Off Balance Read online

  What the hell was he talking about? How could he possibly know this? He couldn’t—

  Oh shit.

  Oh shit.

  “Goddammit. This is the High Priestess stuff again? You’re on my ass—you shot me—over some fortune-telling bullshit?”

  This was insane.

  He was insane.

  “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. Everything. Even when it almost got me killed.” I shoved him, and he stumbled back a few steps. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the fao’ana on my arms brighten more than they had last night. “I don’t know if I want to be queen. I don’t know if I want to go to Earth. Right now, what I want is you to leave me the fu—”

  “Time out!” Ahiga’s gruff voice hit me, and then he forced his thick, I-bust-heads-together-for-a-living arm between us.

  I stumbled back a few steps before I looked at him. “Stay out of it. This is between Declan and me.”

  Ahiga met my gaze for a moment, and then he was smart. He knew me. Whatever he saw on my face had him moving out of my way.

  My focus went back to Declan. His face was still red, but he was staring at the floor.

  “Did I do something wrong? Because I know we’re both just trying to find a way to get through the day here, and usually I don’t take whatever you dole out personally—”

  “You don’t think this is personal? This is life or death. It doesn’t get more personal.” He was coming at me again, and this time I wanted him to.

  A door slammed, and I ignored it.

  “You’re such a manipulative asshole. I never brought up how you flirted with me on Earth. Or how you kissed me and told me to stay alive for you. And I never complained about how you let Ahiga haul me off to Abaddon—” I felt a surge of anger that I didn’t know what to do with, so I shoved Declan again. He fell back, slamming into the floor with a grunt. “—I’m still trying to survive. I can’t even—”

  Something slammed into my back, and I flew a few feet before falling to the floor. The high-tech material softened as my face hit it, and I had a second of confusion before strong hands gripped my shoulder and flipped me onto my back.

  Lorne dropped a knee on either side of my hips and bent down, his face hovering above mine. He pressed his hands firmly against my head to keep me looking at him. “Amihanna. You have to breathe. Now.”

  Was he insane? Why did he tackle me? “What is wrong with everyone today? Get off of me.” I tried to shove Lorne, but he grabbed my wrists and pinned them above my head.

  He dropped his forehead to mine. “You don’t want to kill Declan, do you?”

  I stopped struggling. Kill Declan?

  I’d almost killed Declan?

  What the hell was going on?

  Chapter Eleven

  AMIHANNA

  “I’m pretty angry with Declan, but I couldn’t have—” I saw it then. The flicker of my fao’ana. They were still faint but visible. “Why are they doing that?”

  Lorne hovered over me. His face just inches from mine. “Declan didn’t tell you? He didn’t warn you?” His skin flared brighter, and I could feel his fear pounding against me. I didn’t know how I felt it, but I did. I hadn’t seen him scared since we were on the bridge of his ship, facing a choice between my death or capture by SpaceTech.

  But we weren’t on a ship. SpaceTech wasn’t anywhere near us. So what was the problem?

  Me. I was the problem.

  “You’re scaring me.” I swallowed. “What’s happening?”

  “Everything will be okay.” His gaze searched mine for something, but what, I wasn’t sure. “But I need you to take a breath and let it out very, very slowly. As you do it, think of anything that makes you calm. It’s not important what, but your control is slipping, and you need to calm down. Right now.”

  He was freaking me out. I wasn’t even that mad. I’d argued with people before, and I—

  Okay. I was pretty mad at Declan, but I wasn’t going to kill him.

  Probably.

  Maybe in my mind, though. Maybe there I’d murder him slowly for being a dick today, but I couldn’t actually hurt him.

  “Do it now, Amihanna.” There was a desperate urgency to his voice that had me pausing.

  “Fine.” I closed my eyes and tried to think of something that made me calm.

  And then I pictured the beach. The one that had calmed me when I was on Abaddon. It wasn’t until I was on Sel’Ani that I realized it was a real place. It was a memory, not a dream.

