Relentless (8 page)

Leesa let out a long sigh. “Yeah, tons of them.” She wiped a single tear from the corner of her eye before it could fall. “C’mon, let’s head back. I’ll bet Mom’s missing us by now.”

Bradley had a feeling there were still things that Leesa wasn’t telling him, but he didn’t push her. He had learned more than enough for now. “You’re probably right. Let’s go.”

14. STRANGE SPIRALS

RAVE LAY STRETCHED OUT
beside Leesa on their sleeping mat, doing one of his favorite things—watching her sleep. His volkaane eyes easily pierced the darkness of their bedroom, allowing him to make out every detail of the face he loved looking at above all others. Caressing her with his eyes was almost as much fun as caressing her with his hands.

She slept peacefully on her back, her lovely features soft and relaxed, her breathing slow and even. Her long blond hair fanned out across the pillow, framing her face in a soft, golden aura. Rave could watch her like this for hours, which he did almost every night. Some nights her sleep seemed troubled, and he wondered what dreams or thoughts might have invaded her sleep. If she didn’t mention a dream in the morning, however, he never asked—better that anything upsetting stay buried in her subconscious.

Tonight was not one of those troubled nights. Leesa had fallen asleep quickly after a round of gentle lovemaking, and her features and breathing had remained quiet and serene. Rave resisted the urge to reach out and stroke her hair—he didn’t want to risk disturbing her.

Out of the corner of his eye, something caught his attention. He shifted his gaze farther down Leesa’s body, blinking twice to make sure he was actually seeing what he thought he was seeing. A faint, soft green glow had begun spiraling up from Leesa’s slightly swollen belly, eventually reaching out several inches above her skin before evaporating into the darkness.

Green was the color Leesa had sensed in their son—clearly, this glow had something to do with him. Moving his hand carefully, Rave edged his fingertips into the light. The energy felt slightly cool to his touch, but that was it. He could not feel the motion that his eyes saw.

Rave had no idea what to make of this new phenomenon, but he knew Leesa would want to see it. He gently nudged her shoulder.

Leesa opened her eyes slowly. “What is it?” she asked groggily. “What’s wrong?”

Rave kept his hand on her shoulder. “Nothing, I hope. I wanted you to see this.” He nodded toward her belly. “Look at your stomach.”

Leesa lifted her head from the pillow and looked down her body. For a moment, she didn’t see anything, but as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw a faint green light swirling up from her stomach. She stared hard at the light—if the bedroom hadn’t been so dark, she probably wouldn’t have been able to see the glow at all. The spiraling pattern was unlike anything she had ever seen before. She had no idea what it meant.

“Do you feel anything different?” Rave asked.

Leesa shook her head. “No…well, maybe just a little bit of warmth. Did you try touching it?”

“Yeah, I did. It felt slightly cool to me, but that’s not unusual. Most things do, because of my heat.”

Leesa reached down and held her hand about an inch above her belly. At this distance, the light had a slight but definite warmth. She kept her hand there, trying to see if she could sense anything else, but she couldn’t. The energy had no feeling to it except for the mild heat.

While her hand still hovered above her skin, the green glow suddenly winked out. Leesa blinked reflexively, then stared at the spot where the light had been, making sure it was gone. She saw only darkness.

She called forth a dim yellow illumination orb, keeping her magic weak enough so it would not risk disturbing the slumbering power beneath the earth. She needed to be able to see Ralin, and Rave as well. Rave was looking at her inquisitively, with a touch of concern in his expression. She released the globe and let it float above the bed.

“Is everything okay?” Rave asked. “With you and with the baby?”

“I think so. Let me check to make sure.”

Leesa turned her focus inward, toward the growing child inside her. Everything seemed to be the same as it had been since she realized she was pregnant. The energy grew a little bit stronger every day, but was otherwise unchanged. The recent display did not seem to have altered it at all.

“The baby’s fine,” she said. “Nothing’s changed that I can tell.”

“What was that, then? Do you have any idea?”

Leesa shook her head. “It was from the baby, of course. Why it occurred tonight, and what that spiral pattern means, I have no idea. In all my time with Dominic, I never saw magical energy behave in that way.”

“The pattern seemed so precise, so organized,” Rave mused. “Could our son possibly have been directing it?”

Leesa frowned. “I don’t see how. He’s not even two months old yet.” Rave was right, though. The pattern had been far too organized to have been anything random. Just because it was organized, however, did not mean it had been purposeful.

