Awakening - The Last Science #1

Chapter 15 - The Heart of a Leader - II

  It felt like they'd traveled miles, but it had only taken a few more minutes to reach Cinza's little enclave. As Rachel emerged through the trees, she had to shade her eyes from the burst of sunlight through the open air. She surveyed the place in awe, as she hadn't expected such a cultivated and developed home for Cinza and her followers.

  There were a couple small cabins, made of the same wood as the forest, sitting at the far end, while scattered tents dotted around the rest of the wide expanse lay at the points of what Rachel realized to be the same eight-pointed star symbol as the book, and as Cinza wore around her neck. The logs for the cabins looked too natural somehow, and Rachel suspected they'd been placed there with magical means. However, it was the centerpiece of the domain which really caught her attention.

  There were rows of plants in the center of the clearing, alongside a stream that crossed through from one end to the other, providing a gentle backdrop of trickling water to the birdsong and other sounds of the forest around them. A few people were crouched amongst the field, checking plants and pulling up those that were ready to harvest.

  Cinza herself was among them. It was one of the few times Rachel had ever seen her without her robes. Instead, she was dressed in jeans and a light t-shirt, though her charms and necklaces still shone and glittered off the caught sunlight. She had soil caking her hands and knees and sweat clear on her brow, but the girl looked quite satisfied. All in all, it looked like a productive and perfectly ordinary farm—except that it should have been impossible.

  After realizing they were under siege, Rachel had done a bit of research into ways to sustain themselves cut off from the world. From what she had read, a farm in such conditions as these—a thick forest full of competitive plants, relatively low temperatures and much less direct sunlight available due to the canopy of branches and leaves—should not have been remotely successful. Yet as Rachel watched, one of Cinza's companions pulled up several large healthy harvests and carried them away to be stored. Cinza herself was still busy working the field while Rachel approached, and Rachel could tell she was being deliberately ignored for effect. She sat down on a nearby folding chair, curious to see what the girl had to show off.

  Cinza knelt back on her feet and closed her eyes. Her small hands clenched hard as she exerted herself, drawing some form of energy out into the surroundings. Rachel wished she could see magic in action as Will could, but her ability to view connections only extended to relationships and emotional reactions, and she doubted Cinza would reveal her secrets willingly. Instead, she had to guess at what the girl might be doing while she sat in what looked like deep, intense prayer.

  A ray of sunlight shot down from the canopy, visible through the particles in the air. It looked as though it were bending in midair as it landed on the plants, lighting them up where before they had been in shadow. Cinza's eyes remained closed, and the light intensity increased. The plants before her, which she had just laid in the ground and buried only moments before, sprouted immediately. It was as though someone had sped up a video in front of Cinza, watching the leaves and stem poke out of the soil and reach for the lifegiving sunlight. A moment later, however, Cinza opened her eyes and the growth came to a halt as quickly as it had begun.

  She let out a deep breath, then finally looked up to Rachel with a knowing smile. Her large, dark eyes sparkled with mischief, as if Cinza were a child doing something wrong, but knowing she was going to get away with it. "What do you think?"

  "I get the wave redirection, but how do you manage to speed it up?" Rachel asked, leaning forward.

  "Now, how could I give away such a valuable secret?" Cinza replied smugly. She turned to her follower further down the field, a thirty-something who looked like a man straight out of a picturesque farm, with the requisite floppy hat, straw in his teeth, and sun-beaten skin. "Aaron, finish up here for me please? I need to speak with our guest."