"Hey, Julia," Destan whispered through the dark shadows of the trees, his hand on a ridged trunk.

Across the river, Julia sat on her bench. She was bent over the sketchpad in her lap, furiously drawing. Her black hair hung like a veil down her shoulders, hiding her face from view. A handful of yellow flowers lay on the bench beside her.

"I messed up. Again." He sat down below the tree trunk and pulled his knees up to his chin. "Aruna gave me a chance to redeem my mistakes and I... I walked out."

He let out a shuddering sigh. It felt good being able to tell someone. Even if that person couldn't hear him.

Julia reached into her pink backpack on the ground and pulled out a yellow pencil. With the tip of her tongue between her teeth, she set to work again.

"Those two, Elias and Keara, they were awful. How am I supposed to form a team with two people who loathe me?"

He took a deep breath, calming the frustration that burst through his veins once more.

On the other side of the stream, Julia lifted her drawing up to the sky as if to assess its quality, smiling at it. Then she lay it down next to her, put her pencils away and picked up one of the flowers. She rolled it around between her fingers.

"Everyone does that. I know they're not supposed to help me or socialise with me because I'm an outcast, but it's more than that. They look at me like I'm rotten. They don't even know me!"

His voice cracked and the black, lightning-like lines on his arms burned with withheld rage. It pulsed through him with every heartbeat, craving to burst out. He shook his head and rubbed his palms over his face. Control it. Never lose control.

Never again.

Julia threw the flower into the air and caught it again. Almost automatically, Destan let his power slither over the stream, grab hold of it and lift it up. His fingers moved as if they were controlling puppet strings, while the flower danced around above his little sister's head. She laughed in delight.

"This was a chance for me to show them who I really am. To show them I can help. But I went and ruined it." He sighed, watching the flower hop about on the palm of Julia's hand. "I just wish things were different," he whispered. "If only you'd been born with atraments. Mum would still be happy. Dad would still be alive. We'd be a family."

Under his control, the flower climbed up her arm onto her head and placed itself behind her ear, sticking out of her hair like an ornament.

"I just want my family."

They'd been a family for a short while, as his mother held the newborn little girl in her arms and his father opened the bedroom door to let Destan and his grandfather inside. It lasted for about five seconds, when his mum noticed the baby's arms: bare, no lines running down them.

Chaos followed. His dad had taken the little girl away, leaving an inconsolable wife and son behind. When he came back, they were lying on the bed together, arms wrapped around each other.

Days went by and Destan refused to leave his bedroom, sitting on the cold floor between his bed and his wardrobe. He wouldn't talk to his dad, wouldn't even acknowledge him. For a long time, he even refused to eat.

Time couldn't heal the deep wound in his heart. The only words Destan would utter, were, "I want my sister back."

Desperate, his dad took him to Grimsby one day. Careful to keep their atraments hidden, they snuck through the town until his dad stopped in front of a house with green curtains. Concealed by the moonless night, they watched through the window.

A woman with curly red hair, thin eyebrows and a large nose smiled down at the crying baby in her arms. Pacing back and forth in her long, white nightgown, the woman bounced the baby softly in her arms.

Suddenly, a door opened and a man joined her, along with a boy a few years older than Destan. As the boy sat down on the sofa, the man hugged his wife and kissed the baby.

"See?" Destan's dad had said. "Your sister is alright. She has a new family now. She will be happy here."

Destan had watched quietly, tears streaming down his face at the sight of his little sister with another family. An Inops family.

Whatever his dad had wanted to accomplish by showing him that, it hadn't worked. From that day on, rather than sitting in a corner of his bedroom, Destan would follow his dad around, begging him to go see the girl again. He would have nightmares that her new family abandoned her and left her to die in the freezing cold and he would wake up screaming, unable to calm down for hours on end.

It went on like this for months, years even. Sometimes he'd run away from home to try and go see her himself, but his dad always caught him. Over time, his temper grew and grew, like a balloon being blown up.

It was inescapable that it would burst one day.

Destan was barely nine when it happened. It was his dad's day off and he stayed at home to take care of his family. All day he'd been fighting with his dad. All day he'd been nagging him, screaming at him, threatening him to take him to Grimsby. His dad, at his wits end, was shouting right back.

"I should never have taken you there in the first place!" he roared. "We're not allowed to go there, don't you understand that? Get it out of your head already. You are never going back there, Destan Kardos, do you hear me? Never!"

His atraments, throbbing with anger, burst at those words. All the pain he felt at the loss of his sister, all the rage for his dad giving her away, came bursting out all at once. Tendrils of magic shot out of his arms, grabbing at whatever they could reach.

Agony overwhelmed him and he'd put his hands over his ears and pushed his eyelids shut. He could feel the tendrils touching molecules, lifting things into the air. He could feel them snapping like whips. They had a mind of their own. He couldn't stop them even if he wanted to.

He sunk to his knees when it was over, panting. He'd never felt so tired in his life. Sniffing into his sleeves, it suddenly hit him that his dad wasn't shouting at him for ruining the living room like that.

His breath caught in his throat when he looked up to find his dad lying in the kitchen, his neck at an odd angle. A whimper escaped him.

"D-Dad?"

