Chương 12: Chapter 11: I Need You

Christa stared across the table, her porcelain teacup resting untouched.

"Elma," she began, her voice level.

"How exactly did your dress end up draped over the western roofline of the manor?" Elma took a slow bite of her bread.

"A gust of wind," she replied.

"It came out of nowhere." She had not achieved lift. The wind displacement experiment produced no measurable lift whatsoever. The dress, however, had responded with great enthusiasm. Christa's blue eyes narrowed, the skin around her knuckles tightening.

"A gust of wind. In a walled courtyard. You had better not be trying to conjure another Stillstorm—""I am not," Elma interrupted. As she sat there, Elma silently extended her awareness, mapping the room. She had noticed Christa looked immensely frustrated lately, but as Elma tuned her senses to the underlying threads of the room, she began to analyze her mother's presence. Christa's field was massive compared to Jorm's. Elma estimated Christa's Total Resonance Output must be roughly 300, 000 Will.

But there was something else. Through the field, Elma could feel a distinct, erratic ripple. Christa wasn't just angry; she was profoundly uncomfortable. Suddenly, the tension snapped. With a harsh, metallic screech, Christa drove her silver spoon straight down, stabbing it into the polished wood of the table.

"Please," Christa whispered, her breath hitching as she stared violently at her daughter.

"Stop feeling me." Elma froze, a genuine shock rattling through her mind. She didn't know Christa could detect that. She hadn't realized her passive scanning left a footprint on another Resonant's perception.

"How..." Christa's voice shook as she leaned forward, her face turning a sickly pale.

"How did you learn to do that in two days? Elma, look at me. How?"

"I was training," Elma said simply. Christa reached up, grabbing her own head, her fingers digging desperately into her silver hair.

"No. No, no... it's not normal. You can't do that in two days! It's not normal!" she shouted, her voice cracking under the weight of an escalating panic. Elma offered no answer, remaining perfectly still, analyzing the outburst. Seeing her daughter's hollow, unblinking stare, Christa's anger dissolved into a fragile, terrifying desperation. She dropped her hands, pleading.

"Elma, please... just tell me if you're okay. If something is wrong with you, you can tell me. Please."

"Nothing is wrong with me," Elma answered. The flat, mechanical response was the final straw. Christa slammed her hands onto the table, the impact rattling the china as she vaulted to her feet.

"Why do you always lie to me?!" she yelled, tears welling in her eyes.

"Why do you look at me like I am an enemy?!"

"I don't think you're the enemy. Don't yell at me."

"Yes you do. You're not even supposed to talk like this. Just tell me what's wrong?" Elma slammed her own hands down, standing up on her chair to meet her mother's frantic gaze.

"Maybe something is wrong with you," Elma fired back, her voice cutting through the room.

"You're the one hallucinating your dead child. Everyone in this manor knows you're crazy." Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Christa froze. The words seemed to physically strike her, draining the remaining color from her face. Her lips trembled, but no sound came out. Slowly her hand reached into the collar of her gown, pulling out a heavy gold pendant shaped like a single, blazing sun.

She clutched it against her chest, her eyes rolling toward the ceiling as her lips began to move in a silent, frantic prayer. Elma watched the display, her jaw tightening.

"What are you doing? What is that?" Christa didn't answer, her frantic whispering rising into a low, desperate hum. As if she was apologizing for Elma's existence. Disgusted by the weakness, Elma closed the distance. She stepped onto the table, her small hand darting out. She snatched the sun pendant straight out of Christa's grip, snapping the chain, and threw it violently across the room. It hit the stone hearth with a sharp clatter. A primal fury ignited in Christa's eyes.

She raised her hand, her palm flying back, a split second away from delivering a vicious slap across Elma's face. But she stopped herself. Her hand trembled in the dead air, inches from Elma's cheek. Breathing heavily, Christa lowered her arm, looking at Elma as if she were staring at a monster.

"Stay away from me," she whispered, her voice broken.

"Just... stay away from me." Without another word, Christa dropped to her knees by the hearth, frantically scooping the broken pendant from the floor. She scrambled to her feet and retreated blindly into the depths of the manor, leaving Elma alone in the echoing room.

Elma closed the nursery door behind her, standing motionless against the heavy wood for a solid minute. Her mind began parsing the data of the altercation, dissecting her own irrational behavior. Why had she told Christa that? Why was she actively antagonizing her own host mother when the strategic directive demanded she lower her suspicion? And more importantly... what was this dull, restrictive ache blossoming in her chest? It pressed against her lungs, making each breath feel shallow and difficult.

She walked stiffly to her bed and sat down, forcing her small body to execute a slow, mechanical rhythm of inhaling and exhaling until the localized chest pain finally dulled to a low throb. There was no tactical analysis, no cold logic that could justify her psychological failure back in there. She had simply wanted to hurt Christa. She had struck out to inflict damage, reacting exactly as she had always done.

She lay back onto the mattress, staring unblinking at the ceiling, remaining entirely unmoving for a minute. Closing her eyes, Elma turned her focus inward into the cold, black vaults of her own mind. Drop the act. Stop doing this. … I know you're listening, it wasn't your fault that we died. I was just… angry. … I'm telling you it's fine now. … Elma gripped the bedsheets, her knuckles turning white. She hated negotiating, but the suffocating quiet in her own head was becoming intolerable.

We are one of the most powerful Resonants in this entire world. You wanted Resonance? This is it. Just come out. She waited. She strained her internal senses, searching for even a microscopic spark of it. Only Silence stretched, thick and unyielding. I need you. She opened her eyes. The golden sunlight still danced across the lace curtains, completely indifferent. Deep inside, nothing answered her.

She lay on the bed, the localized ache in her chest gradually fading, replaced instead by a sudden, freezing hollowness. A strange tingling sensation pricked at her eyes and nose. When she raised a small hand to wipe her face, her fingers came away damp. She forced her focus back to the primary objective: figuring out how to reinforce her body with Resonance, exactly as Fenric had done. Maybe if her body became strong enough, it would stop doing this. A faint green light bled up through the floorboards.

Elma sat up. The green Veins beneath the manor were shifting, pulsing as they drew closer to her. No. She looked down at her own arm. The same green light answered from beneath her skin, faint traceries kindling along her entire body. She tried to throw herself from the bed. But it was too late. The two lights found each other and a connection snapped into place between them. Before she could even brace, white light swallowed her vision whole.

When it cleared, she was lying on sand. Purple sand, fine as ash, and cold against her cheek. Above her, a single sun hung low and wrong, its light thin and colorless, like daylight filtered through ice. There were no wind currents. No insects. Only the sound of her racing lungs. She staggered upright, instinct compressing the thin atmosphere into tight spheres of pressure beneath her palms before her mind had finished the thought. What is this. Where is she.

She turned, sweeping her gaze across the bruised dunes—and stopped. Standing behind her, completely unbothered by the compressed air humming in Elma's hands, was Sable.