Bella Powerforce's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

A week after the failed test, Bella rode the west border at dawn. The grass there had gone black. A mound of scorched dirt rose in the field, veined with red light that pulsed like a heartbeat. Cracks ran through it. Heat came off it in slow waves. Bella dismounted and walked close enough to see her own reflection warped in the glassy stone. Her sister had left a marker. Cyndi was watching, and the land was already answering her. Bella went back to the palace grounds and ordered a tent raised on the south lawn. It went up in a day, faceted panels of pale crystal that threw color across the grass. She sent word to every branch of the family, near cousins and far, anyone with Gianna blood. Come forward. Be seen. She would not test strangers again while her sister salted the fields. They came in slow. Most were nervous, some were greedy, a few were kind and plainly unfit. Bella spoke with each one and let them go. On the fourth day, her eldest daughter walked in without being called. Silver stopped in the middle of the tent and folded her hands. "You skipped me," Silver said. "I skipped all of you." "Test me." Bella took the shard from her sleeve. Silver held it. Her jaw set. Her shoulders dropped by degrees, then held. She did not smile. She did not drop it. After three minutes Bella took it back, and her hand shook when she did. Silver felt the weight. Silver could carry it. Before Bella could speak, the tent flap moved and a girl with gold hair stepped inside. Bella knew the face before she placed it. Cyndi's daughter. Goldie stood at the entrance and did not come closer. "I want the shard too," Goldie said. "Not the crown. The other one. Time." Bella went still. She had not offered the Time Keeper's seat separately. She had held both so long she had stopped thinking of them as two things. Goldie held out her hand. Bella gave her the shard. The girl closed her fingers around it and stood there with her mouth flat, and the light in the tent slowed, then caught, then moved again. Two full minutes. Bella took the shard back. Goldie's palm was red. "You stopped it," Bella said. "I can do that." Bella looked at her daughter, then at her sister's daughter. Two candidates in one afternoon, both blood, one from each side of the war she was trying not to fight. She sat down on the crystal bench and set the shard on her knee. She had told the realms no siblings. She had not said no nieces. The rule she had made to keep Cyndi out had just let Cyndi's daughter in. Outside, past the tent wall, the black patch in the west field pulsed once, brighter, as if it had heard.