Chapter 18: Terra

When he pulls back, I look up into his face. “Thank you.”

I reach for the doorknob and pull it open. This room is almost fifty times the size of the interior of my wagon. The ceiling soars overhead, and the walls are lined with tapestries of small woodland creatures frolicking. My feet sink into a thick pink rug covered in blossoms and butterflies. A canopy bed sits in the center of the room, flanked by small wooden chairs on one side and a huge bookcase full of toys and dolls on the other. Two other doors open out of my room, and I remember where they lead. One holds my old clothes, and the other leads to a water closet. No more peeing in a pot and dumping it into bushes.

Even though Jesse warned me that someone would bring me food, I jump when a small woman carrying a large tray appears in the doorway.

My brother smirks at my shock.

“Hello,” I finally say.

My stomach growls. The woman glances around, unsure where to place the food tray. Without thinking, I Lift the dolls and books from the table near the window and point. “Here. Let me help.”

The tiny woman screams loudly and drops the tray.

I Lift it before it can hit the ground, steadying the bowls, plates, and the glass pitcher without a thought. I place them all carefully on the table. “Sorry for startling you.”

But I’m not sure whether she can hear me since she’s still screaming, and now she’s backing toward the door.

“Whoa,” I say. “I mean you no harm.”

She throws her hands up in front of her as if fending off an attack.

Jesse's laughing almost as loudly as she’s screaming.

“It's fine, Natalie. She's my sister.” Jesse points at the door. “You can go back to the kitchen. I promise she has no plans to destroy you, or Terra, tonight.”

The woman finally stops howling, although she’s now hiccupping and gasping for breath.

“Maybe you can take a moment to prepare the other staff so they don’t all melt down when they see her.” Jesse shoos her away. “Go.”

She practically runs from the room.

I sink into a chair. “That could’ve gone better.”

Jesse shrugs. “Everyone will know who you are and what you can do by tomorrow morning. Don't worry about it. Even now, the members of the Unit are sending word to their families of the Ascension, and they’re surely sharing what they know of your return.”

My return. “Do you mean me, Alora Sterling? Or me, the Warden?”

Jesse points at the wall. “That’s the prophecy, there.”

I spin around and stare. At a flowery needlepoint. “Excuse me?”

“Mom had one of the castle seamstresses do it, the second she discovered you could Lift.”

I blink and force myself to read the words.

With the Warden it began, and with the Warden it ends. When the female Lifter returns, she will end Terra. She will reunite the divided, bring augmented strength to all men, and restore women to their rightful power. She will birth the end of all things, and create the beginning of all endings. Terra was not the beginning, but it was a beginning, and like all things, it must end. As Terra crumbles, the world will begin anew for those who are worthy.

That’s not at all obtuse. “What does that even mean?”

Jesse shrugs. “Prophecies are stupid. But it did give a name to people’s fear of anything different. You’re the only woman on Terra who can Lift—they’d have feared you with or without that dumb, confusing pile of words.”

He’s probably right, but I hate the confusing prediction all the same.

“You were only a year old the first time you Lifted, you know. Not quite two.” Jesse’s voice is light, casual, like he’s telling me a story about something ridiculous, not addressing the reason mounted cavalry are outside the walls of the city, bent on destroying me. “Apparently Mom was tired of you drinking out of bottles—she insisted you drink from a cup.”

“What?” That makes no sense.

“She put your bottle on the counter, and you screamed bloody murder.”

“I sound like a real peach.”

Jesse laughs. “From what I hear, that’s every toddler. But, most toddlers, even male ones, can’t Lift their bottle off the counter and float it right into their hand.”

“I did?”

He nods. “You got your bottle, and Mom and Dad started preparing for the world as they knew it to end.”

“Seems like I just cause bad things wherever I go.”

Jesse frowns.

“What exactly is an Ascension?”

He chuckles. “Oh, that’s what you mean. Well, usually once a year, the members of the Unit fight one another to determine rank. It's always one on one, and you can only move up or down, one place at a time. No Healing in between, and no outside interference. Aside from the annual rank determinations, an outsider eligible for entrance into a Unit—”

“Slow down! Annual rank determinations, interference, eligible what?”

Jesse laughs. “Most citizens grow up knowing these things. I’m sorry.”

I grew up in hiding, without any parents at all for most of my life.

As if he’s just remembering that, Jesse’s eyes soften. “Once a year we duke it out to determine who’s the boss within the Unit. Your rank will set your squad assignment, your pay scale, and your place in the social pecking order. Any citizen who can Lift a human twelve years of age or older is eligible to challenge into a Unit.”

“I thought the members of Units had to be noble.”

“It’s not an official law, but it usually works out that way. Strength at Lifting usually follows family lines, so it’s rare for it to manifest outside of noble lines. It can happen, though.”

