Hopeless Magic (45 page)

I breathed in relief, finally making my way past the modern structures set up as gift shops and ticket booths and to the doorway leading into the age-old city. It was very early in the morning and there was not a soul around. I treaded carefully through the stone passageway and onto the rough stone walkways that had stood the test of time.

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I was alone. At this height, and with the ancient city sprawling down the mountainside at my feet, I had never felt more alone. I walked the stone pathways and up the hundreds of stone steps to the highest point of the Incan citadel.

I stood next to a wide square stone that was nearly taller than me and had some kind of pyr-amid built into the top of it and felt myself moved again. Machu Picchu was a religious experience, a moment in my life that my soul felt bigger than myself.

I stood with arms wide and chin tipped towards the sun rising in the east, over the pointed mountain peaks. I breathed the thin, crisp air finding a perspective bigger than myself, bigger than my problems. I stayed like that for a while, drinking in the sacredness surrounding me.

The Shape-shifter colony was close, the magic had grown steadily stronger and I could feel the direction it was located in, clearly. I had been pressed with urgency until this moment at the height of an antiquated citadel that still stood, 705/711

despite the modern world, as a gateway to the past. The hundreds of buildings made from chiseled stone, stairs that were worn with age and use, and religious structures for antiquated gods all but forgotten, shined as sobering reminders that kingdoms rise and fall. I was just a small piece in the tides of change that dictated the currents of life. I had a part to play, but if I failed, someone else would rise. Injustice would not always be victor of this life.

The magic began to grow stronger, my blood igniting with the warning signs of an approaching magic. I dropped my arms, and opened my eyes, but I would not move. Whoever was out there would come to me.

A flash of black between two stone columns caught my attention. I had seen wild animals along the hike here, but the soft fur of an alpaca was nothing quite like the sleek black coat of a wild panther. I tilted my head, waiting for the man to turn back human.

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"I was coming to you," I called out before the man made himself known. "You didn't have to meet me."

"You're confident that you could have found us?"

he asked in his rich Jamaican accent, smugly confident that I would not have been able to.

Silas stepped from behind the stone archway, leading up to the sacred high place. His skin was as dark as the fur of his panther shape. He wore the same brown work pants and forest green sweater I had seen him in the night I first met him.

"I guess, we will never know," I replied, not willing to be humble, but not wanting to insult him either.

"So, you have come then. It has gone badly,"

Silas stated, and his words felt like a harsh accusation.

"Yes, but you knew that it would," I answered.

We stood awkwardly far apart from each other. I had expected a warm greeting and a man thankful 707/711

that I had come, but he eyed me suspiciously from a distance as if I were a threat.

"Still, I had hoped things would go.... differently," he looked passed me, at the surrounding mountains. His grey eyes clouded with sorrow, and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

"So did I," I surprised myself with morbid sarcasm.

"The old man?" Silas asked, ignoring my poor attempt at dark humor.

"Dead," I stated simply and then cleared my throat quickly to cover the emotion threatening to surface.

Silas took a step back, as if I had slapped him, before continuing, "And the boy?"

"Taken," I replied in the same way.

"And you?" his eyes flashed back to suspicion and then met me with new interest. "How is it that you are here?"

I was surprised by his question. "You are the one who told me to come," I lashed out angrily; how 708/711

dare he give me cryptic instructions and then question my obedience.

"Did I tell you to take so many magics? You are radiating with stolen blood," his eyes turned from suspicion to hard distrust.

"Yes, I am. So, what?" I crossed my arms defensively. "Do you know what it was like when they came for my family? Were you there?" it was my turn to accuse, but I answered my own questions before he even opened his mouth to speak, "No, you were not. You were here, protected by your mountains and hidden from sight. My people were massacred. They were betrayed. My grandfather was murdered and my brother kidnapped.

Do not question my stolen magics when I was fighting to save those that I love most," my voice broke, and a hot tear fell free from the prison of my eye and slipped without permission down my rain soaked cheek.

"And so you take other's magic without remorse?" he asked, disbelieving.

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"I have remorse!" I screamed at the old man, my voice echoing off of the mountains in a chorus of anger.

"No," he accused quietly. "No, you are an evil thing now. Unrecognizable and evil," his voice had dropped to a whisper, but I had no trouble hearing his accusations.

I knew that he was right.

"Will you help me?" I cut to the chase, unwilling to continue the hurtful small-talk.

"No, we will not help you," he said simply and with finality. He turned from me, this conversation was over.

I watched him leave. I had come here for nothing. He would not help me and I had nowhere else to go. Worst of all, the last of my fears had been realized. I wasn't myself anymore. I wasn't a future queen, or the next Oracle. I had slipped in-to an evil version of myself, the greatness that had once been whispered with my name would stay a hushed murmur that floated away with the 710/711

wind. I wasn't recognizable anymore, Silas had said it.

I was evil. There was no more good left.

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