Touch of Power (Alythian Legacy #1)

"You look like absolute shit," Louis says the second he gets to practice.

I can feel the gazes of Jun and Patrick snap to me and thankfully the prince was called away tonight so he's not witness to how sick I look and feel. "I'm just tired," I say as a half truth. I am tired but I also feel weak and battered, as if something is sucking away the life in me.

Jun frowns. "You slept nearly all day. How can you be so tired?"

I bite my cheek. Because I was in bed up until an hour ago, I have yet to ask Jun about my gloves. She has yet to tell me how they magically appeared on my pillow last night and I'm afraid of the answer she'll give me. Whether someone snuck in and placed them there or one of the eight gave them to Jun herself, I don't know.

Patrick gives me a worried look but he's kept his mouth shut on the events last night like he promised. He quickly told me when I arrived that Lucy and her gang were absent from practice this morning after I too missed it. Maybe Scarlett's warnings do ring true. Maybe chaos is following me for some odd reason.

Whatever their reason was to attack me last night, now they have even more reason to hate me. And I just pray that none of them saw me take Patrick's powers because I no longer hold them. I don't want to explain what the hell happened, despite Patrick's adamancy that I tell everyone.

With the worried looks of my friends, I don't want to admit how much power I used last night. It's nearly eating me alive, trying to regenerate all this power I have inside. Patrick tried explaining it to me when we first started training, that our power was not limitless but it was a hard topic to grasp as I've rarely ever used my powers up until a couple weeks ago.

But now I get it.

There's an emptiness where there should be a beating heart. Where there should be heat and warmth, all I meet is iciness and frost. Without the energy to fuel my powers, I have nothing and it feels shitty. Utterly shitty.

"You should probably skip practice, Ellis," Louis says as he takes a big bite of an apple. With his mouth full, he adds, "Don't want you dying on us."

A hand whips out and takes the apple from Louis. Yondou stares at him and hisses, "No food in the gym." His eyes scan our small group, eventually snagging on me. "Though Carrison speaks true. Go back to bed. I'll call a healer for you."

"I'm fine," I bite out. I don't want to seem weak even though in this state I'm terribly, terribly weak.

Yondou sighs. "Ellis, for your sake, please do not be so stubborn tonight and heed my warnings. You will not train unless you want to be unconscious for all of it."

Patrick rises. "I'll take her to the Infirmary."

Yondou nods. "Good. And if Miss Ellis is preoccupied, then we do not need your services tonight Mr. Skelly."

Patrick bows his head and turns to me. I take his hand with a frustrated sigh as he pulls me to my feet. It probably takes double the time to get to the Infirmary than it would regularly because of how bloody slow I'm taking.

When we finally arrive, Patrick already seems to know where to go and I just have to quietly hobble along. The longer we walk, the more and more I grow tired. How much of me did I take out yesterday?

We finally arrive at a door that's already wide open and Patrick pauses in the threshold. "Eve," he says quietly. When I peer over his shoulder, Eve is with another healer, looking over some medical books.

She glances up, along with the healer she's with, and smiles at the two of us before her eyes snag on my grey skin. "Bloody hell, Freya. You're knocking on death's door," Eve says as she rises from her chair.