Sleight of Hand: The Final Card

Chapter 11

Trebor jerked violently awake. His heart thundered rapidly in his chest, and sweat made his palms slick in his gloves. He could feel cold perspiration beading on his face and dripping down the back of his neck. It sent shivers raking across his body.

"You okay?" he heard someone whisper in the dark­ness. He trained his eyes toward the source.

Aivilo peered at him with her glowing blue eyes from where she rested her back against the trunk of a tree. It must've been her shift; somewhere around four in the morning. The moonlight hit her skin in just the right way to make it look as if it too were emitting light. Then again, Aivilo always looked like that. It was her aura as a Superhuman that made her seem to give off a lumines­cence of her own. The way her blazing hair danced in the slight nocturnal breeze was uncannily similar to the small campfire she sat beside. All that, plus her illuminated pupils, made her look ethereal.

"Yeah..." Trebor replied, mindfully relaxing the tautness in every single one of his muscles. As he did, his hands started to tremble, and he was glad for the cover of darkness. "Just had a nightmare."

Aivilo beckoned him over, and he stood, his legs feeling shaky. He tiptoed over and eased himself next to where Aivilo and Blitz were huddled around the fire. The fox was pressed into Aivilo's side, her muzzle resting atop her paws. She breathed slow and deep like she was sleeping but every so often her ears perked and turned in the direction of noises only she heard. Trebor met Aivilo's eyes, and found her features contorted worriedly.

He missed his mother's healing; it had helped him sleep soundly those first couple of nights after his dying. She had focused her healing abilities on his mind more than his body, as if she'd sensed he'd be more scarred men­tally than anything else. While she couldn't directly ease the emotional and mental turmoil he experienced, she could halt the physiological responses that came with it. But ever since they'd left on this quest to find the power source, the nightmares had come back, each more intense and harrowing than the last. Trebor knew each day they were on this trip, it would be harder and harder to summon the energy needed for him to use his power because of his lack of adequate sleep.

And his mind... he knew it was broken somehow. He didn't think any amount of healing would ever fix what the Mage had done to him that day. It had changed something in him.

Trebor would never admit it to anyone, but ever since dying, he'd found himself more susceptible to panic attacks. There were times when he genuinely thought he was going to die again from the mere memory of experiencing it once before. Trebor supposed his mother's healing helped, but after leaving her care for this journey, panic always seemed to be on the brink of taking over his mind, controlling him in a way that left him utterly defenseless. He'd been lucky enough not to experience an attack in front of everyone while on this quest so far, but the times he'd fallen into it around his mother left him gasping for air and unable to stand. Each time it had racked his body with an imaginary pain that only fed his terror, until his mother's healing power finally broke into his mind like blinding light and pulled him back into reality.

"Show me," Aivilo said, jarring Trebor back into the present. She sounded a little fed up.

"What?" he asked, hugging his knees to his chest against the chilly night air.

Aivilo leveled her gaze at him intensely and repeated, "Show me."

Trebor studied her face again. Past the illumination, Trebor saw exhaustion etched in her features. Her eyes were squinted with fatigue, and her face was slack and paler than usual. Her mood had only declined since he'd last seen her, too; a small frown was set on her face.

"Let me see it."

This time, Trebor didn't need to ask what she meant. She wanted to see his trauma. Wanted him to share it with her. And, for some reason, it infuriated Trebor. Infur­iated him because his mother had been right.