Sentinel

Chapter 37 - Wasteland

Really long A/N at the end. Explains why update took so long and why chapter is so bad.

---

Chapter 37 - Wasteland

---

In the vortex of Ebony’s corrupted magic, invalid alongside the Silverborn, events were weaving together and catching Skye in their one, undeniable accusation.

Everything up until this point had been because of her failings as a Sentinel.

It was her fault they were here now. It was her fault that Kiarae was tortured and trapped, and that the elves were dead. It was her fault Naisha was decimated.

The vortex fluctuated, sending a painful jolt through Skye’s body. She recoiled further into her soul, seeking protection from Ebony’s prying tendrils.

She knew that if she’d been faster, more determined, the trees would have responded and that bastard of a shadow Sentinel wouldn’t -- couldn’t -- have murdered her kin. She’d have made it in time. It was her fault because she’d let the magic control her. She realised that.

Yet, she was sure she’d done nothing different from when the Hunter had attacked the Silverborn, when the trees had risen to her aid. The forest had answered her call then, so why not now? The magic ran through her veins swift like the river when she’d healed the boy's dying mother and brought Kya back from the edge of death.

But when the shadows attacked her in her room? Until Tayne arrived, she’d been invalid with terror. When she needed to reach Naisha before the shadow took them in its claws? Her will dissolved in that of the many instead, folded and lost inside the power of the forest that should have only added to her own.

Skye clutched her head. Why the hell is this magic so hard?

Every incident replayed with astounding clarity in the ether around her. She could see herself as if from a distance raising her weapons, be it hands or blades, and striking with different results. After Kiarae had started instructing her, Skye’s control hadn’t taken root. It was flighty and didn’t seem tied by any concept Kiarae had explained.

The rules were always broken.

Something occurred to her. Was it possible that something else was affecting her control over the nature magic? She thought back, searching for a common link.

The pattern was erratic. Timing, training, place and people seemed to play no part. There was no factor that remained constant, no aspect that resurfaced.

The only thing that stood out was the Advisor. She’d knocked him out when the Hunter attacked. The problem with that theory was there was no way he could have been with her in the forest on her way to Naisha. She tried for a moment longer to figure it out, before the numb, hollow feeling crept over her body for the second time that day and her chest constricted.

Perhaps it was just her. Maybe there was a mistake, by which she’d ended up with the magic instead of the intended would-be Sentinel. But she’d earned her wings, didn’t that prove something at least?

What is it? What am I doing wrong?

Skye looked down at her ethereal hands, hating the way they shimmered with emerald light. She clenched them, once more standing among the smoking ruins of Naisha. This was her fault. Looking down at faces that stared back, but did not see. Faces that would never see again, thanks to her. Realising that the elves that lay dead around her were lifeless because she couldn’t control her magic.

Called, though unwillingly, the scene came flooding back. Her fists, pounding at the bloodied ground. Cursing the deity out loud for abandoning her; cursing the corruption that twisted the Master into the monster he was, but unable to deny that she was the one to blame. For Naisha, the dead Silverborn, for Kiarae’s torture -- everything that brought her to this point after the green light had first flooded her tiny prison room.