Bella powerforce's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Bella Powerforce had kept time between the realms for six centuries, and this morning her sister had mounted a camera above the north gate. It was the size of a small dog, white as bone, and its lens turned when Bella walked beneath it. Cyndi had not asked permission. Cyndi had not even come to breakfast. Bella climbed the hill behind her house to the stone circle she had cleared for this purpose. She had laid the flat stones herself, one for each realm, and set a scanner at the center to read the signals of anyone who stepped inside. For thirty years the circle had stayed empty. She came each morning anyway. The role would choose. She only had to be ready to see it. Cyndi was waiting at the center stone. She wore the purple dress she saved for council days. In her hand was the small scanner Bella used to measure a candidate's worth, the one Bella kept locked in a drawer beside her bed. "You took that from my room," Bella said. "I borrowed it." Cyndi held it out, screen up. "Scan me." "That isn't how it works." "Then tell me how it works." Cyndi's voice stayed flat. "You've watched this hill for thirty years. No one comes. I'm here. I've built the alliances. I've placed the cameras. The realms already answer to me in half the corners you don't visit anymore." Bella took the scanner from her sister's hand. She pressed it against Cyndi's palm. The screen lit purple, then dimmed, then showed a single flat line. Not unworthy. Not chosen. Hungry, and only that. Bella had seen the same reading once before, in a man who later burned a border town to make a point about loyalty. "You want the role because you want to be seen," Bella said. "That is not the reason the door opens." "You were seven," Cyndi said. "You didn't earn it either." "No. I didn't." Bella slid the scanner into her pocket. "That's why I won't hand it to someone who thinks she has." Cyndi's face did not move. She stepped off the center stone and walked down the hill without another word. Bella watched her go. Halfway down, Cyndi lifted her hand, and somewhere in the trees a second camera turned to follow Bella instead. Bella called Heather that afternoon. It was Tuesday. Heather answered on the second ring, three children loud behind her, and Bella heard a kettle click off. "She came to the circle," Bella said. "With my scanner." Heather was quiet a moment. "She told me she was reading in the garden." "She's been using you." "I know," Heather said. "I've known since spring. I didn't want it to be true." Bella looked up at the north gate. The white camera was already tracking her window. She had refused Cyndi. Now Cyndi knew.