Beyond The Shadows (Shadows Saga bk3) ON HOLD

Chapter 10- First Try

Mara stood in the center of the village looking around at the mountains of boxes around the houses. Mara was hitting her head and cursing herself. She'd thought of getting everyone to the kingdom, but she'd never really considered getting all the boxes there.

Marx, she tried sending a message to him through the bond they now shared.

She was met with silence, and she wondered if maybe she wasn't doing something right. She still didn't really have a handle on how all of it worked.

What's going on? She finally heard his voice in her head. A whispered question that went directly to her mind. Mara's shoulders relaxed slightly.

I failed to cover all the basics. How am I supposed to get all the stuff over? The people can walk through the portal. The boxes will have to go separately, but we don't know where everyone will be yet.

There was more silence on his end and Mara started to bite her lip. She could hear the people behind her. They were all waiting for her next move. Everyone watching her intently. She tried to keep the tension out of her posture, but she wasn't sure if she was succeeding.

"Are we going?" A man asked from the massive crowd.

"Yeah, I thought you were going to send us over there," another shouted.

Murmurs soon followed the two who had spoken up. Mara had no idea what she was supposed to do. She shut her eyes tightly, her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. Her confidence was slipping; she couldn't even do something as simple as moving a village.

Never mind that moving an entire village was anything but simple, Mara thought it should be something she should be able to do easily.

Anger at herself started to swell within and Mara could feel the prick of the wolfish nails in her palm. She took a deep, steadying breath. And she heard Marx come through the bond again.

Just send them over like you were going to. We'll have witches here who can move them to their own homes and we'll have plenty of men accessible to move them manually. Just calm down and stop putting so much pressure on yourself, you're doing just fine.

I am calm, she half snapped, but a small smile spread across her face. Marx made her realize how ridiculous she was being. Even so, you never tell a woman to calm down.

"Don't touch that, Miko," Mara heard a woman say sternly. "Miko, stop playing around and leave those- Miko!"

Mara only had enough time to turn around and see the pile of boxes that started to tumble. A child had been grabbing from the middle of the stack and it had been enough to break the balance of every other box.

It was like everything happened in slow motion. She watched as every head started to turn toward the sound. Mara's arms flung out toward the child and the collapsing mound. She couldn't think but she felt the power coursing through her and she watched as everything froze mid-air.

The child, who had fallen to the ground, scrambled away and toward his mother, clutching onto her skirts for dear life.

Mara's chest heaved up and down and her heart pounded so hard she could feel it through her entire body. She wasn't sure how her power had worked; she hadn't taken the steps necessary to direct it to do what she wanted. It had just... happened.

Mara let out a slow hissing breath before using her powers to rearrange the boxes into a more secure position. All eyes were now on her as she did, the people staring at her in awe. They knew she had powerful magic, but none of them had been able to do what she had. Not even the mother who had seen everything unfold had been magically fast enough to stop the toppling mound. It had been a true display of the magic that she possessed, the magic that Mara was realizing she still knew little about.