“I suspect we may have to get used to this,” Rave said. “I doubt this is going to be a one-time occurrence.”

“I think you’re probably right.” Leesa thought back to the syrup she’d almost spilled a few days ago. Could the two events be connected? What if it wasn’t her magic acting up that had caused the pitcher to move? What if it had been her son’s magic instead? The ramifications of that were not something she wanted to think about, but she knew she could not ignore the possibility. She was suddenly struck by another equally disturbing thought: what if the next surprise occurred out in public somewhere? She doubted the energy they had witnessed tonight could have been seen in broad daylight, but her baby’s magic would almost certainly grow stronger as the weeks and months passed. She was going to have to be very careful from now on.

She shared her concerns with Rave.

“You’re right,” he said when she had finished. “You’re going to have to be extra careful. You’ll be fine here with my people, and with Bradley and Cali, of course. You might want to think about telling you mom about your magic, so we won’t have to worry when we’re visiting.”

“I guess you’re right about my mom. I’ll have to tell her about the baby soon anyhow, so I may as well tell her the whole story when I do.”

Rave smiled. “It’s too bad we don’t know the whole story. Like what the heck that spiral pattern meant.”

“Yeah, that would be nice, for sure. I’ll see if I can find anything similar in my magic book tomorrow. But right now, I need to get some more sleep.” She grinned. “I’m not a volkaane, you know.”

Rave bent his head forward and kissed her softly upon the lips. “Sweet dreams, my love.”

“Mmmmm….” Leesa extinguished her illumination globe and closed her eyes. “They will be now, I think.”

15. RECURRENCE

TWO WEEKS LATER, IT HAPPENED AGAIN.

Leesa’s book had not shown her anything about the spiral energy pattern, despite many attempts by her to learn something. The magical tome usually seemed able to read her mind—no matter where Leesa opened the book when she was looking for a specific spell, the spell she sought would be there. Sometimes, when she wasn’t looking for anything specific, the book would present her with a new spell it either thought Leesa was ready for or that she needed.

Now and then, though, the pages she opened to would be blank. Dominic had explained that empty pages could mean one of two things: either the spell did not exist, or the book did not think Leesa was ready yet for that particular magic. Leesa had no idea which one applied when she opened her book to a pair of blank pages the morning after the glowing green energy had swirled upward from her belly. She had no doubt that the magic existed—both she and Rave had witnessed it—but it was possible her baby possessed a new type of power unknown to the waziri book, the result of volkaane magic mixing with female waziri magic. It was also possible the book simply felt she wasn’t ready for the knowledge.

She had tried again every morning for the next week. Each day, more empty pages greeted her. Midway through the second week, though, a new variation of magic energy blasts presented itself when she opened the book. Leesa hadn’t been looking for anything of the sort and didn’t know what use it might be to her, but she trusted the book’s decision to show her this new variation and was doing her best to perfect it.

Today, she and Rave had returned to one of her favorite practice spots, the clearing in the woods near Higganum with the wide stream flowing next to it. Augmented by two recent storms, the rivulet was flowing fiercely over its rocky bed, almost overflowing its banks as it did so. Cali wasn’t with them this afternoon, but Leesa still smiled every time she saw the small rock Cali had marked with her magic blasts. The surging water almost covered the stone, but she could still see some of the marks Cali’s magic had left behind.

Her new spell involved firing staccato energy bolts so short and so narrow they were virtually invisible. When she had first attempted it three days ago by firing at a large boulder, she had tried for two hours with no success. She had been about to give up when, on her final attempt, Rave had leaped up off the rock he’d been sitting on.

“You did it!” he cried.

Leesa had looked at him dumbfounded. She hadn’t seen a thing, and the surface of the boulder remained unblemished.  “Are you sure?”

“I saw it,” Rave assured her. “It looked like a dozen miniature stars streaking through the air. Every one of them hit the stone.”

Leesa had examined the rock again, finding no marks. She trusted that Rave’s volkaane vision had indeed seen something, and guessed that the tiny bolts were too weak to have left a mark. At their present strength the bolts would be of little use, but she trusted that they would grow more powerful with lots of practice.

The next day, the same thing had happened, until Rave pointed to the smooth trunk of a fallen tree and suggested she aim at a softer surface. Leesa still couldn’t see her bolts, but they left indisputable evidence in the form of tiny pinpricks in the wood. She wasn’t sure if she would ever be able to see the energy blasts—she thought that might be the whole point of them—but seeing tangible results gave her increased confidence as she continued to practice. Her goal for today was to try to bore holes in the harder surface of a rock.

