Abandoned (Born From Shadows #2)

Tatianna’s eyes are shut tightly yet her mind is bursting with energy. She could not sleep, no matter how much she thought her body craved it.

“Oh for fucks sake,” she cursed in a whisper before rolling over. The hunger she felt in her stomach was just teasing her. Giving her the feeling as if she were dying, weakening, when in fact it was a lie. A trick her body bestowed upon her.

She could have avoided so many things in her life. She could have run away from Avalla and never looked back. Riley would never have gotten hurt, Freya would be happy, Nik… would be…here. If she had run away as a child, she would never have known betrayal, never met him.

So many what ifs, so many paths she could’ve taken if she had known. She closed her eyes, getting caught in a half-asleep state, falling back into another memory.

Tatianna clutched tightly onto the rugged stick, her small hand barely able to fully grip the wood. Her breaths were rigid as she struggled to breathe through her rapid heartbeat. A couple of bruises were forming along her arms.

“Almost done, just keep pushing yourself,” he said from in front of her.

“It’s heavy,” she pouted, trying to keep the stick up.

“And you are strong, Warbeta. Show me your strength,” he said. She took in a breath before raising her stick up, swinging it down on the man who easily blocked the attack.

She swung again and again before her opponent tripped her feet and she fell to the floor. She wanted to cry, not in sadness nor pain, but out of frustration.

“Remember what I said, small movements. Big ones make your attacks obvious, small and effective,” he told her.

She dropped the stick and crossed her legs. “Why is it so hard?” she asked him, looking at his much larger frame.

“Because if it were easy, everyone would be able to do it. Just remember how strong you are and you can push through it, ok?”

She nodded her head before he helped her to her feet.

“One last round then we go find something to eat, ok?” He said. The little girl nodded her head and the two sticks clashed against each other once again.

Her surroundings came back into view as soon as her eyes snapped open. She looked around into the night, noting Tyrion’s calm sleeping state. However, Kaycion’s position on the floor was empty. She sat upright immediately and looked around, her Elven eyes picking up on the smallest amount of photons to see clearly.

A light wind pushed the barren dirt onto her legs just before she could stand up. Once on her feet, she was able to scan her surroundings better, spotting Kaycion not too far away, staring at the moon like a beacon in the starry-eyed sky.

She was going to leave him be, maybe try to get some sleep herself. But instead, she took a step forward, then another, till her footprints led to right behind the exhausted Fae.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked. As she expected he didn’t reply. He hadn’t said a word to her. She thought back to her state of mind when she was first let out of that ghastly dungeon. Was he hearing the voices too? Did they also come for him in his sleep? Did it hurt for him to talk, to walk, to wake up from his mind’s allusions?

She was never very good with deep emotional conversations, she never knew how to comfort someone having spent most of her life with no one to comfort. But seeing this broken Fae…she wanted to help because if it were her, she would want someone to save her from herself.

“I…I only know a small part of what you are going through. I don’t know you, you have no reason to trust me at all. I wouldn’t trust me. But I do know that right now you are in a lot of pain, probably more than you are letting your heart feel. I guess what I am trying to say, is that it doesn’t go away. It stays with you, over time that pain just becomes a dim spot in your life. Don’t forget about all the light that shines around that one dim spot,” she told him, slightly cringing at her words. Did they even make sense? To her they did, but she was never good at expressing herself.

He said nothing in reply, he didn’t even move in recognition. She looked over at the moon that was livid in blue light. The longer she stared the more tired she became. When she finally turned her head away from the distant rock, she saw Kaycion staring at her with his empty grey eyes. She gave him a questioning look before he spoke his first words to her. “Go away.” His voice was deeper than she expected, with a slight roughness that stirred her stomach slightly.

She rolled her eyes at him before turning back to where her spot on the floor was. He was so far gone that she had no idea how to pull him back. If anyone could do it, she knew it would be Tyrion. She tried, she failed, and now she will move on. With that Tatianna finally closed her eyes and fell asleep.

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“Wake up,” a male said. Tatianna opened her eyes to see Tyrion’s body blocking out the sun.

She rolled over and stood up not as gracefully as she hoped, but still, she managed to get onto her feet. “My stomach kept grumbling all night,” she complained.

“Yeah well, we are about halfway so not too many weeks now,” Tyrion said.

She stretched out her arms and legs before Tyrion motioned for her to walk over near a small hill.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Lesson number two,” he said. “Sit.”

She sighed and took a seat on the rocky floor that scratched parts of her skin. Nylif was sitting down beside her, Tatianna cringed slightly at the minute cuts that littered her skin from the terrain.

Tyrion however remained standing, his white wings reflecting in the sunlight almost blinding her when she looked up at him. She wished she had a way to dim the sun. Could magic do that?

“This lesson is perhaps the most important of all,” he said.

She gave him a pointed look, wondering if he would continue speaking or just stand there dramatically. He sighed and pressed his hand against his forehead. “What I have to say is life or death. Magic is…so many things and as I previously explained it is energy that we take from our surroundings. However us magic welders have a saying, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You can’t just take away that energy without a consequence. the things you are taking it from die, and if there is nothing but yourself to take from, you die. We are immortal unless we push ourselves too far. I have given it a bit of thought…and this is the only circumstance in that I believe you could die beside some weird-ass Dark Land creature. Cast a spell that you are not ready for, a spell that is impossible, you can turn everything around you and yourself to ash.” Tyrion paused and looked around their surroundings. She could die. She almost sighed in relief. She could die but it may kill everything around her if she was understanding him correctly.

“I want you to reach down and stretch out your mind to the land beneath your fingers.”

She looked at him confused, “And how do I do that?”

“Close your eyes.” She did as he said, feeling more awkward than magical but even so she complied. “There is a barrier within your conscious, a wall. Push against it, you need to want to break it. You need to channel your emotions like daggers into that wall and then reach out towards the ground and feel,” he directed.

She tried to search for this supposed barrier, growing more frustrated with each passing minute unable to find it. The more time that passed the more she wanted to give up, but that wasn’t her. She was determined to find it and kept probing getting even more frustrated. Until she realised, that was the very barrier she was looking for, the one that haltered her mind, that caused the frustration. She took in a deep breath and struck. Her head pounded as she attacked the wall. Bit by bit, she felt something break down. She felt herself be…free. It was as if she was emancipated from the rules and slavery of her own mind.

Then she reached out through her fingers, poking feeling for something within the ground. There was nothing, it was almost disappointing.

She snapped her eyes open and stared at Tyrion’s expecting face. “There’s…nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Can you figure out why that might be?” he asked.

She thought long and hard, still feeling the land’s emptiness at the back of her mind. “Someone used all the energy here, depleted it,” she replied eventually looking out towards the lifeless area.

“I’ve heard stories from my parents and other older Elves and Fae. This was once a land filled with lakes and flowers and grasses. A few trees and many farmers lived on these lands, until the war. Most people believe that it was bloodshed that scorned the ground, but it was magic. In every battle, the Elves drew upon it for strength until there was nothing left. After they realised what they had done, they ensured that Lyracris was the largest and most flourishing forest land in existence.”

“That sounds horrible,” she said.

Tyrion paused to look over at Kaycion. “War is horrible,” he replied.