The wood gave way under my touch. It didn’t break or splinter. It just did what I wanted. The locks lifted up smoothly, unlocking the thick wooden door.
The passageways inside were dim, but when I briefly closed my eyes, I could sense the girls were all in the room I’d left only hours before. Hours before when I’d thought I was a human girl with magic. Before the Emperor kissed me and told me he was the god of war and he was going to have me regardless.
Yeah. Not today.
“They are this way,” I whispered, turning to Heather, but the space where I expected her to be standing was empty. What was with that woman? “On my own then,” I muttered and turned for the passageways. We didn’t have time to waste.
I marched for the large room, sweeping in and finding the girls all reclining, their practice over. They sat up, startled when I came in alone.
Zafina jumped up, swiftly picking her way towards me. “I didn’t think we’d see you again.”
She surprised me by pulling me into a tight hug and I took a moment to wrap my arms around her and give her a squeeze.
“No?”
“I thought you’d be under lock and key once he knew who you were.”
“And do you know who I am?” I pushed back and looked at her shrewdly.
“No. But I have a connection with you. The moment you walked in I could feel it. Like I’d been waiting.”
“I think we all have a connection, but we don’t have time to think about it now. We have to get out of here. The Emperor is going to be furious when I don’t turn up for dinner and, believe me, I think he’s got a tyrannical ego that no one can appreciate quite yet.”
He was the god of war for hell’s sake. How much destruction could he bring down in his need for me and what I could do?
“There is no way out, we’ve been trying.” Zafina cast a worried glance over a group of the younger girls. They were singing softly and clapping their hands together in a game I remembered playing in the playground of my kindergarten in Queens.
“You didn’t have me before,” I told her, in some epic superhero movie statement.
“You are the one, aren’t you?”
My gold rushed in my veins. Burning hot and desperate to please; to heal. “I am. We all are.”
My half-baked plan was simple. Get the girls out, share my power and then they could heal the earth no matter what happened to me.
It was risky. If I ever got back to those standing stones, who knew what I would find on the other side? Fire Stone itself might not exist.
Would Tristan be there? — I didn’t know.
But, if I could heal the earth, make up for my time of absence, then I would. Even if I just made the sea a little bluer and the grass a little greener.
“Come, we don’t have time to waste.” I marched for the centre of the room and sat down on the hard earth. With my energy free it rumbled beneath me, reassuring and dominant.
The god of war would hear. I knew he would.
Placing my hands on the earth, I nodded, telling them all to sit around me. The air rustled with the movement of their dresses and it was only when I felt it cease to move against my face that I knew they were all sat mirroring my pose, waiting for me to do something.
“There is a garden in the palace grounds,” I said. “It smelled heavenly, fresh with soil and blooms. The trees were olive, their branches laden with hard fruits not yet ripe for the picking. Try and feel for the garden. Even if you think you can’t, try.”
I stopped talking for a moment, giving them all the chance to visualise the garden. “There’s a fountain in the centre. It’s round, its tiles smooth and warm. The water is clear, and it chatters as it falls and lands from a tall statue in its centre. It will come to us if we ask it to.”
I hope.
Again, I allowed silence to stretch around me. They’d all be trying, I knew they would. They wanted to get out of here, and it was just another extension of the practice they’d all been sharing anyway.
“I can feel it!” Someone cried.
“I can feel a-a tree,” another girl called. “Its boughs hurt with the weight of the olives.”
“Yes.” I pushed my own hands further into the ground, my fingers sliding so deep that I dug little troughs with my effort. I pushed my golden energy out of me. I knew it wouldn’t go too far, it wouldn’t just rush off and leave me. It was mine after all. I was the goddess of the earth. But it could nurture others, I understood that now. Even down to me healing Mary of her ulcerated leg, that was what I was meant to do. An ancient power. It wasn’t my choice; it was who I was.
I found the tree, also sensing its strain, and then with a jolt of almost electrical recognition I found the girl—my descendent—her own tangible power connected to the roots of the tree. I pushed at her with my energy, hearing her gasp in response. With my eyes still shut, I grinned. Leaving her with the tree, I sought out the fountain and the water it contained. It pushed back at me, just as the water in the bowl had done. I pulled it in, asking it to come to me. Not telling it, I knew instinctively that wasn’t how it worked. I asked and it responded. It met my energy, bubbling almost against me. A little tingle told me someone else was there, so I reached out and spread the golden warmth from within me in that direction.
Soon we’d all be connected. I knew it. I could imagine the power growing, absorbing everything, breaking us out of here.
A loud
