Chapter 24 #2
We train relentlessly over the next weeks, my body and mind pushed to limits I didn’t know existed.
After the first few days, I could barely walk out of The Seventh, as I’ve learned the training building is called—the deepest and last of the seven hells, and fuck if the name isn’t warranted—and if not for Copeland’s ability to heal all of my aches and pains, I’m fairly sure I would have died.
That might be slightly dramatic, but I don’t really give a fuck.
I’ve always felt as if my body was in good physical condition.
I’m curved in the places men like to notice and flat most everywhere else, decently strong from lifting barrels of ale and cases of wine and sacks of flour and grain at the tavern, fast and agile.
But oh great Makers was I wrong.
And though he denies it, Killian damn well found it all amusing.
Dessa and the others too once they all started assisting, each of them working with me on specific skills—Odessa the bow, of course; Jonathan with throwing knives; Kendall with hand-to-hand combat that differed a bit from what I’d learned from Tobias; Tristan and Lucinda with other weapons to see what I might take a liking to: small axes, throwing stars, staffs with deadly blades affixed to each end.
Killian was in charge of swordplay and as much as I grumbled during the training sessions, watching him wield his blade so effortlessly, striking and blocking in a lethal dance, was amazing. And alright, arousing.
Things got a little easier every day after that initial torment, and I feel stronger than I’ve ever felt.
I’ve found that while I’m fairly adept with all of the weapons I’ve been trained to use, I’m far more comfortable using the versions of them that I create from ice using my Gift.
They feel like a part of me and I’m able to wield them with even more accuracy and ease.
I’ve also been training my Gift, which I can’t believe I never thought to do before now. We’ve tested different ways to use it, limits, and strength. I can do far more with it now than I ever thought possible and I feel in my soul that I can do even more with practice.
We’ve learned that proximity to Soren bolsters my power even more, so he insists that he ride into battle with us.
When I’d tried to object, worry for my familiar sending acid through my veins, he’d snarled and told me in very colorful language that where I go, he goes.
He’d at least compromised and agreed to wear armor that’s being specially made for him.
“Ryker says that Barony flew into a rage when he received word of Amon’s defeat at my hands,” I call to Killian from the bed in his chambers.
It’s twice the size of the one in the room where I bathed that first day.
I never actually slept there, having been carried directly here by Killian as if I were a sack of potatoes thrown over his shoulder after our…
discussion in the throne room. I still shiver at the mere memory, my blood turning to fire remembering clenching the armrests as if my life depended on it, Killian behind me…
I clear my throat and he strides out of his bathing chamber, shaking water from his hair like a dog. I smile.
“Why do you even bother?” I ask, shifting from my stomach to my side, resting my head on my hand and watching him stride closer, chest bare and rivulets of water slowly cascading downward over hard cords of muscle.
“Bother?”
“With pants…” I look pointedly at his crotch, biting my lip and making it clear what’s on my mind. He chuckles low and swats my ass playfully as he joins me on the bed.
“Behave, you wanton little frost witch. What else is in the letter?” he asks, jutting his chin towards the parchment on the bed in front of me. I sigh but pick up the letter again.
“Let’s see…more troops have been gathered to replace those lost on the tundra, some marching towards Tithmoore, some to bolster Lyanna.” I worry at my bottom lip. “We’ll protect Tithmoore, won’t we?”
“Of course, love.” He brushes hair from my face and kisses my temple. “I’ve already sent additional troops to his aid in preparation.” I nod and go back to the letter.
“Helios is still holding out, but it doesn’t appear to be a priority for Barony to take the southern kingdom.” I exhale in relief, but it’s short-lived. Just because he’s not pushing it, doesn’t mean Barony will give up on the idea altogether. I turn to Killian.
“I have to get to them, Killian. I can’t leave them there alone, to be pulled into this fight that isn’t theirs.
I can’t ride off into battle until I know they’re safe.
Maybe we can take a ship from Tithmoore and…
and I don’t know, I’ll figure out a way to get inside the port.
I just…I have to try. Before I can fight back against Barony, I have to know my family is safe. ”
He inhales softly, sharply, as if in surprise and I frown, but he only smiles, huffing out a soft laugh.
