“Don't be so hard on yourself,” I offered with as much of a smile as I could manage. “You did fine. Thank you. I owe you my life.”
“Now I know you have a head injury.” He chuckled to himself while he got up. I wished he wouldn't, since as soon as he did, the warmth his body offered drained away.
“Are you hungry?”
“Not really.”
“You need to eat if you're going to heal. You have to be nourished.” He looked around in every direction, bringing to mind a Greek sculpture illuminated by firelight. I could’ve sworn the tattoos inked onto his bronze skin were moving, but it had to be a trick of the light and no doubt some confusion caused by my concussion.
“I'll find you something. Stay here,” he said.
There was no time to ask where he thought I would go in the middle of darkened woods with my body in this condition before he blinked out. Would I ever learn how to do that? Just slip in and out of a room? Appear and disappear at will? It wasn't easy to imagine possessing that kind of power.
But I did have that power, somewhere, thanks to Healynas. He had to know I’d survived—he would have been watching me plummet. I didn't need to know him intimately to know he'd be keeping an eye on my progress.
“I survived your test,” I whispered into the darkness. “Is that all you've got?”
Probably an extremely stupid question, one which I hoped he hadn't heard as I thought better of taunting him. The last thing I needed was to challenge him to screw with me worse than before. Again, an image of myself trying to put out flames as they licked at my hair and clothes filled my head and made my chest tighten. “Crispy, barbecued Omega,” I murmured with a sinking heart.
I did it before, though, didn't I? Somehow, I’d managed to call on my power and keep myself from dying by using the air around me.
I wondered if I could do it again. Now that I was alone, and the stakes were about as low as they could ever be, the temptation to try again was too strong to resist. Besides, it was something to think about that didn't aggravate the pain in my head, or remind me how close I'd come to going splat.
How did I do it?
I closed my eyes and imagined harnessing the wind. I imagined myself drawing all my power together and concentrating it into a tight ball at my core. I visualized the wind coming to me and gathering inside me to be released into my surroundings.
At first, there was nothing, and that didn’t exactly fill me with confidence about tackling the next three tasks.
Then there was a sizzle. Just one, but it was enough to make me concentrate harder. Come on, wind. I’m only going to manipulate you a little.
Then there was another sizzle that lasted longer than the first. A soft buzzing started to spread all through me, crackling the way the fire crackled and popped. This wasn't the way Elliot described feeling, but it was exactly how I’d felt when I was falling. It hadn't been a fluke. Unless this was a fluke too. Was it? Was there something wrong with the way my so-called powers revealed themselves? Big surprise finding out there was something different about me. Something wrong.
I couldn't even accept a royal right properly.
How was I supposed to survive any of this?
And why was Healynas so sure I would have to kill Jett—or that he would have to kill me? Could I even do that if I tried? Even if I wanted to, which I couldn't imagine under any circumstance, exactly what would need to happen for me and Jett to face off?
I wasn't sure I wanted to know, but I had a feeling it wasn't under my control. When it came to my life, nothing was. I stared into the fire, questions swirling around my aching head while I waited for Elliot to return with something to eat.