Chapter 166: The blood of Morgana

The training chamber Lucius had prepared for them was nothing like Ayla had envisioned.

The walls were made of dark stone, smooth and almost black, with strange silver markings carved into them.

There were circles within circles, lines crossing over one another, and symbols that seemed to shift whenever Ayla stared at them for too long.

Four large black candles stood at each corner of the room and they burned a deep blue.

At the center of the room stood a straw figure strapped to a wooden cross. Someone had dressed it in a linen shirt and drawn a face on the sack that served as its head, two dots and a flat line for a mouth.

"Come in and shut the door." Amara called out from the corner of the room. Ayla had no idea she was in there in the first place.

Ayla shut it, turning to face her.

Unlike the first time Ayla had seen Amara, there was nothing frail about her now. She wore a long black dress that brushed against the floor

There was something almost regal about the way she carried herself.

"Take off your shoes. Stand in the middle and do not move until I say."

Ayla stepped out of her slippers and stepped into the circular stone.

The moment her foot touched it, she felt something.

A pulse. It was faint but it traveled beneath her skin.

Her eyes widened.

"What was that?"

"Magic and it recognized you"

Ayla looked down. She still wasn’t used to hearing things like that. All of it sounded like something that belonged to someone else.

Amara walked around the circle.

"You have spent too long thinking of your power as something separate from you but power does not come from your hands." She pointed toward Ayla’s chest. "It begins here in your heart."

Amara tapped her temple. "And your mind."

Ayla nodded slowly.

"So I just think about what I want to happen?"

"No." Amara’s lips curved in a smile.

"If it were that easy, every Omega would have been invincible."

"Then what do I do?"

"Control yourself." Amara moved to the opposite side of the circle. "Your power will follow the strongest thing inside you. If that thing is fear, it will become wild. If it is anger, it will become destructive. If it is grief, it may consume everything around you. But if your mind is clear...your power will obey."

Ayla took a breath.

"Okay."

Amara nodded.

"There is a language," she said, "that was spoken long before you and I. By priestess and witches and Omegas and I will teach it to you. Everything in this room will be said in it. If you want water, you will ask in it. If you want to stop, you will ask in it. That is the rule of your training. Are you ready?"

"I am"

Amara’s mouth twitched. "Ignis."

The word landed somewhere deep in Ayla’s mind.

She knew it somehow.

"Fire," she said.

"Fire," Amara smiled. "Say it back to me."

"Ignis."

"Again."

"Ignis."

"Now find it." Amara put her own hands behind her back to show her. "Non manu. Mente. Not by hand but by mind. Your hands are useless in here. Forget them."

Ayla put her hands behind her back and reached for the fire the way she had reached for it at the gates. The way that had torn light out of her and left men on the ground with their eyes open. Heat climbed her spine and gathered in her palms.

One of the candles around the room went out.

Amara lit it again with a flick of two fingers and said, "Iterum."

Ayla got impatient as she tried to reach for the fire without involving her hands. She needed to focus, light the straw figure on fire.

She could feel something run down her nose and when she wiped it away, the back of her hand came away red.

"Non vis," Amara said. "Voluntas. You are throwing. Stop throwing."

Ayla’s jaw ached from grinding her teeth.

"Fire does not come to a woman who chases it." Amara shouted. "It comes to a woman who has already decided it is hers. Own the fire, Ayla."

Ayla tried over and over again, each time barely managing to light the straw figure on fire.

"I can’t"

"Yes, you can" Amara scoffed. "You have Morgana’s blood."

Ayla closed her eyes and this time she let her hands hang loose behind her back and she took a deep breath and reached for it.

The linen shirt on the straw figure lit up.

And then it climbed in one line from the hem to the collar and the drawn face.The smell of it filled the room.

Ayla did not move.

She watched the figure burn as Nyx purred with pride inside her.

"Bene." Amara had a huge smile on her face. "Now put it out."

"Quomodo?" The word came out of Ayla before she could stop it, and it was right, and she did not know how she knew it.

"With your mind, or with the water in that basin" Amara pointed to the corner. "Or with the salt. Choose."

Ayla chose the basin. The water slopped over the rim and she had to carry it in both hands, and when she threw it the fire went out with a hiss that spat steam into her face. Her hands were shaking and her nose was still bleeding.

"You know you remind me so much of Morgana. We would knock each other into the rocks until neither one of us could stand. She was the most powerful being I knew and I know she went easy on me anytime we trained."

"How did she die?" Ayla asked.

She knew it was poison but she wanted to hear from Amara.

Amara’s eyes dimmed at the question.

Just as she was about to answer, the door opened.

They both turned at the same moment to find Willow standing on the threshold. She was flushed and her breath was coming fast as though she had run to get there.

"My lady." She bowed to Ayla. "I would like to speak with you."