32.

"Now," The elder clapped his hands together, bringing my attention from my imminent personality change back to the task at hand, "lets focus on Lucius today."

I yawned, tasting burning flesh and dust in the air as smoke spilled over into the field. Intrigued, my gaze passed over to the Faerie. Lucius and Alvar were locked in another sparring match, swords swinging and daggers stabbing as they leapt and bound around the fighting circle. Alvar's black hair was slick with sweat, sticking in chunks to his neck. Lucius' lips were dry, parted as he heaved in each breath like it was his last.

"What are we going to do to them? Mind control?" I tilted my head to the side as they continued to fight; unaware of the attention they received from across the field.

"Focus on Lucius. Reach out with your mind just as you do with your Gryphon. Once you can feel his presence in your head, I want you to make him think defence is not in his best interest. He no longer needs to keep his guard up; he will win the fight if he only attacks."

"How do I do that? Do I speak to him as if I was speaking to Beast?"

"No, not entirely. You have to be gentle, caress his mind with your words. And don't ever demand; only suggest it so he believes it was his idea all along. If someone catches you plucking around in their head, it can be very bad for both parties."

"Very bad?" I bit my cheek and scratched the base of my horns.

"You could lose your mind." He shrugged.

I chuckled and sighed lightly.

"If he lowers his guard, Alvar's going to run him straight through." I suggested, gesturing to the shining sword in his grip.

"Yes," the elder shrugged, "but then you can just heal him."

Grinning, I closed my eyes and began to clear my head of cluttering thoughts. I pushed back the itching concerns that weighed down on my conscious. I boxed up my anxieties and fears. And I stamped out the small fires of desperation. When I was clean and clear, my eyes opened and focused on the blonde head of hair across the field. My conscious flowed over to him, circling his moving form as he dodged the stabbing blades. Gently, I reached out and let my influence flow over him. Something flickered under my control, irritated.

"You're a very good fighter," I began slowly, gently pressing each individual word up against the irritation of Lucius conscious, "You're such a good fighter, you don't need to defend yourself. Not a single blade will touch you, as long as you continue to attack without offense."

There was no reply at first, but the irritation flowed into arrogance. Lucius defences slowly dropped. I watched in horror as he lowered his guard, right in time for Alvar's hard swing. The sword glinted above, slicing down with strength, cutting through to the bone of Lucius' exposed shoulder.

Lucius scream rang out across the field as blood began to poor from the open wound. Like a gaping fish, the mass heaved with each of Lucius' heavy breaths, the skin tearing further down his arm. There was only a small amount of tissue holding his arm and shoulder onto his body, the limb dangling dangerously heavy, ready to drop off.

"Lucius!" Alvar cried, dropping his sword. "Lucius, you idiot!"

Alvar collapsed onto the ground beside Lucius and pressed the nearly severed arm back in to its correct placement. It was as if I stood directly next to them, my vision capturing every tiny detail of the events as they unfolded. I could see the individual beads of sweat slipping off Alvar's hair and the whites of Lucius' eyes as they began to roll back into his head. I wanted to laugh and clap my hands together; I had done it; I had made Lucius think he didn't need to defend himself. But as blood gushed from the wound, my smile faltered. Now I would have to begin the task of mending the wound I had created.

The elder raised his eyebrow at me as I stared from across the field.

"Are you going to fix that?"

"Yeah, yeah." I waved my hand and sighed.

I didn't waste the effort it would have taken to walk across the field and began my work from the very position I began in. Closing my eyes, I reached out with the gold thread attached to my core until I found a weakness. The thread pulsed and then stretched outwards, eagerly searching for the wound. I directed it towards Lucius' arm, the arteries shrinking as the blood began to leave the limb. As quickly as the light could manage, we began the task of mending the bone, muscle and veins back together. Although my eyes were closed, I could see the limb reattach itself to Lucius' body and the new blood wash colour into his cheeks. As the nerves were reattached, his fingers twitched and began to tense, regaining the sensations.

I opened my eyes and was met by Alvar's stare. In his arms, Lucius trembled and awoke, shaking his arm about to be certain it was still there. Alvar's lips were parted in astonishment, but he didn't seem impressed. I could feel his emotions pressing up against my chest like a heat wave; he didn't like to see his friend in pain and I had just caused a whole lot of it. Nibbling the inside of my cheek, I waited to be scolded by the dark knight. Instead, Lucius' got up with a jolt and a laugh, throwing his hands above his head and prancing around Alvar.

"Oh, man! You've got to try that! God! That felt so good! Almost better than—"

"You could have died, you idiot!" Alvar shoved his chest, but Lucius didn't even stumble.

