Chapter 24
CHAPTER
24
After weeks of training and evaluations, it was abundantly clear how worthless I remained. Compared to everyone else, I didn’t bring anything I found particularly special to the group’s arsenal of magical abilities. Even Nori had proven to be more valuable, and she didn’t even want to be here.
Yes, I spoke the old tongue, but Varro did as well, and he’d improve with help from me. But what good was that when no one else here spoke it? I put it extremely low on the list of things we’d need to survive.
Cairis knew how to track animals, but it was Trace who had helped teach him to track people by scent. To practice, Cairis constantly enlisted Nori’s help, forcing her to participate in his never-ending game of hide and seek. He’d instruct her to hide somewhere in Basdie until he found her based on scent alone. I hadn’t even known Trace was capable of this until we started training here. Just one more thing I didn’t know about him.
Like the others, Trace was good at lots of things. He arrived here with more skills than most of us, and I hated leaning on him for anything. Ever since he ousted us with his altercation, I’d been cordial but distant with him. No one other than Varro made mention of it, but I could tell the others were suspicious, and I hated how I felt their eyes on us anytime we spoke to one another or trained together.
Trace never spoke a word of it to me, but he had to know why I was always treating our interactions like they were strictly business.
He was the most skilled with a blade. The memory of him holding one against the gambler at the tavern seemed lifetimes ago, and yet not much time had passed at all. Sometimes his demonstrations with Theory put even her skills to the test. Watching his swift and intentional movements was like witnessing someone dance in between flickers of silver reflections.
Varro was by far the best of us in any sort of hand-to-hand combat, a fact I knew all too well. At first, I had found myself jealous when I’d witness Trace tumbling and rolling on the ground to pin Gia or Nori.
But the feeling waned, and I grew numb to it. I stopped witnessing the closeness as intimacy and instead recognized it as survival. But when he was the one pinning me, I just felt angry, trapped, and worried that everyone’s eyes were on us. Questioning our connection, questioning if we were still something, nothing more than liars bound to put them at risk. Varro watched us the closest. Holding me accountable to my promise.
Theory pushed us hard. Every day it was a routine of sleep, eat, sweat, fly, focus, heal, sleep. It could have felt monotonous, but it didn’t. There was too much to learn, too much to master before we’d amount to anything. I liked routine and staying busy. It brought me some sense of normalcy.
Many nights ended with a visit to the healing pools. Sometimes in groups, other times alone. Cairis was the only one who never made an appearance, and my arrangement with Nori was one he’d come to take full advantage of. But Nori was more than glad to be useful, and dare I say she’d made a friend in Cairis. Warmth finally returned to her cheeks, diminishing the ashen color that befell her during our early days at Basdie.
He treated her like a little sister; they certainly argued like siblings. Each day she got better under his guidance and Theory only pushed enough to give her more encouragement. As I expected, she was quick and nimble. Extremely difficult to keep up with when Cairis tripled her size.
She took longer to gain comfort with a blade, but Trace was patient with her. Given he was the last to offer her forgiveness, I was shocked to see the level of attention he gave her. He always made sure to select weapons that were more appropriate for her size.
Not surprisingly, Trace was also the best flier of the group, with Gia being a close second. Out on the flight deck, they worked our wings to the bone. Trace insisted we all practice flying with weights in our arms, forcing our wings to grow stronger against the resistance. I hated those days, as they were guaranteed to land me in the bowels of Basdie. No attempt at self-healing would cure my back from that kind of pain.
I imagined Trace and his brothers when they were little and their cruel father forcing them to leap from the edge with heavy stones in their arms until their wings were stronger than anything required to carry their own small bodies.
I may not have improved when it came to in-flight combat, but I was quickly becoming the standout when it came to flight agility. My evasion technique was superior to all but Trace and Gia. I still considered it a small victory since I always felt like I was the one lacking.
I couldn’t imagine a life before this when I never showed my wings and rarely used them. They felt like such a natural part of me now, and when I called upon them, they answered every time, without hesitation. I loved the feeling of wind on my face, the free falls and dives, staring at the sun cresting the mountains. They ached for me to fly farther, beyond the boundaries of the valley in the Elorns.
One evening, after everyone had gone inside from flight training, I found Gia sitting on the stone wall, her legs dangling over the ledge. Interested in the sunset, I made my way to the spot next to her.
“Want some company?” I inquired.
“Sure, why not?”
“The view is incredible,” I said, noticing how the orange and yellow hues of the setting sun rippled across the forest below. Reds, burgundies, and browns all melted into each other as the autumn leaves turned, beckoning the frost of winter.
“He used to watch the sunset with me, even though he preferred sunrise,” she said somberly, looking into the distance.
“Who…?” I asked, feigning ignorance of her former mate.
Maybe she wanted to keep forgetting him, like we were all expected to forget everyone we ever loved. But to forget the bond of a mate? Was that even possible? She remained quiet, and I feared I’d overstayed my welcome.
“My mate. He was, by all accounts, wrong for me. Wrong for me in that he was not wealthy, not a Royal, not even an Honored. He was just a commoner. He managed our family’s growing collection of prized horses.”
I thought about what she’d said when we first arrived and how she didn’t care if anyone was Royal, half-blood, or otherwise.
“I think I knew he was the one even when we were young. Something drew me to the stables, and it wasn’t a love for horses—though I pretended to be more than interested in them just to spend time with him. We practically grew up together. It wasn’t till we were older that the visits to the stable, the long rides through my father’s lands, and the way he’d help me off my saddle became something more. I acted first. He never presumed to be worthy of a High Lord’s daughter, but I wanted him and nothing was going to stop me.”
