Hidden Wings

The Fractured Canvas

"Gentle, Ivy! Gentle!" Alzir’s voice barked across the isolated training clearing, cracked with a rare, terrifying note of genuine panic.

"I'm trying!" I screamed back, sweat stinging my eyes as the wind whipped my hair across my face.

I wasn't struggling to find the magic. That was the terrifying part. The suppression potion Elaris had given me on Earth had completely worn off, and two centuries of locked-up, concentrated Fae energy were currently tearing through my veins like a violent tidal wave. I had too much of it. It was volatile, suffocating, and screaming to get out of my skin.

I had tried to summon a simple, gentle breeze to cool my burning face. Instead, the air around me violently pressurized in a fraction of a second. The grass beneath my boots didn't just curl—it exploded outward as a localized, concussive shockwave tore through the dirt, gouging a massive, deep trench into the courtyard lawn and snapping the thick, ancient roots of a nearby oak tree like toothpicks.

"Stop! Drop the connection entirely!" Alzir commanded, bracing his massive frame against the gale-force winds my sheer panic was generating.

Think of the medium, I told myself, my teeth grinding together so hard my jaw ached. It’s not a weapon. It’s graphite. It’s a soft charcoal pencil. In art, if you press too hard, you tear the paper. You completely ruin the canvas. I had to feather the stroke. I forced my balling fists to relax, picturing my hands barely skimming the surface of a delicate sketch. Slowly, agonizingly, the howling wind died down to a breathless whisper. The air pressure dropped, leaving my ears popping and my lungs burning for oxygen.

Alzir exhaled a heavy, ragged breath, surveying the torn-up stone and dirt of the courtyard. As an ancient Fae of knowledge and action, he had seen millennia of warfare, but even he looked slightly rattled by the raw, untamed mass of my elemental power.

"You are treating your core like a floodgate, Ivy," Alzir said, walking over, his heavy boots sinking into the freshly plowed dirt. "You have the capacity for grand-scale destruction, but right now, the council needs precision. If you cannot control the basic flow, the High Council will never allow you on the mission to Earth to hunt the Dreamweaver. You will be deemed a liability to both realms and locked away."

"I know," I muttered, wiping the sweat from my forehead with the back of a trembling hand. "I just... it feels like trying to paint a tiny, miniature portrait with a massive house-painting brush."

"Then change the brush," Alzir responded sharply. "Your grandmother gave you the right advice before she left us to resume her court duties. Use your mind. Picture the elements as the gentlest mediums you know. Watercolors. A single, delicate drop of ink."

I took a deep breath, trying to steady my racing heart. We had been at this for hours in the isolated fields far from the castle walls because everyone was terrified I’d accidentally bring a stone tower down. I closed my eyes, centering myself, trying to isolate just a tiny fraction of the fire element. Just enough to warm the air. I imagined a soft, translucent stroke of amber paint, wrapping around us like a light glaze.

I opened my eyes. A pleasant, controlled warmth bloomed in the space between us.

Alzir nodded, a small, approving smile crossing his stoic face. "Better. Much better. You see? You have the information in your blood, you just need—"

Alzir’s voice suddenly cut off.

It didn't just stop; it stretched out, warping into a deep, demonic drone that rattled my teeth. The warm air I had just conjured instantly froze, turning into a bitter, biting cold that smelled faintly of rotten copper and winter frost.

"Alzir?" I whispered, taking a terrifying step back.

But Alzir wasn't looking at me anymore. His eyes had gone completely black, bleeding a dark, ink-like fluid down his cheeks. The vibrant green field around us began to dissolve like wet paper, the sky bleeding into a chaotic swirl of bruised purples and sickening, toxic oranges.

Did you really think a few lines of paint could keep me out, Little Bird? The voice echoed directly inside my skull, wet, heavy, and scraping against my thoughts like a rusted blade. A suffocating psychic pressure slammed into my chest, pinning me to the ground as the illusion of the training field tore away, leaving me falling into a void of pure, crushing darkness. Spiders of phantom heat crawled over my skin. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't blink. The Dreamweaver was inside my head, ripping through my personal thoughts to find a weakness to bring back to his Unseelie King.

“Ivy! Break the connection! Fight back!” A massive, golden spark shattered the dark.

Suddenly, the void cracked. I gasped, tumbling forward onto the grass, my hands scraping against real dirt. The sky was blue again. The sun was shining. Alzir was on his knees right beside me, his massive hands gripping my shoulders so tightly it would surely bruise. He was breathing just as heavily as I was, his face entirely pale.

"I saw it," Alzir breathed, his eyes wide as he looked around the empty field, his ancient instincts on high alert. "I felt the atmospheric shift. He didn't just attack your mind, Ivy... his psychic signature was so volatile it bled into the physical space around us. I saw the literal shadows warp."

I trembled, pushing myself up, my magic flaring dangerously under my skin from the sheer terror of the mental intrusion. "He’s getting stronger. He's adapting."

Alzir stood up slowly, his expression darkening into something grim and fiercely protective. "This changes everything. If he can bypass our realm's physical defenses to strike at you while you are fully conscious... then this plan is a suicide mission. We cannot send you back to Earth. Your power is too volatile, and your mind is an open door."

"I am not staying behind!" I snapped, my voice rising with a dangerous, aggressive edge. The sheer panic of being benched, of being locked away like a broken weapon, made my blood boil. "You can't just pull me from the mission, Alzir! I'm the one he's hunting! If I stay here like a sitting duck—"