She chose a large boulder near the edge of the stream as her target so she would be able to get close enough to see if her bolts had penetrated it.

Standing ten feet from the rock, she held her right palm out toward the stone. The difficulty with this task was similar to the challenges she had experienced when learning the air shield spell—she had to try to visualize something she couldn’t see. She used a similar technique now, picturing tiny glass beads shooting from her hand to the rock.

When she was done, she turned to Rave for confirmation, since she couldn’t see the energy herself. Doing so was quicker than walking to the stone, and would be less disappointing if she had failed.

“Did I do it? Could you see them? Did they hit the rock?”

Rave nodded from his perch on the fallen log. “Yes, you did it. They were tiny and faintly yellow—twenty of them, at least. Every one of them hit the rock.”

Leesa smiled, ready now for the most important question. “Did they make any holes?”

Rave tried to keep his expression blank. “It’s pretty hard to see from way over here. Why don’t you go check? You’re not getting lazy on me, are you?”

Leesa’s smile widened. She knew Rave wouldn’t tease her like this if she had failed. She hurried over to the boulder.

More than a dozen tiny holes marked the otherwise smooth surface, as if the rock had been struck by a blast of miniature buckshot. Leesa ran her fingers over the holes—they were so small she couldn’t even tell how deep they were.

She turned to Rave. “Speaking of lazy, get your butt over here. I need those volkaane eyes to tell me how deep these holes are.”

Rave hopped off the log and crossed over to the edge of stream. He studied the boulder for a moment, then turned to Leesa and held his thumb and index finger so close together they were almost touching.

“They’re not very deep,” he said. “Only about this far in.”

Leesa pushed away any feelings of disappointment. Her goal had been to blast some holes into the rock, and that’s exactly what she had just done. It didn’t really matter how shallow they were. As with all her other magic, she knew this trick would get stronger with practice.

“I’m going to try again, from a little closer this time.” A determined look washed over her face. “By the time I’m done with this rock, it just might crumble apart from all the holes I’m going to drill in it.”

Rave smiled. “That’s the wizard I know and love.” He moved back a few steps but remained standing behind Leesa.

Leesa focused on the rock again, sending more invisible blasts at it. When she was finished, Rave began to step forward to check the stone again, but Leesa stopped him by grabbing his forearm.

“Don’t bother. I know I hit it. I don’t even want to know how deep right now, because I’m about to do it again.”

Rave began to back up, but then stopped. His gaze dropped to the front of Leesa’s sweatshirt.

“Ummm…maybe you shouldn’t do it again just yet.”

Leesa followed Rave’s eyes downward. Faint green spirals emanated from her stomach, piercing the material of her sweatshirt seemingly without problem.

“It’s brighter this time, isn’t it?” she asked. “I don’t think I could have seen it in the daylight last time.”

“Yeah. Several fold brighter, at least,” Rave agreed.

While they watched, the spirals disappeared. In their place, glowing green streaks arced out ten or twelve inches from Leesa’s body. They reminded Leesa of roman candles she had seen set off on the Fourth of July, though they were not nearly as profuse or as bright.

Rave carefully eased his hand out in front of the curving tubes of light. Once again, he could feel no motion from them.

“They feel a lot like the first ones,” he reported. “Maybe not quite as cool.”

“Not quite as cool” to Rave meant the light was warmer, Leesa knew. She held her hand out next to his. The arcing streaks stopped when they hit her palm. They were warmer than she remembered, but there was no feeling of power behind them. It felt the same as shining a flashlight on her skin—the beam stopped with no sense of forward motion to it. She wondered if the glow was simply illumination of some kind, similar to her illumination spell. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to it, that there was something she wasn’t capable of sensing or understanding yet.

“It’s definitely warmer,” she said. She let out a long sigh. “I still have no idea what our baby is doing, and I hate that this can occur with no warning. I’d have an awful time explaining it if it happened at the wrong time.”

“I think it might be time to tell your mom about your powers…and that you’re pregnant,” Rave suggested. “Unless you want to stop visiting her for awhile. Seeing something like this without being prepared for it might really freak her out.”

Leesa knew Rave was right. That was not something she would want to deal with. “I think you’re right. Let’s stop by there tonight.”