“I hate it when she’s right,” he says quietly, a bittersweet note in his voice, and though I have no idea what in the hells he’s talking about, he doesn’t give me the chance to ask. He sighs. “I’m afraid I have to say the words that I loathe more than anything on this earth: put on some clothes.”
“No, no I can’t let you do this,” I protest, backing away from the old woman. “This isn’t what I meant, Killian. We’ll find another way, we’ll—”
“This is the way, child,” Yara tells me. We’d gone to the old woman’s cottage atop a small rise near the mountains and Killian had explained that she is one of Duskthorne’s elders. “You are too important to risk a trek around the continent right now.”
“I’m not, though. I’m not anything special, I—”
“You are,” she interrupts gently. “I have been around for a long, long time.” She smiles warmly, weathered skin wrinkling at the corners of her eyes and mouth, her silver hair almost sparkling in the torchlight.
“And I have seen the world shift more than once. Gifteds and familiars roaming the continent and helping all who lived within it.” She looks at Soren reverently then, like he’s a miracle brought to earth.
Killian said that familiars were greatly respected in Duskthorne, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
Soren purrs deep in his throat and dips his head back at Yara.
“And I have seen familiars becoming fewer and farther between until they were thought all but lost, Gifteds themselves becoming scarcer as well. I've seen crowns given and taken—sometimes unwillingly,” she adds, giving Killian a knowing look. “I’ve seen kingdoms fall, only to rise again, while others never did, staying dead forevermore and new ones taking their place.” I look sharper at the woman now.
Just how old can she be? I’ve heard tales of people living well into their hundreds.
There’s even rumor that there’s an old priest on Sol who is over a thousand years old.
I’d never believed them, adding them to the long list of campfire tales that run rampant through Hypathia, but now, looking at Yara, hearing her speak and seeing the endless depths of knowledge in her eyes, I wonder…
“But I’ve never seen anything like what Barony is doing now, the darkness he’s bringing down on us all.
He is defying the Makers, taking their blessings and twisting them into unnatural abominations—and destroying innocents in the process.
You are meant to stop all of it. I know it.
The winds, they speak to me, child, the mountains and the rivers and the dragons. ”
I share a quick glance with Killian and he hikes a shoulder, as if to say she might have a bit of crazy mixed in with her wisdom. Yara laughs, lips curling as she looks at Killian fondly, almost indulgently as you would a child.
“I know you all think I’m mad, talking to the earth and the dragons you believe to be gone.
” She leans in and whispers conspiratorially, “They’re wrong, you know.
The dragons are still here, they’re just waiting…
” She tilts her head, as if listening to them even now and smiles a knowing smile.
“In time,” she says to herself, nodding, “in time. But all of that is to say that you are here to right these wrongs, child. You were foretold. You are awaited. You are changing everything.”
I hear Killian inhale quietly, as if he’d been…
expecting this? Had Yara mentioned this to him before?
Did he…know I was coming? No, no, this is madness.
I sure as hells don’t feel at all like any kind of long-awaited savior, so I push it all away and focus on the reason Killian brought me here to begin with.
“Even if what you say is true, it’s not worth the price. It’s too much.”
“If it is my time to meet Noxum, then I shall greet him as an old friend at last. He’s been poking around these last few centuries, after all, checking in as it were.
” I choose to ignore that, again wondering if age has started to addle her mind—and if she could possibly be speaking true when she says centuries. ..
“But—”
“You four are meant to stop Barony.” Four?
I frown and look at Killian who looks as baffled as I do.
Does she mean Math and Cece? No, that doesn’t make any sense.
Neither of them are Gifteds or soldiers.
They will keep their asses planted right here behind the unbreakable walls of Duskthorne during all of this. So what does she mean…?
-Four…interesting…- Soren rumbles and I quirk a brow, the tone in his voice making it seem as if he knows something we don’t. He doesn’t seem inclined to share though, watching Yara intently, tail swishing lazily behind him.
“I am meant to do this,” she says. “I must walk my path and as you must walk yours.”
“But we can find a different way, we can—”
“You cannot focus on all that you must if fear for those you love consumes part of your heart. The choice is made, the doorway waiting. We only need to walk through it.”