  I timed my breathing to the sound of the waves crashing on the shore. I could feel the sand under me. Feel the sun on my face. Smell the salt in the air. And heard Lorne calling out to me. I remembered feeling happy. Safe.—

  “Better.” Lorne’s lips pressed against my forehead. “That’s it.”

  I opened my eyes, and I wasn’t mad anymore, but I was really, really confused. I was getting tired of being confused all the time. “What’s going on?”

  He sat up and pulled me up to sit in front of him. “We talked about this last night a little. I thought you understood more, and that’s my fault. And—” His fingers lightly touched the cut on my cheek, and I hissed, jerking away. “What happened to you? You look…”

  I glanced down at myself. My tank was soaked. My ponytail was coming loose. And I hurt in more than a few places. “Declan…He didn’t fight fair today. He got in a few good ones while we were sparring—and fine. That’s fine. But he shot me three—”

  Lorne looked at Declan and then closed his eyes as his skin brightened. I found myself breathing with him. Out for four. In for six. Out for three. After a full cycle of the breathing exercise, he opened his eyes again.

  He cleared his throat. “Remember how I said we were safer together? How we had dangerous abilities?”

  “Sure. I didn’t know what you meant, but yeah.”

  He did that slow nod thing, and I wanted to rush him so that I could stop being confused, but I knew he was figuring out how to explain something so basic to me. Something I should’ve already known.

  “I think I should start out very general because I’m not sure what Declan has told you. If I repeat something or ramble, just let me—”

  “Just tell me. It’s fine.” Any information was better than none.

  His skin flared bright again before settling down. “Most Aunare have a talent of some kind or another. The fao’ana on our skin are a representation of our skills and paths in life. The ones on our arms are things that we are good at. Our talents or abilities or strengths. Those vary from person to person. Not everyone has a special ability. There are sometimes themes within families, but that’s never a given.”

  “Okay.” I was following him so far.

  “On our back, the fao’ana gives each Aunare a road map of their life—not necessarily what will happen but what could.”

  “You said last night that your back had fao’ana that represented me. That’s why you said that we were destined to be together.”

  He gave me a soft smile. “Yes. That’s exactly what I was talking about. I looked for something similar on Earth a long time ago, and the closest I could find was palmistry, but it really doesn’t compare. Earthers can’t do what we do. They’d call some of our abilities magic, but it’s not magic.” He paused, and his gaze searched mine for something, but I wasn’t sure what. “We call them talents, and most of them come from heightened senses and sensitivity to frequency. You’re extremely sensitive to frequency because you can alter the frequency of certain things.”

  Alter the frequency of certain things? He’d lost me completely. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I don’t know if it was some subconscious survival instinct or because of the wipe, but you didn’t ever use your talent—your ability—while on Earth.” He frowned. “Declan was supposed to fill you in on this, but apparently he didn’t.”

  “Come on, man,” Declan said from behind us. “If she had access to her talent, she would’ve used it on Abaddon. Yo
u can’t assume that it’d come back.”

  Lorne’s skin brightened again, and he closed his eyes. “That’s not for you to decide. You said you would take over her training because she was more comfortable with you, and I agreed.” He opened his eyes and stood, finally looking at Declan. “But you left her ignorant. That’s a big problem for me.”

  Lorne turned to look down at me. “This is the second time in twelve hours that you’ve nearly blown up someone.”

  “What?” I jumped up. “I can’t blow up anyone. I don’t have any bombs. I—” He was crazy.

  “You can.” He said something in Aunare, and for the first time, I realized that Lorne hadn’t come alone.

  The guard pulled something out of his pocket, and Lorne’s skin brightened until his fao’ana were bright and flashing.

  The guard threw the object at him.

  Lorne lifted a hand. Whatever it was dissolved into ash before it got near Lorne.

  What the hell was that?

  “My ability works from the outside in. Yours works from the inside out. This is why you are my shalshasa. We are mirrors in every way.”

  “No.” I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t just turn something to ash like that.

