Blood Oath (A Gabby Girls Adventure Novel, Book Two) (36 page)

I heard her warm laughter before her voice, low and husky. "The items on the altar represent the four elements, the candles, fire; the incense, air; the jar of soil, earth; and a water jar, water."

My eyes narrowed on the altar. I now understood the significance.

"Gabrielle, come in already."

I felt plain silly just standing there like a scared rabbit fighting the urge to run. I walked further into the hall, my eyes finally adjusting to the darkness, the air cool, and the light scent of exotic sandalwood incense permeating the air. My senses reeled when I took in the sheer magnitude of the area. Huge, snarly trees towered. From their limbs hung tons of bright red leaves. The ground was covered in dewy bright green grass, dotted here and there with leaves that had fallen.

I gasped with wonder. It was a secret garden encapsulated within the room. A red bridge nestled in the center of the garden, stretching over a sea green lake. I knew that over that bridge, Veda was waiting patiently. I walked across it, looking down at the huge fish that swam tranquilly beneath the water’s surface. At the end of the bridge, I felt strangely free, almost giddy; I pulled my boots and socks off, letting my toes dig into the soft grass.

And there she was, sitting on the grass, cross-legged and facing a large, cascading waterfall. She was dressed in all black, yoga pants and a racerback top that revealed inky marks that covered the entire left side of her neck, down her shoulder blade, and wrapping around her entire arm. I just stood still, not knowing whether to walk in or wait to be acknowledged.

"Come, sit beside me," Veda beckoned softly. Her eyes were softly closed, her palms lying open, faceup, on her knees.

I quickly walked over and sat down next to her, mimicking her by crossing my legs and placing my palms faceup on my knees. I looked at her with wide, questioning eyes.

"Why are your eyes open, Gabrielle? Close your eyes and relax," she murmured softly.

I closed my eyes, impatiently sitting, my mind racing to all of the things that I had to do today, especially my dreaded training session later on with Chaos. I shifted with agitation.

Veda sighed loudly. "Gabrielle, clear your mind. I can hear your thoughts, and believe me, your training session with Chaos is not important right now. Just settle down and meditate."

She could hear my thoughts?

"Yes, I can hear your thoughts. Quiet down." She looked over at me, her hazel eyes twinkling mischievously. "Straighten your back, pull in your stomach, head straight, and just listen to the water falling. That’s all. Just listen, okay?" she urged with a soft, hypnotic tone.

I breathed out quickly, but I really didn’t get what we were doing and why. I guess she didn’t know that my patience was…well, frankly, I had no patience. And my attention span was even worse.

Veda laughed loudly. "Don’t worry, we’ll work on your patience and attention span."

I gasped; she was really freaking me out now.

"Meditation, that’s what we’re trying to do. Meditation is the only way to be one with the universe and Gaia. But you have to relax your body, release all thoughts, breathe in deeply, and just listen," Veda answered softly.

Reluctantly, I followed her instructions. At first my mind resisted, thoughts of everything and anything flooding in. I sighed. This was not working. I was one step closer to totally giving up when I felt a warm sensation at the base of my spine that crept up to the back of my neck. Then suddenly, a floodgate of sensations flooded through my head, and it was as if I could hear each individual drop of water hitting the stones at the bottom of the waterfall. I inhaled deeper, my mind relaxing as it followed the hypnotic drops. And then it happened, first low, then louder. I could actually hear Veda’s thoughts as our minds connected. My mind wheeled back, frightened of this weird connection.

"That’s it, Gabrielle, relax. There is nothing to be afraid of. Through meditation, you can control and expand your gift. Breathe. Concentrate. Allow yourself to open to everything around you."

And that’s exactly what I did. I could hear the birds chirping, the fish flopping and frolicking, the leaves softly hitting the grass. It was simply amazing.

I could sense Veda shifting. Then I felt the soft pull of energy disconnecting from my mind, like a plug being disconnected from a socket.

"That was very good for your first lesson, Gabrielle; you can open your eyes now."

My eyes snapped open to find her looking at me proudly. Energized like I had drunk ten energy drinks, I shifted to face her.

"How is that possible? I could hear your thoughts. I could hear things that, frankly, I shouldn’t be able to. And now I feel energy like I have never felt before."

She stretched her arms overhead delicately, but never broke eye contact. "Because you are truly gifted. You just did something that took me years to master. The connection to me through your gifts, that’s a two-way connection."

"Two-way connection?"

"When done correctly, it’s like a turbocharged version of a telepathic connection. It’s the ability to communicate our thoughts and feelings through the use of our gifts. What makes it turbocharged is that we can also share our gifts and powers through this connection. Hence, the energy burst that you’re feeling now, I gave you just a taste of my powers through our connection. The truth is that I can count on one hand the number of
Eternals
with the gift of two-way connection, and you and I are included in that count."

My mind reeled. Something about the last part, about the sharing of gifts and powers, needled me. It felt totally wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.

"But I’ve never been able to hear another person’s thoughts. Believe me, if I could, it would have gotten me out of a lot of trouble," I responded ironically, wondering if my gift could be used to read Chaos’s thoughts. I laughed with glee. I bet they would be very interesting.

Veda chuckled huskily. "The answer to that question is a big, fat no, Gabrielle. You can’t use your gifts to read Chaos’s thoughts. That’s strictly against the rules."

I looked at her guiltily.

"I kind of get the sharing of thoughts and feelings part, but something about the sharing of the gifts and powers thing seems off. Besides, it would suck something awful to have some random person reading my private thoughts and feelings or, even worse, stealing my powers. So, how do you turn this connection thing off?"

