Stolen by Melissa de La Cruz Page B

turned her into a weapon—their weapon. She hunted her own people, used her power to bring in those who were just like her, marked by magic, marked for death. Her mentors had bred that fear, that pain, and like a bomb they’d primed her to explode.
    But now Faix was telling her that she needed to forget what she had learned. “They lied to you. They tortured you. They wanted your power, but they did not know how to teach you to control it. They only knew how to make a fire, but not how to keep it burning steadily. It will take time to move past what you have learned.”
    Nat tried again. Nothing. “I can’t . . . I can’t do it without . . . ,” she said.
    Faix raised his voice and bellowed into the air, something she never thought she’d hear, especially not spoken aloud. “You think you are the only one to have lost a drakon?”
    She stared at him. He came from a line of drakon herders, the mighty clans of drakonborn. She should have remembered.
    â€œYes, I was born a rydder. I have felt the same pain you have, the grief that comes from separation,” he told her, his voice now once again as calm as ever.
    â€œWhere is your drakon?” she asked, her voice trembling, afraid of the answer.
    â€œGone from this world,” he said, touching his necklace again. “During the first breaking, when Vallonis fell the first time.”
    Gone? But then . . . how is it that you live?
Her drakon had gone into the ground; the creature was wounded, but alive. Its temporary absence pained her, but they would be rejoined one day, whereas Faix had lost that bond forever. The possibility of losing her drakon seemed suddenly very real. She had thought she was invincible as she soared through the sky, as she battled the drone army astride her great drakon. Now, she felt foolish. Perhaps she had been in far greater danger than she suspected.
    I live because I have to. You will hurt, you will bleed, you will be betrayed as I have been betrayed. You will survive. And you must learn to control your power.
    â€œTeach me,” she said. Now that she knew Faix understood her pain, had experienced it himself, she felt closer to him.
    She believed him.
    He nodded. “We will start with my father’s exercise. A practice I learned as a child. Pick an object.”
    â€œAny object?” she asked.
What does he want me to say?
    Say anything. This is not a test.
    â€œA violin?” she said. It sounded like something a sylph would picture.
    â€œGood enough. Picture the instrument. The strings, the neck, the scroll at one end, the chin rest at the other.”
    â€œOkay,” she said.
    â€œNow take a piece of the object, the scroll at the tip of the neck. Picture the spiral, the grain of the wood, the fibers within that wood.”
    She was trying, but she couldn’t see the point of his father’s exercise.
    â€œGo deeper. Within those wooden fibers, try to see the cells that make up the strands, and the molecules that compose the next layer. Imagine each step, smaller and smaller until there is nothing, just the void left within all things, the atoms whizzing through space. Imagine the thing until you’ve exhausted its essence, until you’ve reduced it to nothing, to the void, the ether. Only then can you
shape
it into anything you want—you can turn a violin into a cello, or a bridge.”
    â€œI’m trying,” Nat said.
    â€œIt’s not about trying. It’s about repetition. Don’t expect results. Expect to fail and fail and fail. Once you are accustomed to failing, once you’ve made a habit of it, then you can
shape.
”
    Nat pictured the violin, the wood, the fibers, the molecules, electrons swirling in the void. Nothing happened. She understood the idea: All things are made from the void, so reduce each object to the void and she could shape that void. “I don’t know, I can’t do it, I