Tyrant in the Shadows

Part 11

Miriam and Julie had been put in a lean-to for the time being. Miriam had heard the tiny outburst about Julie's eyes. She knew it was reasonable to wonder but it made her uncomfortable. Because, of course, she knew what Julie's powers were. And she didn't want them to be used to fight like everyone else's was. Julie's power was that of souls. She could look into a soul and see what was in that soul. Even the shadows. They were souls. Knowing that, it scared Miriam. 

What had happened to those souls to turn them into something so evil?

Julie had told Miriam that there were souls on the battlefield. They weren't with their bodies anymore. They had left. Julie didn't know what that meant. She said she saw our family. Henry and Mom and Dad. 

Not too long after the two had settled down and eaten, chaos erupted at the outpost. 

"Unstable..."

"Senior officer's student!?"

"Partner died..."

Bits and pieces of sentences were caught by Miriam's keen hearing.

"Stay here," she told Julie, and left.

An officer, or maybe it was a student, Miriam didn't know, almost ran into her and apologized quickly. A healer who was ordered to watch over the two girls was the next person to run into Miriam.

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked, crossing her arms, "You are exhausted thoroughly. More than thoroughly. You need to rest."

"No. I need to know what's going on. Tell me what's going on and I'll rest. Don't and I'll figure it out on my own. Sophia is the one that brought me to the transport. She was there yesterday when the shadow caught me. I need to know."

The healer sighs, "When someone loses someone they care about... there's a possibility they will  become unstable with their powers. The last time it happened a girl miscarried when she was injured during a battle. She was a life giver, meaning she grew plants. The plants she grew when her powers became unstable were dangerous. Deadly nightshade, poison oak... many more that can be dangerous when inhaled. We don't know what will happen with an unstable teleporter."

"So Sophia did lose someone? Who?"

"Her partner."

The woman's voice sounded heavy. Miriam knew partners meant something, she thought her battle partner, "Partner?"

"It would be like her husband. Well, almost. They would've been officially partners when they graduated."

"Oh... I guess that makes sense?"

She sighs, looking up, "Partner bonds are deep. Deeper than your average couple. They have the greatest level of possible trust. They have to know they can trust each other on a battlefield. It's... partners don't argue. That's one of the tests... it's complicated."

"Oh," Miriam didn't know what else to say, "Well. We made a deal. I'll go rest." 

So she did. She went into her lean-to and sat down, looking to her little sister. Could she have stopped this?

...

Ivan and Delaney were on the verge of losing it. They could not lose another student. Not Sophia. But they couldn't find her. Where was she? How could they miss a whole bed? Unless she wasn't in the outpost. That would mean she was so unstable her body couldn't control how much she was doing.

"Ivan," Delaney said, eyes wide, "The devices we use to track shadows. We can track people with them. If she's not in this outpost, we can find her."

Ivan nodded and they ran together to the control room where the technology was.

"We need a fifty mile radius search for a potential."

"Level- moderate. Power- teleportation."

The techs nodded and quickly followed their senior officer's instructions. 

"Wow," the tech watching the sonar muttered, "She's really unstable."

Ivan and Delaney moved as one to watch the sonar. There was a single dot on the device. Well, a single dot outside the dots grouped together in the outpost. It was bouncing around the map, its location changing every second nearly.

"If she's that unstable, her body might not shut down when it needs to..." Delaney starts in a choked voice.

"She's going to kill herself," Ivan finishes, closing his eyes. 

A/N

I'm putting an author's not because I didn't want there to be 666 words exactly in this chapter.