His eyes flicked to his parents' bedroom, wishing his mum would come out and help him.

"Dad, that's not funny. I'm sorry, okay? Stop! Dad?"

With a faltering gasp, Destan took a deep breath and filled up the room with an anguished scream.

***

Knock, knock.

Destan jumped up from his bed.

Julia had left him another drawing the previous day. Once again, it showed herself with flowers hovering around her head. But this time, she wasn't on her bench by the stream, but at home; it showed her sitting on a bed with a desk in the corner and a clock on the wall.

He'd been staring at it for hours, trying to figure it out.

Knock, knock.

Frowning, Destan folded up the sheet of paper and hid it inside his pillowcase.

Who on earth could be at his door? There weren't very many people who'd risk being caught knocking on the outcast's door.

Knock, knock, knock.

He shut the door to his bedroom and glanced at his mum, who was lying in her rocking chair by the open window. She briefly turned her head to look at him, in a silent greeting. "Morning, mum," he mumbled before opening the front door of the hut.

A kind face smiled back at him. A kind face he wished he wouldn't have to see today.

"Good morning!" said Aruna. "Can I come in?"

Destan reluctantly stepped aside to let her in. Even an outcast, especially an outcast, couldn't say no to the simple requests of someone as important as Aruna.

She looked around as she entered the living room, glancing at the armchair that held his mother. "Good morning, Mrs Kardos."

Destan felt the heat rise to his face when his mum didn't answer, her head still turned towards the window. She didn't even so much as flinch at hearing her name.

"Uh..." Destan cleared his throat. "I think she's still asleep," he muttered, knowing full well that he was lying to the tribe's trainer. "Would you like to sit down?"

Aruna took a seat on a stool, her back straight as a plank, staring at his mum with an oddly distant look on her face. "It never quite gets easier, does it?" she muttered.

Unsure of exactly what the old woman was aiming at, he hummed in agreement, pulling a hand through his curls.

She shook her head and turned to face him. "I thought I'd come back after you've had a chance to think it over."

Destan plopped down on a chair opposite her and gave her a defiant look. "I haven't changed my mind."

The old woman leaned forward on the stool, a strand of long, grey hair falling off her shoulder. "I don't think you realise just how difficult it was to convince your grandfather to let you do this. I risked my reputation for you."

Destan looked away, unable to bear her stern look. You shouldn't have done that. The words got stuck in his throat. Not for me. Never for me.

When he didn't answer, Aruna continued. "I have also managed to persuade Elias and Keara to, uh... welcome you into the team."

You mean you didn't leave them any choice. Despite this thought, Destan looked up in surprise. If they were willing to accept him...

"And can I just remind you that I've spent the last five years giving you advice on how to use your magic and gave you a proper training last week, despite your outcast status?"

"Well, you shouldn't have bothered," said Destan, his eyes once again averted. It's not my fault you did all that. I haven't asked for any of that. Yes, he'd been grateful that she'd been willing to give him pointers; it had helped him survive. But he had never asked her for it. She'd come to him. Not the other way around.

"Why?" Aruna asked suddenly. "This is the chance of your life. Why would you not take it?"

"Because it wouldn't have worked out!" said Destan. "People have been treating me like an outcast even before I was one. Elias and Keara have been raised to stay away from me because I'm dangerous, because they all think I lack control. They don't trust me and they never will."

"How would you know that, if you refuse to try?"

Destan shook his head. "Uncle Lys has always told me tribers don't easily change their ways. They stick to what they know, because they're scared. And losing control is the most terrifying thing there is."

"Lysander Kardos said that, did he?" said Aruna, a frown cutting through her forehead.

"Yes. That's why I'm still an outcast. I need to prove that I'm in control of my atraments."

"And how do you plan on doing that?"

His face paled. "Well, I... I just thought –"

"Listen to me," said Aruna. "This is your first and only chance to make things right. To stop being an outcast. Isn't that what you've always wanted? To belong again?"

Yes, thought Destan. That's the one thing I want most in the world. But what if I make things worse? What if I lose control again? Or, ancestors forbid, if they find out about Julia while we're in Grimsby? I can't take that chance...

"You should do it, you know," came a weak, croaking voice from the corner of the room suddenly. Destan's jaw dropped when he realised it was his mum. She'd turned her head towards them and looked him straight in the eye, the bags under her eyes as dark as ever. "Aruna's right. If you have a chance, you should take it."

She stared at him for a few seconds, then turned her head back to the window.

"But Mum... What if I mess up? What if I make things worse?"

His mum didn't respond. Those three small sentences were all he'd get out of her today. It was more than he usually got.

"You won't," said Aruna. "I watched you closely during my training. You never lost control for a second. Your powers are strong and you know how to use them. By being on your own for all those years..." She threw a hesitant glance towards the bench, but his mum didn't respond. She continued, "you've learned from experience how to contain your power. You know what to do, Destan. Now you just have to do it."

Destan hesitated, rubbing his hands over his face. Aruna had a point. He hadn't lost control in six years. Yet he was just as much of an outcast as he was after his father passed away. Nothing had changed.

This was his chance.

Quite possibly his only chance.

He sucked in a deep breath and finally said, although still reluctantly: "Okay. I'll give it a try."