  “I don’t know when it happened—if it was gradual or if something set you off—but I need to take you to the High Priestess. Now. Today. I should’ve taken you as soon as you woke up this morning, but you were gone, and I thought…That’s not important. We need to go now. Before anything else happens.” Lorne must’ve seen the disbelief on my face because he clicked something on his wrist unit, and then a vid started playing on the back wall of the gym.

  Teenage him and six-year-old me were in a gym with black matting on the floor. Both of us had short metal batons in each of our hands. The clack-clack-clack of the rods filled the gym.

  “That’s me?” I stepped toward the wall.

  “That’s you and me. Right before I left Earth. You were six. I was seventeen.”

  “We’re moving so fast.” I couldn’t look away from the screen. It was amazing to see how fast I was moving. Faster than I had today. Maybe Declan hadn’t been lying. Maybe I was still holding back. But that didn’t mean I was going to forgive him for shooting me.

  “You didn’t start out this good. We started working with the faksano when you were maybe three and a half, so you had a lot of practice by the time this vid was taken. And that weapon—our faksano—works only for Aunare. Each time we swing the baton, it gains a bit of power. Once they’re fully charged, you can use that gathered energy to enhance your fighting. For most Aunare, that just means their speed and strength increase a bit, but it’s different for us.”

  Lorne’s hand gripped mine, and I moved a little closer to him while I watched.

  “I really regret not teaching you for the last three weeks. You seemed to need space from me, and I didn’t want to make the transition to life on Sel’Ani any harder than it already was. But as much as Declan thinks he can teach you how to be Aunare, he’s not—”

  “I’m not Aunare. I’m aware.” Declan’s tone was full of bitterly brewed anger.

  I was too tired to deal with his hurt. I moved away a little to see Ahiga and nodded toward Declan with my head. Declan was still on the floor. I wasn’t sure what was going on with him.

  Ahiga gave me a nod to say that he’d check on Declan, and I focused on the vid.

  “I’m really keeping up with you even though I was so much younger.” I looked at Lorne. “Were you slowing down?”

  He smiled down at me. “No. Remember what I told you yesterday? You were always able to keep up. Well, maybe once you were five. That’s when I had to start trying with you. My pride took a hit when I realized that, but your father said it was good for me to work for something. Especially when that something was you.”

  I turned back to the screen. It was more than a little disorienting watching the little-me spar with teen-Lorne. “I don’t remember this at all. It doesn’t even feel the least bit familiar.”

  “The memory wipe took it, but that’s you. I swear it.”

  “I know. I…I know what I looked like, but…” I froze as teen-Lorne picked up six-year-old Amihanna and tossed her toward the row of dummies against the back wall.

  “Now!” teen-Lorne yelled.

  Little-me flipped through the air. She landed in a crouch in front of a dummy made of padding with a melon head. She crossed her arms in front of her, and I could see her bright, flashing fao’ana.

  She slashed the batons quickly through the air, opening them wide while screaming. Even through the vid, I could feel a dim version of the frequency she let out as the melon exploded.

  My heart raced and my mouth fell open and holyfuckingshit. I blew up that melon. I blew it up without touching it.

  “Again!” teen-Lorne yelled.

  Little-me turned to the next one and screamed.

  The dummy’s melon head exploded.

  I’d never seen anything like it. My breaths were heaving in and out, and my heart was racing, and I couldn’t believe what I was watching.

  This couldn’t be real.

  “Again!” teen-Lorne screamed.

  Little-me ran and flipped, landing in front of another dummy and screamed. That one blew up with such force that it turned to mist.

  Little-me laughed as she licked her lips, and then turned to teen-Lorne. She said something in Aunare.

  I hated asking, but I wanted to know what little-me was thinking after blowing up melons like that. “What did I say?”

  He gave me a small smile. “It’s a special melon from here. It was your favorite, and we’d brought them to Earth for you. You said it was a waste to use them for practice. You wanted me to use something else next time.”

