The Power That Chooses Its Owner

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 — The Quiet Voice

Chapter 2 — Chosen

Chapter 3 — Missing Names

Chapter 4 — Lyra Senn

Chapter 5 — Fragments

Chapter 6 — The Veil

Chapter 7 — Silence

Chapter 8 — Proof

Chapter 9 — Cracks

Chapter 10 — Caelen's Offer

Chapter 11 — The Descent

Chapter 12 — I Never Chose You

CHAPTER 1

The Quiet Voice

In the town of Ashfall, everyone knew the rules about Gifts. Ren Veyr knew one more, a rule he had made for himself: if you hear a Gift speak, keep quiet about it.

He had heard them since he was six years old.

A Gift was a special power that lived inside a person. Some Gifts made small flames. Some made a person's eyes sharp as an eagle's. Some brought good luck. Everyone said a Gift always chose its owner, and that it only chose someone worthy.

But Ren knew something no one else seemed to know. Gifts could talk.

Not with words that ears could hear. Their voices came into his mind, soft and clear, like someone whispering in the next room. His mother used to call it "Ren's dreaming." Then she stopped calling it anything, because the day he told her what the baker's Gift had said, her face went white as flour.

"Never say that again," she told him. "Not to anyone."

He never did.

✦ ✦ ✦

Now he was nineteen, and he worked at Tolbert's Books, a narrow shop between the market and the well. It smelled of paper and dust and old glue. Mr. Tolbert, the owner, spent most days counting coins and complaining about them.

"Don't touch the cabinet in the back," he said every morning, pointing at the locked cabinet of town records. The key hung on a hook beside it, in plain sight. In ten years, no one had ever touched it.

"I won't, sir," Ren said, every morning.

The shop was the best place for him. It was quiet, and the customers rarely carried their Gifts loudly. Over the years, Ren had learned something about the voices. He heard the tired ones best. The old, the forgotten, the neglected. The Gifts of people who never thought about them anymore came through clearly, the way a lonely person talks to anyone who sits near.

But the proud ones, like the mayor's, or the captain of the town guard's, he never heard at all. Their Gifts were like locked doors. He sometimes wondered what was behind them.

He had no Gift of his own. At twelve, he had stood in the town hall for the Awakening, and nothing had happened. Since then, he had tested himself three times in the forest behind his house, in secret. Fire, luck, sharp eyes. Nothing.

Maybe I'm just broken, he thought sometimes. Maybe I was born with nothing, and my mind makes up the rest.

He almost believed that. Almost.

✦ ✦ ✦

That evening, the sky over Ashfall was the color of dark ash. Ren locked the shop and walked home the same way he always did, past the market, past the well, and down the old stone street. Lamps flickered along the road.

Old Mr. Harlan, the lantern-keeper, was lighting the last one. He was thin and slow, and his hands shook. Ren kept his eyes on the ground as he passed.

Cold, said a voice in his head.

His steps slowed. It was Mr. Harlan's Gift, and it sounded tired, like an old dog.

He forgets to feed me. He forgets everything now.

Ren wanted to say something. Your Gift is sad, he wanted to say. But he knew how that would sound. People would think he was strange, or worse, dangerous.

So he did what he always did. He pretended he heard nothing.

"Good evening, Ren," said Mr. Harlan.

"Good evening, sir."

That was all. Ren walked on, and the voice faded behind him.

He turned the corner toward home. And then he heard it.

It was not like the other voices. Those were small and tired and quiet. This one was clear, sharp, and strong. It cut through the night like a bell.

Ren.

He stopped. His heart began to race.

The street was empty. Mr. Harlan was far behind him, and every window was dark.

Ren Veyr.

It said his full name, slowly, as if it had waited a very long time to say those words.

A chill crawled up his back. This was not a normal Gift. Normal Gifts never spoke to him by name. They never even seemed to know he was there.

"Who is that?" he whispered.

Come, said the voice. Please.

It was coming from the old chapel at the end of the street.

Everyone in Ashfall knew the chapel. It stood on a small hill, dark and broken, with a rusted gate and a crooked roof. The town had closed it about seventy years ago, after something happened there that no one would talk about. The old people said the ground was cursed. The children dared each other to touch the gate, but nobody ever went inside.

Ren should have gone home. Every sensible part of him said so.

But the voice said, Please, again. It didn't sound scary. It sounded lonely.

And Ren knew what it was to be lonely.

His feet began to move.

He climbed the hill. The wind tugged at his coat. The rusted gate stood open a little, as if someone had left it for him, and it let out a long, thin cry when he pushed it. The chapel doors were huge and black. He expected them to be locked.

They opened without a sound.

Inside, it was darker than the night outside. He could smell old dust and cold stone. The air felt heavy, like the room was holding its breath.

Down, said the voice. Go down.

At the back, he found a stone staircase leading deep into the ground. His hand shook as he touched the wall. It was ice cold and damp.

Step by step, he went down. With every step the voice grew louder, until it no longer sounded like a whisper at all. It sounded like someone standing right beside him.

You can hear me, it said. It sounded almost afraid. Truly hear me. After so long.

"I can hear you," Ren said. His voice was small in the dark. "Who are you?"

There was a long silence.

I am something they wanted to forget, it said at last. I am forbidden. I have no name that anyone remembers.

At the bottom of the stairs was a small round room, its stone floor thick with dust. In the middle of the floor, something was glowing.

It was a soft light, the color of old silver. It didn't flicker like fire. It pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat, and Ren felt his own heartbeat start to match it.

Closer, said the voice. Let me see you.

"Are you a Gift?" he asked. "Whose Gift are you?"

I belonged to many people. All of them are gone now. Even their names are gone.

Ren swallowed. "Gone? What do you mean?"

That is a long story, and I do not know all of it myself. The light grew a little brighter. But I know this. I have waited a very long time for someone who could hear me. And now you are here.

He took one small step forward, then another. He thought of the town's rules. He thought of his mother's white face. He thought of every story about forbidden things, and how they always ended badly.

But he thought of something else, too. In his whole life, no voice had ever spoken to him. They only spoke inside their own sad worlds. This was the first one that had called his name.

He stopped in front of the glowing light.

"Why me?" he whispered.

The light trembled.

You do not know yet, said the voice, and Ren couldn't tell if it sounded sad or hopeful or both. But you will.

He slowly reached out his hand.

Just before his fingers touched the light, the voice spoke one last time, so quietly that he almost missed it.

Ren... do not let them find out who you really are.

Then his fingers touched the silver glow, and the whole room filled with light.