Huh.

“The strongest Lifters generally have children who become the strongest Lifters.”

“So my challenge is valid because. . .”

“No one has questioned your right to challenge formally, although Kahn might. Could you Lift me if you had to?”

I frown. And then I Lift Jesse and float him over toward the window. I set him down by the tray. Then I cross the room and sit down to eat. He’s not wrong that I’m ravenous.

“Right. Okay, so I was right about that.” He brushes his uniform down.

He looks rattled. “Is that hard for most citizens?” I ask. “To Lift a person?”

Jesse swallows. “Uh, yeah. The Unit can all do it, but not as elegantly as you, and it drains us.”

My jaw drops. “Drains you? Lifting one person?” I think about what I do in a normal day, how many things I Lift. No wonder the citizens didn’t suspect me of Lifting the wagon, or any of the other items when we did our show. Apparently that’s extremely hard to do.

“Because you issued that challenge, but you don’t hold a position within Dad’s Unit, your challenge sparked an Ascension. If you were to win, it would reshuffle the lineup anyway, and also, it keeps challenges to the upper ranking Unit members down. See, in order to fight one of them, you’d have to work your way through everyone else first.”

“This sounds like a much bigger deal than I expected.”

“Don’t stress. We were due to have one in a few weeks anyway. You just sped up the timeline.”

“What would have happened if I hadn't interfered?”

Jesse shrugs. “Kahn and Dad would have fought. If Kahn won, he would’ve taken control of all of us, including the entire Isis force until the next time we all gathered to vote.”

That was a serious challenge.

Jesse shrugs. “I doubt Kahn could beat Dad, but you never know. If that happened, Dad would’ve fought his number two and taken Kahn's place. Unless Dad lost again, I guess, and then Dad would keep fighting until he won. If Kahn lost to Dad, he'd lose his position entirely, as the challenger, and head home. He should be thanking you, really. Although, whoever comes in last place tomorrow won’t be pleased. They’ll be headed home.”

“Oh, no.”

“It is what it is. Tomorrow you’ll fight the members of the Unit from the bottom up, and every person you defeat will have to fight those below.” Jesse tilts his head. “Speaking of. . .do you know how to fight? Other than freakishly strong abilities, have you had any training at all?”

“Not really, no.”

“And I'm guessing your ability to Lift is essentially depleted, between your race to reach the city walls, and Lifting me and that tray.”

I snort. “Uh, no.”

Jesse lifts his eyebrows. “No?”

I look around the room. The four-poster canopy bed looks like the heaviest thing present. I feel for the heft of each major beam, and then I Lift it.

Jesse chokes. “Put that down. You should be conserving strength for tomorrow.”

I set the bed back down. “I've never conserved my strength a day in my life. I don't think it really works like that.”

Jesse frowns. “Of course it does. If I were to demonstrate my maximum strength right now, I’d be utterly drained for tomorrow.”

I pick up a loaf of crusty bread. “I hope this isn’t rude, but I’m starving.”

Jesse shakes his head. “Go ahead.”

“When you use your arms and legs to lift something heavy regularly, your muscles grow.” I rip into a piece of bread and begin to chew. “It’s like that. The more I use it, the stronger my powers become. I’ve been limited mostly by my inability to Lift around any outsiders who might see.”

Jesse grabs a darker loaf of bread off the tray, and I force myself not to growl at him for taking my food. “We talk about our power as a well that depletes with use. Over time it refills.”

“Well, you're the expert, but if Lifting that bed impresses you, I like my chances tomorrow. I've never been around anyone else who can Lift. The Healers had no expectations, and no way to teach me a thing, but maybe that worked in my favor.”

“Some men in the squadrons can't Lift more than a blade of grass.” Jesse sits on the edge of the bed. “We train them to the best of their abilities, but there are other ways to fight.”

“But the Unit must be able to—”

“The men in the Unit vary in their abilities. All of them can Lift at least the weight of another human, but you'd be surprised how creative they get to conserve that strength. Not a single one of us could do what you just did with that bed, and if any man in the last hundred years did that, it would have wiped him out for days. And what you did with those rocks—Binding them in place, and hurling fistfuls of stones behind you?” He shakes his head and licks his lips. “None of us could have done that. Our abilities weaken proportionately with distance.”

I'm not quite sure how to respond. I've done the majority of the grunt work for our troupe since I turned six. Transportation of pots and pans to and from the river for washing. Assembly of sets for our performances. Wagon Lifting for the show or whenever someone needs to make repairs. What he’s saying. . .it’s shocking.

“Either way,” Jesse says. “You should eat and then rest. But humor me? No more Lifting until tomorrow at dawn.”

I don’t bother arguing, and after I eat, I pass out.