Allegiance (Causal Enchantment #3)(93)
The Fate with Earth in her pocket smiled. “Because you are special.”
My head cocked in surprise, not expecting that answer. “In what way?”
She didn’t answer my question. Instead, she asked one of her own. “Do you not wonder why you are so powerful? Where your magic comes from? Why you can do things with ease that other sorceresses seem unable to even consider?”
“Yes,” I answered truthfully. Countless times, in fact. But I’d always shrugged it off as the result of being more experimental than the typical witch. Reckless, Nathan used to call me …
A ring of laughter surrounded me, like a melodious tune carried in a breeze. “You are reckless.” She was reading my mind again. The female with Earth stepped forward, bare toes sliding under the tiny worlds. They spilled and rolled off her feet and ankles as she slipped through, unconcerned about breaking any of them. “But you are also unique.” Her hands lifted to her chest in meaning. “I gave you your extraordinary power … my child.”
Those last two words slammed into me, almost knocking me off my pedestal and my mouth struggled to form words. In reality, if she considered herself a god, then she’d consider all people her children, and yet a stir in my gut told me there was more to it than that.
“Yes,” she crooned, answering my thoughts. “You are my child. One of mine.”
“No …,” I responded slowly, straining to grab hold of flashes of a pretty auburn-haired French lady taking a wire brush to my own red locks. Mama … such a gentle, young woman …
“She was merely a vessel,” the Fate answered, her voice turning icy cold.
“A vessel who gave birth to me and raised me? Whose genes and eyes and nose I share?” I threw back, anger sharpening my tone over her disrespect for Mama.
The Fate smiled as I would imagine a mother smiling at her four-year-old child when she said something silly. “You are my child. I chose you.”
“Why? Why did you choose me?”
Another round of melodious laughter. “Why not?”
A spike of irritation raced through me. I wasn’t going to get a straight answer from them, and yet this was my only chance to get any answers. I decided to probe differently, even though it was futile given they could read my mind. “All four of you gave it to me? Or just one of you?”
The Fate cocked her head to the right. “Numbers are subjective, aren’t they?” In the blink of an eye, the group of four Fates multiplied into dozens of long-haired forms. I blinked and shook my head to focus. When I did, they now numbered in the hundreds. Then, just as quickly, they all vanished, leaving only four.
I worked hard to school my expression.“Neat parlor trick.” Awe and annoyance competed for my attention. If my attitude bothered them, they didn’t let on.
With a stone-faced gesture, she pointed to the man to her left. “Meet Incendia.”
I felt my brow furrow as I translated the word. It was familiar. Latin. Incendia … that means … A flaming rope lashed toward me from the male Fate’s fingertips, quickly coiling around my arms, snaking over my torso, until my entire body was engulfed in flame. Before I had a chance to scream, the flames disappeared. “Fire …” I finished my thought as a gasp, swallowing my panic.
“This is Ventus,” she continued, pointing to the other female Fate next to Incendia. I looked to Ventus to see only a tiny smile before her body twisted and morphed into a miniature tornadic funnel. She slammed into me, lifting me off my feet, that deafening freight train sound filling my ears again. As with Incendia before, the funnel suddenly disappeared, dropping me safely onto my circular platform. “Wind,” I translated for myself.
“Unda is behind you.” I barely turned before a giant wall of water crashed into me, sending me flying backwards, flipping head over heels as if caught in the base of a waterfall. I sensed my body plummet to the depths of the universe with no hope of resurface. In another instant, I was standing on my feet on the platform again, not an inch of me damp.
I only just had time to gather my bearings before a mountain of soil rained down on me from above, entombing me, cutting off all access to the oxygen my mortal shape required. I waited for the soil to vanish. I prayed for it to vanish. Just when I thought I’d met my breaking point, just when I was sure I would pass out from lack of oxygen, the dirt fell away to reveal the female Fate once again.
“And I am Terra,” she stated, with the tiny globe in her hand again. Earth …
With a bead of sweat running down my back, I appraised all four of them again. Fire, wind, water, earth. The four elements. They were what magic embodied. All powerful. All deadly. And based on their greetings, all violent. I paused to calm my nerves.
“So there are four of you?” I asked again.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
Perhaps four Fates. Two female, two male …
“Do not dare label us,” Terra warned, crispness in her voice as she plucked thoughts out of my head. “We can be whatever we want, whomever we want. We aren’t bound by your laws.” Instantly, the four of them morphed and eight scaly, enormous dragons appeared in their place, kaleidoscopic snake eyes watching me with evil intent, as puffs of flame escaped their nostrils.
“You’re …,” I began to speak and they quickly morphed into four different creatures: Incendia, a bear; Ventus, a mermaid; Unda, a gigantic tarantula; and Terra, an alienlike creature. All different, but all maintaining those same variegated eyes through their transformations.