Gia recounting the story of how she’d fallen for her mate delighted and distracted me from this place as I sat there enveloped in her words, imagining young forbidden love. Her story reminded me of the books back home in my library; stacked in piles on the floor of my room. It reminded me of the times Versa and I would gossip over her escapades. Thoughts of my family had become fewer and farther between, I realized.
“I knew from the moment my lips met his, and I knew it every day after. I was the one who asked for his hand in marriage and arranged the ceremony in secret. While I may have been the one with everything to lose, he was the one I was putting at risk. Some days I regret that, but I was willing to fight for our bond. For a year, I evaded my father’s attempts at securing a match for me. Unbeknownst to my parents, I had already wed my mate, and if it came down to it, I was prepared to lose it all and leave everything behind for him.”
Before all of this, I’d have liked to know that kind of love. Conceivably if things had been different, then that is what Trace and I could have blossomed into. But could a flower ever bloom with only blood and darkness? We were a seed planted with false intention, and given no time to grow beneath a sunless sky.
“My mate and I were ready to escape if my father brought news of a betrothal. However, when that day came, I was delivered something far more crushing. I was the Offering. My older sibling was with child and the others, much too young, so that left only me. For days, I hid away in my room claiming to be sick, unable to face him, unable to tell him the truth of what was happening. I still wonder if what I did was right.”
“What did you do?” I whispered, nervous about her answer.
“I lied and told him I was betrothed to another Royal, very wealthy, someone who lived very far away, and that I could not go against my father’s wishes after all. I broke our bond and told him to find someone else to love.”
I felt myself holding my breath at her confession, and I could see her teeth clenched just to get the words out, like she was hearing herself admit them for the first time.
It was wrong of me to ask, I knew it even as the words were leaving my mouth, but it was too late.
“What does breaking a bond feel like?”
Gia whipped her head to face me, thick tears filling her beautiful eyes before spilling over.
“Like death by a thousand cuts and unimaginable grief. In the first few days, it’s like gasping for air when you’re unable to catch your breath. Some weeks you ebb and flow between numbness and endless rage. Sometimes the sadness gets tired of being contained and it comes out like violence. Screaming, thrashing, violence.”
A few more tears dripped down her soft cheeks.
“Some days it’s like being asked to wander the woods blind, where you try to make your way but realize there’s no point, no purpose. On the days where you think you’re fine and moving on, you experience small things that trigger your memory. A scent, a place, or something someone says, and then you either lock away your feelings and push on bravely or you let yourself crumble for just a short time.”
Gia’s honey eyes looked glazed, and her face was soaked with tears; the dimming sunset illuminated her long blonde curls.
“Is it worth it?” I asked, anxious to understand.
“If I had to do it all over again, I don’t know that I would have sealed the bond. If I had known what the pain of breaking it felt like, I don’t know that I would have gone through with it. This place may have my body, my fealty, but I don’t know that anyone else will ever have my heart. To be honest, I don’t think I have a heart anymore. I think I cut it out myself and left it at his feet.”
I sighed, wishing I could shoulder some of Gia’s pain. I hoped that in some small way, this was cathartic for her. Each of us grappled with letting go of our past. Some more than others. Some had lost more than others. Some had sacrificed more than others.
I stood to give Gia some time alone as the sun made its final descent. Eventually, the valley would be lit only by the moonslight. As I began to walk away, she looked over her shoulder and I heard her whisper over the wind, “Count yourself lucky you’re not bonded.”
That evening we were all reading in the common room when Saryn requested that I join him in private. I placed my book on the table and gave Gia a nervous side-eye. What could he possibly want from me?
He pulled me into the mess hall and wasted no time.
“You’re making plenty of progress with Theory, but you haven’t shown enough improvement with your abilities. It’s unacceptable.”
His words were intense and oozing disapproval. The worst part being that he wasn’t wrong.
Saryn pored over his notes, making mentions of my various failures, improvements, and few successes.
“I see that the library has served you well along with the arrival of the requested materials. You’re the only one who has spent any time exploring poison-making and showing signs of promise. However, your toiling doesn’t fool me. I know that you’ve only done this to make up for your lack of elemental manipulation beyond water.”
He paused, looking at me accusatorily, waiting for me to acknowledge the truth. When I said nothing, he continued.
“Many find that they have an affinity for one element over others. I suggest you set aside the powders and potions and spend more time concentrating on honing abilities that require actual magic, not just stirring and a steady hand.”
I rolled my eyes. Nothing was ever good enough for him. I’d quite like to try one of my latest concoctions on him. He didn’t need to read my mind to know what I was thinking.
Before I could utter any excuses, he asked, “How often are you training with a Vesper?”
And with that question, he had me pinned. I hadn’t visited the Vespers at all. Not since we were introduced. The others had, and it was paying off, but I was too scared. Too scared that I wouldn’t have enough self-control to avoid the “drowning pools” of my past as Theory had warned. My lack of response made Saryn’s judgment transition quickly to frustration.
“You’re now assigned to visit a Vesper nightly, until I see improvement and say otherwise.”
I didn’t dare go against his instruction, but everything inside of me wanted to as I bit my lower lip against the urge to argue.
“Face your fear, Cress,” was all he uttered as he exited the room, leaving me there with my guilt and hesitation.