Unable to come up with anything, I extended one hand toward Ava’s back, asking, “May I?”
She glanced over her shoulder at me to see what I was asking, and gods, just the way she looked at me… she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. My face flushed, and to make it even worse, she huffed amusedly and said in a light enough tone that it was almost like old times, “Is this an excuse for you to get your hands on me?”
And just like old times, my cheeks shaded darker. I blushed so deeply, and even if she’d only said it to ease the tension, it was such a relief to have her actually tease me that I chuckled, dropping my head with embarrassment. “What a surprise,” I said, “you’re cruel as ever.” She gave a small smile but didn’t say anything else, so I motioned to her back again. “So…?”
She nodded, and I set one hand to her back to run it down the scar. It was smooth to the touch, and I felt more of the magic than I had before as I traced the outline of the crow, but it still wasn’t enough for me to be able to manipulate it. The corruption was buried deep in her blood, too deep for me to control. I sighed and dropped my hand with defeat.
“It’s not working,” I complained, reaching up to grab the dragon pendant around my neck. “I could only control it when it was active.” Ava turned and pursed her lips with a smile, as if to tell me it was alright even though her eyes were full of disappointment, and she began to put her tunic back on. “Wait,” I blurted, reaching out to stop her with an idea. “Do you remember when I first got this necklace? You touched it, and saw Hazlitt.”
She hummed a confirmation, glancing back at me while it sank in what I was suggesting. That she touch my necklace, which was warded against dark magic, in order to activate her scar. “Kiena, no.”
“You won’t hurt me,” I said, but she didn’t look like she believed it. “I promise, Ava, I can control it when it’s active. I know I can.” I pulled the necklace over my head and held it out. “Neither of us will be in danger.”
For a long minute while I held it out to her, she simply glanced back and forth between it and me. There was a severe amount of reluctance on her face, but I must have appeared confident enough for her to trust me, because she let out a heavy sigh, turning back around and holding her hand out in front of her.
I leaned close to her to extend my arm over her shoulder, lining the necklace up with her hand. It put my face just beside hers, and the only time I’d been this near to her the last few days was when she came to me at night. “I won’t hurt you either.”
She turned her head enough to look at me, and she was so close. I wanted things to be like they used to. Wanted to feel comfortable being this near, wanted to know that I could set my forehead against hers or kiss her. But she was finally speaking to me, and for now, I had to be satisfied with that.
Her blue eyes met mine as she said, “It’s not me I’m concerned for.”
There was no reason for her to worry about me, so I glanced toward her hand. “Ready?” I asked. She nodded. “Try and hold on to it.”
When she nodded again, I dropped the pendant into her open palm. Like the first time this happened, a spark shot into her flesh, and despite the painful gasp as her eyes and scar illuminated red, she closed her fingers around the necklace. And now I could feel it, just as well as I’d been able to in Northpond. I could sense all the magic in her blood as powerfully as if I could see it with my eyes. I could latch on to it as simply, control it as easily. Unlike Northpond, however, now I didn’t just have to control Hazlitt with the power. I had to change it, transform it, and that was something I hadn’t yet done with my new magic.
Closing my eyes, I focused while I reached out with both hands, setting my palms against the glowing scar. The moment I touched it, I was ripped into Ava’s vision. I could see what she was seeing—Hazlitt—and we saw what he did. He was in his military tent, probably outside Cornwall, staring wide-eyed into a tall looking glass. And more satisfying than being able to force myself into their link was that I could see the fear on his face when he realized it. When he felt my presence and realized that I wasn’t dead. I wish I could’ve spoken to him. Wish I could’ve told him that he’d only made me more determined than ever, but the link didn’t work like that, and I didn’t want to waste any time or give him a chance to thwart me.
Though I kept my eyes closed, I forced myself out of the vision in order to devote all my focus to the magic itself. It was more powerful than the link with the commander had been. I don’t know why, but Hazlitt had needed more magic, stronger magic in order to create his connection of control over Ava—perhaps that’s why her scar was so much larger—and I could feel the depth of it swirling in my head. There was no knowledge or experience to tell me what I should do. It wasn’t possible for me to cure corruption and darkness, I could only change it, and thus, I couldn’t cure Ava of the magic. The only thing that made any sense was taking control from Hazlitt and giving it to her.
Though I’d left the vision, I knew Ava was still there, and I could feel her pulse in the silence of the room around us. Her heart was racing, and I could only imagine it was because of Hazlitt. He’d been cruel to her for her whole life, controlled her to make her kill her true father, locked her away for six months, and then tried using her to kill me. I wasn’t sure whether it was rage, or terror, or anxiety, or even a combination of the three, but her heartbeat was out of control. She wanted out of the vision, out of the magic. Even if she was determined not to let go of my necklace, in my hold on the power, I could feel her desperately pulling away.
In order to separate her from it as fast as I could, I put all my concentration on Hazlitt, and on what he felt like in the connection. Like I had with the commander, I locked in on Hazlitt’s power and gripped it, but this time I didn’t hold him there. Once I had it, I directed all my will on forcing him out for good, on severing his end of the connection so all that’d be left was Ava. I wasn’t sure whether Hazlitt was fighting it, but breaking his tie permanently was so much harder than simply forcing him out like I’d done when he stabbed me.
It was a true test of my abilities, and the strain of the effort I was putting into fighting his power and ignoring the stress of Ava’s heartbeat… it was exhausting. A sheen of sweat began to cool my forehead. Behind that, a dull ache settled in at the center of my skull, and there was no work being done in my chest, but the soreness in it was intensifying almost more than I could stand. But I nearly had it, and so I panted for air and pushed on, putting every mental effort toward transforming Hazlitt’s end.
Then all at once it was gone. Hazlitt was gone. I couldn’t feel him, and when I tapped into Ava’s vision, I couldn’t see him. At the same moment I sensed his power explode from her with a violent burst of energy, Ava let out a sharp cry of pain. It wasn’t in her blood anymore, or in the scar. I could feel the physical thickness of the aura that had escaped into the room, like a chaotic fog against my skin. I opened my eyes to check on Ava, and even though she’d dropped the necklace from her hand, she was still glowing. The scar on her back was still a bright red despite that the connection had been severed and Hazlitt wasn’t around anymore.
I was panicking. Her heart was racing faster than ever, and at such a pace that I knew it to be nothing other than pain and terror. She’d trusted me to do this, and something was wrong. Snapping my eyes shut, I did my best to block out my growing hysteria and focus on the unbound energy in the infirmary. I expanded my grasp to seize it all, and then I compressed it. I reeled it in to begin willing it all back into Ava, hoping more than anything that it would do what I wanted and give her control.