King of Locusts | ✔

Chapter 10

Lunan stared at Elena blankly. It's not that he didn't believe her.

It's that he really didn't believe her. After all, what were the odds? Of course, there were more mages out there than his parents. The forums he frequented while at Higgins' Orphanage proved that, but how was he expected to believe someone he just met?

Elena chuckled at his bewildered expression.

"You don't believe me, do you?" she said.

"It's just...not something you hear every day. I'd like to believe you. Can you show me something?" Lunan asked.

"Yeah, of course. Take me to a less busy part of the park?"

Lunan nodded and Elena took his hand as he led them. They wandered off the main path to a more secluded area surrounded by flower bushes with a stone bench nearby.

"This is perfect! I love working with roses," she said. She freed Lunan's hand and bounded towards the flowers.

"I'm going to make some of these flowers grow, ok?"

Lunan stuck up his thumbs from the bench.

Elena took a deep breath and unclasped her necklace. She removed the five colored stones from it and placed them around her in a circle.

She turned to the blue one and said, "I call upon water. Please give me your strength."

She repeated this for the other four stones. Earth. Air. Fire. Aether. Elena left the circle, marched to the bush, and selected a specific rose. She placed her hands over the flower as she said, "Grow with my power, grow with the elements."

Lunan watched as a minute passed, and then two, but nothing happened. Elena kept her hands hovering above the rose to no avail. He was upset, but unsurprised. She was probably one of those people that had a fluke happen to her and jumped to the assumption of possessing magic.

"Hey!" Elena called, returning Lunan's attention to her. "I'm done now."

Lunan watched the rose grow rapidly the moment Elena removed her hands from it. She giggled at the small 'o' of shock on Lunan's face. She returned to the circle, thanked each element as she collected her stones, and strung them back on her necklace.

"That was amazing," Lunan breathed. Elena beamed with pride.

Still, there was one thing that puzzled him, that being the forthrightness with which she shared that information about herself. From what Lunan could recall, his parents came from a place where they had to be secretive about their abilities.

"Thank you for sharing that with me. But why did you trust me enough to show me that? You don't know me."

Lunan thought he saw a reddish tinge in Elena's cheeks, but she turned away before he could examine her face more closely.

"I trusted myself," she mumbled. "That, and you don't exactly feel normal, either."

He paused. It seemed Elena had enough ability to do some feats and sense that he wasn't normal, but lacked the sensitivity to sniff him out. And yet, if she trusted him enough to show him that, it only made sense that he opened himself to her as well. After all, Lunan was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"So you're nature-focused, right?" he prompted.

Her brown eyes widened in awe.

"You actually know about magic?"

Lunan smiled sheepishly.

"Something like that."

"Want a cup of tea? We have rooibos and chai downstairs," Elena said as she opened her bedroom door. She winced when she saw the position her best friend was in.