I would have to push past the sensation to discover her affinity, but attempting to do so made me gasp and pull back. Direct contact with the strange power around her was too much on top of the nausea her presence already evoked.
“You get used to it eventually,” she said in a kind tone. “You just have to protect yourself from the nausea. Find the core of your ability, and then coax it out larger. Imagine that instead of a ball at your center, it’s a shell around your entire body.”
I stared at her, and she nodded encouragingly. Another wave of the nausea made my knees tremble, so despite my uncertainty, I reached for my own ability.
I never noticed it unless I was paying particular attention—in the same way I didn’t have a constant conscious awareness of my arms and legs. But when I tried, I could sense it just like I sensed everyone else’s.
Zeke never talked about it in my training—which made sense since he couldn’t feel his own ability the way I could. He drew on it instinctively, an integrated part of him like his brain or his muscles. And so I had largely ignored mine as well. When I tried to use my ability, I reached outward for the power that lingered in the air, ground, and building around me.
But now I reached inward instead. Focusing my attention on the ball that blazed at my center, I imagined it thinning and stretching. It responded slowly at first and then faster. When I pictured it as a shell over my skin, like Dara had described, I blinked and it was done.
I gasped. The nausea was gone, cut off instantly. Nervous, I reached for Dara, the remaining tension leaching out of me when my ability responded like normal.
Freed from the ill effects of whatever surrounded her, I examined it more closely. I could still tell something was wrong with the power that swirled around her, but it no longer affected me physically. And now that I was examining it more closely, I could see it wasn’t really a shield. There were gaps, and with a little care, I could reach her without disturbing it.
As soon as I did, I let out a second gasp. Looking up, our eyes locked.
“You have a power ability,” I whispered.
Some part of me had suspected it from the moment I realized a second person might be with Lawson, hidden behind a shield of power. But it had seemed impossible, a fanciful wish to find someone else like me.
And yet, here she was. And within minutes of meeting her, she had already taught me something I hadn’t worked out on my own.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, and then flushed at my awkward choice of words. “I mean this…” I waved vaguely in her direction, not sure how to label the strange power that surrounded her. “It doesn’t feel right. You had a shield of power when you first arrived, but it wasn’t like this. It was normal power. Was it hiding this?”
She hesitated. “You know, I suppose, that there’s a corruption in Calista?”
I frowned. “You mean the protections that have rendered it barren and unlivable?”
Thanks to Zeke, I now knew they weren’t really protections at all, but I didn’t know what else to label them.
“Some people call them that. But they’re more of a curse than a protection.” Dara swayed slightly, and I wondered if I should get her a chair. Any concern about her as a potential threat had been entirely swallowed up by the discovery of someone else who shared my ability.
“But we’re not in Calista,” I said. “The protections, or curse, or whatever you want to call it, are contained by the border.”
Dara’s lips twisted. “They’re getting worse. Haven’t you noticed? The border isn’t enough to stop them anymore.”
“So you do live across the border?” I asked, my gaze fixed on her. “You and the other raiders?”
She frowned and didn’t immediately answer. But she must have decided the information was hardly a secret because she eventually gave a slow nod.
“Some of it clung to me when I traveled here. I would have pushed it away, sent it back, but…” Her words trailed off, her breathing growing labored.
“Is that why the borders are failing?” Anger colored my voice. “The raiders have been harrying the border regions and even the capital more and more frequently. Are you all dragging this tainted power across every time you come? No wonder it’s destabilizing everything!”
My brows pulled together, and I opened my mouth to ask more questions about their location, but her face softened, and a hint of pride entered her expression.
“You’re so beautiful, Cadie. And the General says you’re powerful. Just like your father hoped. He would have been so proud of you.”
I drew back, more shocked than if she’d suddenly slapped me.
“My father? What do you know of my father?”
“You don’t recognize me?” she asked softly. “Even a little bit?”
“Recognize you?” I looked more closely at her face, trying to see past the lines of fatigue. A vague sense of familiarity stirred, but I couldn’t be sure if it was real or if I was willing it into existence in response to her suggestion.
Could she be one of the abducted villagers from near the border? I’d interacted with women of her age in our various trading visits, but none of them had made much of an impression.
I bit my lip and then shrugged. “Maybe? Why? Should I know you?”
She sighed, sounding disappointed. “I suppose you were too young. I think you were only four the last time Quirin and I brought our son, Renley, to visit you.” She grimaced. “It didn’t go too well. Quirin and your father argued, and then…” She sighed again. “Your parents did have some friends, you know. But sadly your mother died soon after that visit, and clearly your father never mentioned us.”
I shut my gaping mouth as I struggled to comprehend her words. My parents had once had friends who would visit our remote home? How had I not remembered that?
A moment later, my astonishment was replaced with a resentful resignation. Of course Father had never mentioned them. He had controlled everything about our lives, and Dara and Quirin had clearly challenged that—if the fighting and their subsequent banishment was any indication. Even Dara’s power affinity interfered with the secrets he wanted to keep from me.
My jaw clenched.
“Don’t be too hard on him,” Dara said softly, seeming to recognize and understand my emotions. “He was a stubborn old man, but he was in a difficult position. Even Quirin acknowledged that after he calmed down.”
“You knew my mother?” I asked, ignoring her comments on my father. I wasn’t prepared to talk about him with a complete stranger. “I wish I had more memories of her.”
“She was a wonderful woman,” Dara said. “And she loved you very much—you and your sister, both. You were her whole world.” She paused, as if something else lay beneath her words, but after a moment she just shook her head.
At the mention of Airlie, I sucked in my breath, realization flooding me.
“Airlie is older than me! Did she remember you?” Anger filled me, making my limbs tremble. “Did you go to her as an old friend and lure her away? If you visited our house while our parents were alive, she probably trusted you! And you delivered her straight to the raiders, didn’t you!?”
Something twisted in Dara’s face, but it was gone in a flash.