"I feel so strong! Agh! I think you gave me a little too much of that power, Horney." Lucius made kissing noses in my direction, "And I wouldn't have died, Alvar. You and I both know how many little possessions I have stashed around the place."

"But are any of them here, Lucius? How many of them are in the First, where we are currently unable to get to?" Alvar shoved Lucius chest again and this time made him stumble.

"Chill, man. I've got one on me." Lucius' smile dropped as he realised just how angry Alvar had become.

Alvar ran his hands through his hair and ground his teeth. I knew this conversation wasn't over; he hadn't even begun his argument with me; but he could not continue it now. Time, for all of us, was too precious. I had two days to strengthen my capacity, or I would self-implode. Any argument he wanted to begin would have to wait until after I was done saving their asses.

"Come on now, Lyra. Lets get back to work." The elder guided me away; pulling my gaze from the two men back to the task at hand. "It didn't seem like he could sense you meddling in his head, so that's good."

"Sure, but now Alvar is mad at me." I flicked my tongue against my teeth angrily.

"He will get over it."

I shrugged and pursed my lips. I did not want to argue.

"Okay, so what next?"

For the next hour, the drills became more intense and mentally challenging. Although we had moved from controlling Alvar or Lucius, the elder had me attempt to move the people within the castle from one level to the next. Then he had me do it to the entire group, moving every single one to the bottom floor and then to the top. By the end of it, although the tasks were simple, my brain felt about ready to explode. Not surprisingly, it wasn't the end to the day of training.

"Are you kidding?" I exclaimed, hands on my hips.

"No. If I was kidding, I'd be laughing." He raised an eyebrow and waved me onwards.

"How the hell am I supposed to get inside my own head?"

"But it's not your own head." He pointed out.

"No," I rolled my eyes, "But it may as well be."

"You've already told me that you can tell where she is at any given time."

"Yeah she's currently about a mile west with her wolf." I gestured to the forest, where I knew she was residing, probably scoping out another border corruption.

"Okay, so you already know where she is. Now make a connection with her and get her to do something other than what she is doing right now. Simple as that."

"But you said it's dangerous if I try to use the witchy-woo on someone if they know I'm playing around in their head." I twinkled my fingers at the elder and stared at him dead-panned. I was unsure if he was sending me to my death on purpose or if he had simply become bored and wanted some entertainment.

"Yes, its dangerous," he struggled, "but you have to try. If you cant get into your own head undetected, how do you expect to be able to do it to The Anima, or to The Dutches, or to anyone who potentially wants to hurt you and your friends, hmmm?"

Heaving my breast, I nodded in understanding. I had moved past the point of caution. Either I tried things now that could potentially hurt me or I potentially hurt a whole lot more innocent people.

"Go on then."

I groaned quietly, but nodded.

The red dot signalling Ly's position brightened as I closed my eyes. It was as if the dot was shining at the front of my brain and I had to weave through the maze of tissue to reach it. All sound dropped away as I reached for the light and I was sucked towards the woods. Light poured into my eyes and suddenly it was if they were open. I was standing in the trees, watching as Ly spoke quietly to her wolf. She hadn't seen me, not yet. Carefully, I made my way around the twigs on the forest floor, approaching the pair from behind. When I was only a foot away, the voices began to enter my ears.

"I just hope the bind goes as plan. We've got to be strong and dominant, Shadow. If we can control the body, we can do everything we want."

Ly paced back and forth between the trees and her hound, scratching her coppery hair. My focus blurred and I momentarily lost control of my senses. I could feel my body trying to pull my consciousness back through the trees, but I held on. I knew I had stumbled upon priceless information and perhaps an inside look into my other's, my darker half, motives.

"You can't let me disappear, Noir." The wolf howled softly and butted her side with his head. His mannerisms mimicked Beast's.

"If I am the one to go, we can't destroy the earth portals. And you know we can't leave them intact."

I flinched back, unsure if she was meaning to bring havoc to the human world. And whatever she meant by gaining control was lost to my ears. Did she not know that we would merge, our individual personalities dormant, and create a new being? Surly she knew it wasn't a fight for power.

"I don't even know why I am still thinking about it. All we need to do is wear her down enough so she can't fight me when we merge. We can figure out the rest when we have The Anima's power."

Her words were enough of a shock to send me flying back into my body, my mission unaccomplished, left with more questions than answers.

"So? Did you do it?"

My breathing was harsh and unsteady, rising and falling with a pace that matched my own heartbeat. Nervous sweat had collected onto my shirt, saturating the armpits and back. I shut my eyes for a moment and drifted, fatigue pushing me to collapse onto the ground in a heap. I knew I couldn't tell the man what I had heard, or what I thought I had heard. He was loyal to his queen, the same queen who may have been plotting the destruction of earth, the world I had known from birth.

