Element [The Darkling]

Chapter Ten

I sat across from Baghra again, trying to remain patient with her. I drank a tea she instructed me to, and put my hands apart again.

"Now. Call to your fire. Make it burn brighter than some palm flame." Baghra instructed. I put my hands together and summoned the fire, making it burn higher. But from the look on her face, it wasn't enough.

"This is pathetic." She told me, condescension in her tone.

"You could at least try to be encouraging." I retorted tiredly.

"I'm not your mother. But then again, you lost yours." She said, and I glared at her in anger. I knew what she was doing. She was pissing me off to the point where I would use emotions to do what she wanted.

I put my hands apart and burned the flames, but it was only a bit higher than the ones I could do before.

"There she is. Welcome." She told me, but I continued to glare at her. "That tea should be taking effect."

"Seriously?" I asked in annoyance, realizing the old croon had drugged me.

Everything faded to black, and suddenly, I was standing in my old kitchen, watching my Mother shove my younger self under the floor.

"Where are you, child?" Baghra's voice drifted through my head as I stared at my mother, tears welling up in my eyes.

"I'm home." I said, my voice breaking. "I can see her."

"See who?"

"My Mother." I said emotionally, pain in my heart as I observed her. "She was so beautiful."

I watched as she met the Grisha in the front yard, her head held high, and she fought them viciously until the last two standing put her down like an animal.

They tore apart the house looking for me before setting it ablaze and leaving.

When they were gone, I put the fire out using my powers and came out of the woods, running over to my Mother and asking her to wake up.

But she never did. Her hazel eyes stayed forever hidden behind her eyelids, and her mouth never breathed my name again.

"Wait..." I said, noticing that the image of my younger self holding my Mother's body in my arms started to flicker.

"What's happening now?" Baghra asked me.

"Things are changing." I told her. "I'm going somewhere else." I noticed most of the flickering was happening in the burnt doorway and went over to it, hesitantly crossing the threshold.

Instead of entering my home, I was watching myself get caught with Alina and Mal, just as we were about to make a run for it before the testers got to us, back when we were children in Keramzin.