Elven Legacy

Chapter 46

Tessa

She stood, exhausted and shivering, in Blackhill Cemetary in the small hours before dawn.

Today would mark the ninth day since their little party of five had left Fellera. And Tessa had just spent the past couple of days flying across the continent on her phoenix, only to make her wary way back to cold, cold Veicira.

It wasn't that cold, to be fair. It was autumn, after all, not winter. Shivers and shudders raked through her only because she'd been spending the past week in the Empire and in wonderfully warm Chyulin.

Granted, her weakened trembling state could also have something to do with the fact that she hadn't eaten in . . . the gods only knew how long.

She glanced up at a ghastly dark sky – a new moon tonight, she realized. No celestial aid to light her path.

Tessa raised her gloved hands, letting them escape from the cloak. Twin blue flames appeared in them, leaping up and dancing in the night air. Using magic warmed her body – yet another marvelous perk.

She cast a glance at her gloomy surroundings. She'd landed halfway up a short hill of damp grass, a tombstone cresting its highest point. All lay thickly quiet, save for the distant hoot of an owl, and perhaps the scurrying of small animals. Or it could've been simply the night wind, rustling grass and leaves.

The air smelled like damp earth with an undercurrent of smoke, almost like snow was on its way.

Welcome home, Tess.

She climbed the rest of the way up the hill, stomping the grass with her black boots, pleased that she'd landed so close to her quarry. Steely determination in her steps, she reached the top in no time, and stopped two yards away from the tombstone.

The slab of stone appeared to gleam, pale and bluish in her flames' light. She shivered, casting a quick, nervous glance about. She appeared to stand alone amidst the dark cemetery, nothing but tombstones lined up all around her and disappearing into distant blackness.

Tessa used to come here quite often, one summer ago, to visit her father's grave. However, that was to the other side of the Blackhill Cemetary. The royals' section, of course. Where she'd hired exquisitely talented gardeners to tend the countless, profuse flowerbeds in Fellera's warmer months.

Matt's grave . . . well. Its last visitors had most likely been Jaden and Moira. Roses were laid at the foot of the stone, withered by now.

She let go her flames, focused instead on the earth beneath her feet. She let Karma's magic within intensify, felt the roaring surge of power, and she smirked.

No longer cold, Tessa freed threads of magic, then made them sink into the earth like elongated claws. She folded her knees slightly, as if bracing herself for a blow. She clenched her fists.

It's your lucky day, Matt.

Tessa breathed in deeply, out completely, and through it her body trembled with the rushes of energy that suffused her, heightening, expanding. It pulsed and raged across her like so much black fire licking away at her from within, and yet she stood unburned.

She clamped down on the wild powers, pushed the threads and tendrils into the ground, like shadowy snakes that did her bidding so long as she fed them energy.

That's it. Down you go.

Staying focused used up every fragment of her willpower. And yet Tessa felt – as she often had throughout her wretched life – that she had something to prove. To whom, she couldn't be sure. Everyone. Herself. Did it even matter?