Hidden Spirit

Chapter Twenty-Two: And Unyielding

Amelia sat against her bed and glared at her door. She'd been stuck there for hours. Her energy was back, but she was afraid to try anything. Would Rosa know if she did? Did she have that sense the same as Jed?

If Rosa did by some chance have that ability, she didn't want to think of what would happen if she did try to summon something.

Amelia glanced out the window, where blackness dominated every sense of landscape. The only light in her room came from the dying candle on the table, where Andrew's note sat, as well. And the candle would be dead before the end of the night.

She held her breath rather than trying to cry for someone to save her. Who would come?

She was desperately wishing Feren would venture to look for her, as he had in the past. It had been at least a day since she'd seen him. Surely he would come to search for her.

Amelia sighed, putting her head back against the bed frame. Weren't there elves who could tear chains apart with only their hands? Why couldn't she have had more elven blood in her? She couldn't practically feel the bruises on her wrists that threatened to appear if she did pull on those cold irons. Instead of trying something so terribly foolish, she sat there and stared.

Eventually the misplaced blonde would return. What could she get out of locking Amelia in a room? There had to be something else she was after. Something she didn't want anyone to interfere with. After all, Amelia was practically the only one left. Even the majority of the servants had disappeared over the last few days.

Amelia looked back down to her wrists. She could feel the cold hand print there from where Rosa had grabbed her hours ago; where she had sucked the energy from Amelia. She still had no idea what magic could've helped her do so. To her knowledge, there were no humans who could have manipulated energy so. Maybe the rumors were true. Maybe Rosa really was a witch? Or maybe Lucia had endulged in some love affair with an elf while Caleb was alive.

The thought made her smile despite herself.

In her other hand, careful not to extend a wisp of magic through her left side, she experimentally let a wisp of blueish magic escape and float above her palm. If she could do that, she could give it form.

The new idea was entirely experimental. She'd never done anything like it on purpose — with the intent to use — but she held up her palm, pushing out the energy... then gripped it tight into a fist until she could feel it cold in her hands like the hilt of a dagger. In the same way, she sent magic through her hand, extending it down, and focusing the point of it until it looked like a blade, all the while careful not to let anything slip through her other arm. It was formed as simply as she had protruded something similar from her palm in front of the other Voerr — though this object had to be of a more solid form. It had to be used.

Excited, she pushed off the bed and crouched, extending her left arm out to give a clear opening of the chains. Again she gripped the energy tight in her palm and glanced over to see just how sharp the blueish spirit object was.

A second later she clashed it down onto the chain.

When her arm popped back up the knife was burning white, as was her hand. The chain seemed dented as if hit while hot from a forge, but it was not broken. It suddenly felt even tighter on her wrist, constricting the bones and making her cry in fear and pain.

She stabbed down again, desperate, until the satisfying slink of the harsh metal slipping back to the floor was sounded. The cuff on her wrist burned her, hot and ashen in color — she cried as the boney prominences of her wrist were seared. Desperately her silver blade stabbed into the hinge of the cuff — once, twice. Her eyes clenched, blinded by the pain, nearly feeling her wrist melt and splint, until with one final, dangerous blow, the cuff fell apart, and she was freed. She jerked her left wrist up in the same moment she released the magic in her palm and cradled the hurt arm, which burned and ached and screamed in pain.