So instead, I said, "No, but we will try again tomorrow."

The elder's eyes narrowed slightly, as if he sensed there was an undercurrent hiding in my words. If he did sense it, he kept his mouth shut and nodded only once, dismissing me with a small flick of hand. I needed to talk to Alvar and figure out how to be strong enough to fight my other half. There was no way I was going to lose control over my own body and sacrifice the relationships I had only just begun to build. But there was also no way I could let an entire race of creatures to die due to my fear.

If my doppelgänger wanted a challenge, she very well had one.

The sun had dipped on the horizon, casting Alvar and Lucius' silhouette as black shadows moving against the orange skies. I intercepted Alvar, grabbing his arm tightly by the bicep. I knew he was still mad at me, but as soon as he saw my face, the epitome of concern, the anger was lost.

"What is it?" He asked, pulling his arms around me.

"Is there something you can do, glamour wise, so we can talk without anyone hearing us?"

I nibbled my cheek, mumbling quietly against his shirt.

"Of course. Hold on." He whispered foreign words under his breath, but unlike the other times I had heard him speak, I could actually understand what he was saying.

"It's done." He said, his voice only decipherable in my own ears.

"My doppelgänger isn't who we think she is. I think she's got something big planned, something that will end in a lot of people dying."

"What do you mean?" Alvar whispered, even though we could not be heard, and pulled me away from the castle towards the forest.

"I know you're mad at me, for what I did to Lucius. The elder had me working on mind control and said I cant completely manipulate someone but I can shuffle their priorities, which is what I did to Lucius and why he was hurt."

Alvar was silent for a moment, his hand still on my arms.

"It's alright. I knew you had something to do with it because he would never let down his guard like that. Just please, even if that man tells you too, don't hurt Lucius again. We can't heal ourselves when struck by Fae blades, that's why only powers like yours would have been able to save his soul from scattering. And I have a feeling that might have been his goal, to make Lucius scatter."

I considered his words carefully. Before the events of the afternoon, I would have told him he was being dramatic, but I knew better. There was definitely something going on that we didn't know about.

"So tell me, what do you mean?"

"Well, the elder had me try to manipulate Ly. But when I got close, when I had made a mental connection, I heard her talking to her wolf. She was saying that she wanted to destroy the barriers between earth? And then she was talking about-about gaining 'dominance' after the binding ceremony? The elder told me this morning that our personalities would mesh but I assumed that meant I'd just have all that depression and anger that I used to have inside me but now I think it means maybe we are two entirely different people and binding means there are two of us in one body and—"

"Lyra, calm down." Alvar cut me off by bringing me close, crushing my face against his shirt, "we will figure it out. But you got to slow down, okay?" I nodded against his chest and pulled back.

"About the barriers, I think she means to break the portals between The First Plane and Earth. I think she wants to gain my power and then break them all."

"But why would she want that?" Alvar asked, more philosophically than questioning.

"I don't know," I shrugged, "Maybe the shadows have been stuck here for too long. I mean, can you blame them? You've seen what's been done to the villages. That's what makes this so hard; I wish I could just point a finger at someone and pass blame."

"I know what you mean." Alvar sighed and raked his hand through his hair, "But if she didn't want to cause any harm, why keep it from us?"

"Exactly," I threw my arms up, "if they just wanted to sort this all out then why all this weirdness?"

"And you said she wants to... to claim 'dominance'?" He pursed his lips.

"Something like that." I whispered, reaching for the necklace that was no longer attached to my neck, "and where's my necklace gone?" I trailed off.

"What?"

"Never mind," I waved my hand; "She said that they needed to wear me out before the ceremony so she could have control of my body. But if we are one person, why would we have two personalities?"

"Unless..." Alvar trailed off and began to pace.

"Unless what?"

"Maybe you don't need to be bound to each other to get us out of here. You're already strong enough to do all the feats of any high Fae. I mean, I can't believe we didn't discuss this before, but your personalities wouldn't merge because you've already split off pieces of your soul. You have Beast, she has her wolf... Plus, she's claiming she's already absorbed all of The Umbra's power. When a Fae dies, the soul jumps into the possessions, by order in which they are bound, which allows us to do the ceremony to reabsorb our souls into our bodies. But that possession that contains a piece of your soul has no power while you are still alive... To have that power, the power of that object, that piece of soul, you need to die... Ly is just a physical incarnation of one of your possessions, just as you are to her. Binding two pieces together, while alive, is virtually impossible."

Silence fell, our eyes locked. Both our eyes widened as we came to the same realisation.

"Oh my god. She's planning to kill me, isn't she?"

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Hey guys! 

This chapter is very unedited, so please let me know if it is too confusing and I will publish a re-write as soon as possible.

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xx Charli