Veda’s eyes lit up with wonder, "You are truly the Akasha. Your enlightenment is so far ahead for your age."

I looked at her, shocked. "Umm, thanks, I guess, but I don’t feel like I understand anything, really." I fumbled with my thoughts, because it was true. I didn’t understand most of what was happening to me, and that made me feel woefully inept.

She looked at me patiently. "You are way too hard on yourself. This"—she waved her hands toward the garden—"is not an open-book test; it’s all learned by going through the journey. There is nothing that I or your professors can teach you that can prepare you for the reality of this world. It’s all trial by fire, Gabrielle." She grabbed my face softly. "Question everything and everyone to find out their true motive, and dig further if your mind prods you when something rings false. These are the things within your control."

I fought the overwhelming self-doubt that had crept into my soul more and more every day, the doubt that I just could not live up to what everyone thought I was born to do.

"It’s just…why me? Why am I the Akasha?" There, I’d said it aloud. I’d put it out there in the universe, and I couldn’t call it back. My shoulders rolled forward dejectedly.

Her hazel eyes narrowed as she looked at me silently for what seemed like an eternity. "Instead of asking ‘why me,’ you should be asking yourself ‘why now.’ But that is a more in-depth discussion, no?" She released my face, then sighed before quickly standing up, looking down at me without blinking. "And the answer to your question is ‘mind walls.’ If you raise them around your mind, it can protect you against anyone who tries to abuse this connection." She abruptly turned away and started walking toward the garden. "Let’s take a walk, shall we?"

I scrambled to my feet and walked beside her anxiously. The sanctuary was an amazing indoor garden lush with grass and flowers growing from every imaginable place, and trees looking like they were waiting to swoop down and entangle you in their limbs readily. We silently walked through the lush garden just enjoying each other’s company, not feeling any pressure to talk or make silly idle conversation.

Veda looked at me slowly with a warm smile curving her lips. "So what do you think of the
Eternals
so far?"

I rolled my eyes with exasperation. "They are all insane. And I still don’t understand anything, really. Everything and everyone seems super…well…complicated."

Veda abruptly stopped, touching the petals of a huge pink flower delicately. She leaned toward it, inhaling the fragrance, then abruptly continued walking, the garden’s air transforming from warm and welcoming to chilly and eerily ominous. Goose bumps ran down my arms, and unconsciously, I huddled near Veda, looking around warily.

She looked around the garden wearily, sighing softly. "
It
senses your internal struggle."

"It? What’s it?"

She raised her hand in the air, her fingers moving one by one as white pulses of light sprang from the tips. "The garden, it can sense your mood, your thoughts and powers. It feeds off what you emit; this is what sustains it." She looked over at me admonishingly. "And it doesn’t like the internal struggle within you, so, the quicker we work on resolving it, the happier it will be."

I breathed out with frustration. Great, now the garden was judging me too. The list of people and things I was tragically disappointing was growing longer every day.

"Does it ever get better? It’s just sometimes I feel like"—I grappled with finding the right words—"I’m being torn apart bit by bit." I paused, my eyes wide with shame. "Don’t get me wrong, I can deal, you know. I’m tough enough to take on, you know, whatever." I wasn’t, but I figured that if I said it enough, someone would believe it, including me.

Veda stopped short and looked at me with soulful eyes. "Never, it never gets better, Gabrielle. I would love to tell you that it does, but it doesn’t." She grabbed my hands softly. "I would love to tell you that even my internal struggles are a thing of the past, but they aren’t."

I was trembling inside because I wasn’t sure that I could live my life with the burden of knowing that things would never get easier, and that, at sixteen, this was it and the simple things in a typical teenage girl’s life, I would never have. Being sixteen seemed so very old now.

"Well, honestly, I’m not dealing with this"—I looked around the garden with dismay—"very well."

She smiled sweetly. "Don’t be so hard on yourself. Did you honestly expect to cope with everything overnight? As
Circles
, we are gifted at birth with powers that we have no idea how to use it until we get here to the Isles of Transcendence. Then once you’re here, you’re thrown into this world and expected to muddle through the sheer magnitude of it all."

She pointed proudly at her scarlet pendant. "But the real secret to it all lies within this. The scarlet stone is the connection to your gifts, to your struggles. It’s a living extension of who you are, and the more you give to it, the more you get back in return." Her pendant fluttered against her chest excitedly. "Sadly, many
Circles
have failed to learn the potential of tapping into their pendant and are tempted by the darker side."

She continued walking through the gardens, touching the trees and flowers respectfully as she strolled by. "On the flip side, our scarlet pendant can truly be a curse." She held out her hand as a beautiful butterfly fluttered around her fingers with delight.

I looked at her, startled. "Why is it a curse?"

"It can start to take on a life of its own, consuming the wearer with its power, making the wearer thirst for more than it’s willing to give."

My steps faltered. "And that’s where the
Banished
come in, right?"

She nodded sadly. "Yes."

We continued to walk in silence; I could have sworn that the trees were whispering, talking amongst themselves. Everything about this place made me forget about all the pressures, about the conflict with Chaos and Justice. The
Taint
. The destiny thing.

Veda sat down on a huge stone bench, patting the space beside her. She smiled. "So, tell me, what you think about Chaos?"

I grimaced. "You read my thoughts, huh?"

Veda looked at me secretively. "In here, my thoughts are yours to read freely, as your thoughts are mine. There are no secrets, unless you deem it so."

I knew that Veda was being totally honest. Suddenly I read a thought that quickly flickered through her mind.

I gasped, "Orion! Orion is your mate?"

She smiled warmly before something similar to bittersweet wanting skittered across her eyes before quickly disappearing. "Yes, he is."