I forced my mind to go blank and my eyes to close. Three hours wasn’t enough to undo the damage of the past day and night, but it was better than nothing, and I soon found myself falling into a comforting blanket of numbness.
When I woke again, the bed was empty, but the masters were still there, pulling their clothes back on. All except Vale, who hadn’t bothered getting undressed again.
“It’s time,” Andel said, stretching his neck. “You won’t be back to the tower, so gather what you’ll need for the next few days.”
“Where are we going?” I asked. “I need to tell my friends that I’m leaving.”
“Grab your shit,” he said, his tone far less tempered, his eyes flashing. “You have ten seconds.”
They were enjoying their reclaimed power over me a little too much. I climbed out of bed and stood before him, my arms crossed, waiting out the ten seconds. Andel’s eyes wavered, flicking down from my face to the bodysuit.
“You’re going to regret this little stand you’re making,” he threatened, grabbing my arm.
I anticipated the tightness around my mind and the sudden curtain that fell over my vision, but I didn’t anticipate the cold splash of water that he landed in, not that I could have grabbed any warmer clothing anyway. Vidrol had destroyed my only cloak.
It was pitch-black all around me, but I could feel the smooth, sinking pebbles beneath my feet, and hear the lazy shifting of the tide lapping up against the shore. Lake Enke. Andel stood before me, his hand wrapping around the back of my head. I could feel his fingers on my skin, sans gloves, and I thought it strange until I felt the trickle of his magic against the nape of my neck.
Where he had marked me.
I opened my mouth to stop him, to beg him not to, but he dug his finger into the mark and it felt like my brain was splitting open. Where Helki’s mark had filled me with unimaginable pain—too great for my body to bear—Andel’s mark now tore apart the inner fabric of my mind. He forced his way in, prying it open, uncaring of the way it cracked and splintered. He rummaged around, picking things up for examination before discarding them again. He found a memory of me being attacked by a sectorian’s dog, and drowned me in the fear of a child. He replayed the death of my mother until I had collapsed into tears, but he only held me up and continued.
When it felt like my mind would snap from the pressure of it all, he drew back, lifting my limp body into his arms. I drifted in and out of consciousness, lost in a dark world as someone sat me in a chair and pushed an apple into my hands. I ate robotically, slept for what seemed like only a few minutes, and then I was taken to the Obelisk.
I wasn’t sure how I survived that night, or the next. I barely knew where I was half the time, or who was with me. I didn’t taste the food they handed me, and I was sure I didn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time. The only time I was truly present was when Andel was cracking open my mind. The nightmares he delivered me were vivid and terrifying, full of pain and darkness. Personalised. Curated specifically for me, drawn from the root of my fear and the experiences I had lived.
When he pulled back on my last day of training, his arms holding me up, I found myself caught on the strange realisation that he now knew me even better than I knew myself. Maybe that was why I clung to him. He had dissected me so thoroughly that I suspected he had been stealing little bits of me all along, and I clung to him tighter and tighter, trying to reassimilate myself.
“She’s not in good shape,” someone muttered, as Andel tried lowering me into my usual chair.
I refused to let go of him and he straightened again, the arm he had wrapped around me to carry me across the room tightening briefly.
“She can do it,” he answered. “With a night off to replenish her energy and magic, she’ll be the strongest she’s ever been.”
“Are you sure she’s been using her magic to fight off your mark?” the other voice questioned.
‘I’m sure.” Andel finally gave up trying to put me down. He claimed the seat himself, gathering me in his lap.
I immediately wound my arms around his waist, though he was huge so I couldn’t reach very far. I pulled my knees up and he circled his arm around me, helping me to curl into a ball, my head against his chest. A pained groan slipped out of me, nausea making my head spin. I fell into unconsciousness before I was able to eat anything, but I wasn’t woken up again an hour later, or an hour after that.
The next time I opened my eyes, I was stretched out on a couch, a cushion beneath my head and two blankets folded on top of me. I could feel a resounding ache in my body that seemed to go beyond bone or muscle, but I also felt the strong rush of magic humming through my bloodstream. I sat up, the blankets falling down to my lap. I was in the driftwood room, and someone had hung mirrors to the wall, spilling light into the space.
The great masters were spread about the room, but they stopped whatever they had been doing as I stood, stretching my arms up with a long yawn.
“Why do I feel different?” I asked Andel, flinching a little as his eyes met mine.
I had always thought of his eyes as wild and violent, but now it would be impossible to look at him and not also feel the wild and violent things that he had put inside my head.
“You’ve been fighting for days, your magic constantly striving to give more, to last longer. The process has strengthened it.”
He snatched up a tray from near the door and handed it to me. I spotted orange juice and a bowl of oatmeal—a more Sinn meal had never before been eaten.
I forced it down, tasting nothing. Helki was leaning up against the door, his arms crossed and his heavy boot notched against the wood. His hair was pulled into several messy sections down the back of his skull, wild strands escaping to drift against his scarred skin. I knew them well enough to know that the scars were new. They were the colour and thickness of marks almost healed, but they were constantly shifting around, claiming new territory and fading from old. It was more obvious with Helki, who showed more skin, his upper chest and arms usually bare above the stomach armour of the Vold. He said nothing as I examined him, the firelight making his eyes appear almost yellow.
I glanced at the others. Vidrol stood by the fireplace, staring into the flameless depths, a frown on his face. Fjor was reclined in one of the driftwood chairs, his chin resting on his steepled fingers, his dark eyes on the empty fireplace as well. Vale was by the glass wall, staring out to the glittering blackness beyond the warm glow of the room. His cloak was missing, his silver hair loose about his shoulders.