  The vid played on with us laughing, and then teen-Lorne ruffled my hair, telling me something in Aunare. This time it didn’t feel important to know what he’d said. Not when I felt like the ground was shifting under me, and everything I knew about myself was about to change again.

  I turned to Lorne. “But you said I almost did that now? Today? To Declan?”

  “Yes.”

  Ahiga was squatting next to Declan on the floor. Declan hadn’t gotten up yet. My mouth went dry and I struggled to ask the question I knew I needed to ask. It took me longer than it should’ve. “Is he okay?” My voice sounded too high as I waited for Ahiga to answer.

  It didn’t take more than a second for Ahiga to answer me, but in my mind, it took minutes. And in those minutes, my heart was pounding as I realized what I could’ve done to Declan if Lorne hadn’t stopped me.

  “I think he needs a healing pod for a bit, but he’ll be fine,” Ahiga said.

  He’ll be fine, but he wasn’t fine right now. “I was mad at you, but I didn’t mean to actually hurt you,” I said to Declan. “I’m so sorry. I—”

  “Don’t be sorry. You’re right. I was manipulating you from the start, and I lost control today. I was angry at someone else, and I took it out on you.” He looked away from me. “I wanted you to do what I needed, and my mission took priority. If I’d told you about this three weeks ago—like Lorne said—I wouldn’t need a healing pod at all.”

  “I’m still sorry.” I pulled away from Lorne and turned my back to them. I hugged my arms in and closed my eyes as I thought about what I’d just learned.

  Between one heartbeat and the next, I remembered bits and pieces from different conversations. Things Declan had said. Things my father said. Things Lorne said. Things that now all made sense, but no one told me any of this plainly.

  And why the hell didn’t they? They all knew I couldn’t remember. I could’ve hurt someone—I could’ve killed a friend—and I never would’ve been able to stop it..

  Lorne was my shalshasa. He’d said that we were safer together, but that more importantly, everyone else was safer when we were together, too.

  I turned just enough to see Lorne a little. “That’s why you came over to me last night at
the party. When I lost it after your father said those awful things to me. That’s the other time I almost lost it. You put your forehead against mine. You were calming down my frequencies before I freaked out and blew him up like one of those melons.”

  “Yes.”

  Everything had stopped at the party. All talking and music, and there was this hum of fear in the air. And when I left, they cleared a path for me. No one spoke until I was gone. Because they were afraid. “Everyone was scared of me. That’s why they’re debating on the news about what my fao’ana are.”

  “Yes. They don’t know what you can do exactly because we never released what you could do to the public. We didn’t want it leaked to SpaceTech. Declan didn’t even know until you got here after Abaddon. But everyone in that room knew enough about the rulers of the Aunare to know that you’re dangerous.”

  I looked at Declan again, who was watching me very carefully.

  What if I’d lost it while I was still on Earth? What if I’d been fighting with Roan or Jorge or my mother? I would’ve never been able to live with myself if I’d hurt any of them.

  I’d never been bothered by my mind wipe. It was something that happened that I couldn’t change. I felt haunted by the old version of me, sure, but I didn’t want to be her. I wanted to be me. Even if I was a hot mess, at least I was my own special brand of hot mess.

  But I was horrified by what I could’ve done—what I almost did—to Declan. And for the first time, I regretted what my mother had done to me. I was handicapped by my memory loss. Worse—I was dangerous.

  Until I figured this out, I wasn’t sure I trusted myself, and that was truly terrifying.

  “And you think the High Priestess can help me not hurt people?”

  “Yes.” There was no hint of doubt in his answer.

  Then I knew what I had to do.

  I turned back to Lorne. “When do we leave?”

  Lorne exhaled, and with it, his shoulders softened, and the slight glow of his skin dimmed to nothing. “Shower. Get some food. Then we’re gone. Everything else can wait, but if what little control you had the last thirteen years is gone, then you’ll be dangerous until you find it again. I know you think the High Priestess is a loon, but she’s really not. I need you to give this a shot.”