Girl of Bone and Ivy: Book 1 of the Runebreaker Trilogy by Damien Kalan & Scarlet King

Author:Damien Kalan & Scarlet King [Kalan, Damien & King, Scarlet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent
Published: 2021-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

33

Elora

Elora had lost track of how long they’d walked for. Aerin had created a little bubble of warmth around them, stopping Elora’s fingers turning blue and halting the chattering of her teeth entirely. While the magic still unsettled her a little, she was grateful.

“North of here,” Aerin was saying as he walked beside her, the frozen grass crunching beneath his boots. “There’s a plant that I can use in a runecast that will keep us hidden. Properly hidden, this time. I can only assume that my father, or my brother, was responsible for the attack in New York.” He winced.

She shrugged, refusing to think about the loss of her home. The loss of her safety. Now wasn’t the time for tears.

“Can you do it again?”

“Do what?”

“Make plants grow,” Aerin said, as if it was obvious.

“That wasn’t you?”

He laughed, the sound encased in their little bubble. Elora stared at him.

“No.” He raised his brows at her. “I have Autumn magic. That means air and mind. I can’t grow things, or manipulate life. Autumn is the in between. The area between life and death.”

Elora shivered at the description.

“I have no idea how I did it,” she said quietly, unable to digest the fact that she’d done it at all. A seed of excitement had taken root in her when Aerin had first brought up the chance that she’d have magic but she never expected to be faced with it quite so abruptly. It terrified her.

“Try while we walk.”

So she did. They walked and Aerin explained the intricacies of innate magic - focus, envision what you want to happen, connect with the soil, feed life into the dead earth - over and over again until Elora thought her brain would melt out her ears. Frustration set her nerves on edge and she stamped the dead grass beneath her useless shoes.

“I can’t, Aerin!” she snapped. “I have no idea how to do any of this. I wasn’t brought up here! I’m not like you.”

He wasn’t looking at her though. His gaze was rooted to the ground beside her foot. She frowned.

“No, Elora. You’re not.” His voice was breathless and quiet, laced with awe. “You’re something much, much stronger.”

She followed his eyes and pressed her hand over her mouth to stifle the shocked gasp. There, beside her shoe, was a twisted, thorny vine, the once dead grass, white with snow and ice, had thawed and turned green, little daisies unfurling around her.

“Typical,” Aerin joked, grinning so wide his eyes sparkled. He poked at the vine with the toe of his boot. “Couldn’t have grown me a nice rose?”

She gaped at him, fighting the smile that threatened to break through her shock.

Elora bent down and traced the strong stalk of the vine with careful fingers, then plucked one of the daisies from the ground.

“Here,” she said sarcastically, reaching out and resting it behind his ear, the tiny white petals poking through his dark hair. “Happy?”

He blinked at her, his green eyes wide and filled with an emotion Elora was too nervous to place.

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