“The flow of Essence is all around us. She breathes into our souls, she is exhaled with every death, and she lives with every beating heart. She is what we call the vibrations that thread through us and allow the Gifts we are given to be used. But with powerful Gifts, the vibrations are not more potent, but the Gifted are more in tune with their vibrations and how it affects the threads of those around them.”

I perk up when Jenny says threads. Lightly vibrating threads is how I see the Gift inside my soul and how I connect to other’s emotions.

Jenny has spoken of essence often whenever we can steal a moment to go over Gift theories and training, her voice softening in reverence as if Essence were a living being.

“The threads all connect, a massive weaving of interconnected components where one affects ten and ten affects a hundred and a hundred affects thousands. It is a tapestry orchestrated by The King and held by Essence.

“When one connects to Essence, you must trust her.”

I barely keep from rolling my eyes. More with the trust, really? I had to trust and believe in Rose in order for her to work through me. But some undefinable Essence I can’t even speak to is supposed to just have my trust?

But this is Jenny… and she hasn’t steered me wrong. I trust her. And so that begs the question, if she trusts this so-called Essence, then can I?

I don’t know.

“Aria,” Jenny says, her voice dipping into a chiding tone and snapping me back to the present.

I wince. “Sorry.”

Her brows lower just a hair before she smooths her face. “You must take this seriously, dear. One day it may save the nation.”

“No pressure,” I joke.

Her brows lower further, and I put my hands up. “Bad joke, sorry.”

She shakes her head, leaning back in the nicely cushioned chair that reclines back. Hans had the chair and a parasol brought out to the little clearing between the sheds and hedges where we have the most privacy since the hedges create a sort of fence around us. It’s a beautiful area with flowers in full bloom and every other hedge spotted with gorgeous red flowers that poke from between the dark green leaves. A single hedge in the center is even shaped like a small Timber Wolf with four metal benches surrounding it and small red and gold flowers on either side of each individual bench… all being new additions since Ran and I arrived and made this our little haven.

“Your Gift is a part of you. It is the same as a muscle. With use it will become easier and quicker to both access and control. In order to control it, you must first allow the vibrations to open your mind to a world unseen. A world of wonder where your inner sight may see the impossible and miracles are possible. You can access this, correct?”

I look down, nodding.

“And yet you still loathe your Gift,” Jenny says softly, leaning her head back and closing her eyes as one hand rests on her belly and the other plays with a tassel on the end of her red silken sleeve. Her red dress drapes down her frame and shows off her baby bump with gold trimming down either side of her waist and draping down the skirt to end in swirls at her ankles. The sleeves are almost long enough to drag the ground. She’s beautiful and looks as if she should be attending a ball instead of lazing around in a cushioned chair in the middle of her hedge garden with a shed on one side.

“How could I not?” I ask just as softly.

Her eyes open and she releases a dainty sigh. “Aria—”

“I know, Jenny.” I rub my palms on my tan pants, trying to figure out why I’m so nervous.

“This is a Gift, dear. Not a Curse.”

“Is it not both?”

She smiles gently, but I look away. “You consider the whole of your Gift a Curse. But it is not. Your Gift was given for a reason. Without it, many more would be dead. You used it to save lives and protect those you love.” Although her voice is gentle, it strikes a pain in my soul.

I used the Gift and killed. I used Rose and killed. I don’t know how many. Neither do I know their faces. And I know the hole Father spoke of so many years ago. How it sucks from your soul until you’re a shell of who you once were… and yet you try to continue to be normal. Put a smile on and live. Yet there’s a part of you that is just… gone. And that’s a hard thing to realize.

And it does make me hate myself… and while I appreciate the Gift and how it allows me to protect those I love…. I also hate it. Hate how it allows me to snip life at the source. Perhaps even more than hate it, it terrifies me. How it can suddenly incapacitate me and bombard me with every emotion around. How it can allow me to do things… things that should not be. Lives should not be in my hands in such a way.

It feels wrong.

“Aria—”

“Can we go back to training, please?” I ask, hating how pitiful I sound as I rub my hands together, feeling my palms slick with sweat as if I were in battle and not having a conversation with one I’ve come to respect.

She reaches to where I sit against her chair, running a hand through the hair I’ve let free for one last time. In a few minutes, we are going to begin the move into our own estate. Hans has been keeping up with my duties, both to the farm just outside the city and the estate he bought in my name when I requested it, but it's time I took greater responsibility for my role as Sir Ri.

“Of course,” Jenny says. “Essence is the soul of our Gifts and creates a link between us and other Gifted. There are times Gifts have been known to give themselves to others…”

~~~

“Are you sure about this, hon?” Mom asks, looking at me in the mirror of my room. What will perhaps be my last time in this room.

But probably not. This is still where I feel safe… and that bathtub is still my favorite thing this side of Sixth.

I look her in the eye and nod, afraid if I open my mouth I’ll start crying. I’ve never been all that pretty, Jill got those genes, but it still hurts to cut off my long hair. Will Silver like me with short hair?

I clench my teeth. Where did that thought come from?

Don’t you dare, Ran, I hiss before she can get a word out when I feel her impede on my mind.

She cackles in the depths of my mind.

Mom gathers all my hair into a tail and whacks it off at the source. The wisps of hair curl around my face, gently brushing against my jaw. I squeeze my eyes shut. When the fairies took my hair from my head… it wasn’t the same. I know what I will look like, but I just can’t bring myself to look when it’s permanent.

The last part of who I used to be—the girl who used to dream of her father coming home, of a nation of good people, of times when wolves didn’t eat grandmothers and people didn’t kill each other—is sheared from my head. It feels like the last thread of innocence I once held tumbles to the ground with my hair.

The snip and soft patter of hair against the floor makes me flinch and open my eyes, but Mom doesn’t look up from her work. I ignore my hair, watching her as she combs and snips and bites her lip between her teeth like Jill. It makes me realize where Jill got the habit and makes me smile a bit in the midst of another huge life change.

But this is worth it. To protect the prince and this country, I would give my life. Some hair is not quite bad.

I finger the orb in my pocket, promising myself that tonight I will find the answers to it. Maybe answers that'll bring some light on this war... and maybe give us an edge against whatever may be coming.

I snort. Shaking my head and earning a reprimand from Mom.

Fat chance of that.