Chapter 15
Fifteen
A cold staring contest wasn’t what she’d had in mind when Lory had asked Falcrest to trigger her magic, but as they were sitting across from each other in the familiar stone chamber in the second basement, Khayrivven Falcrest’s intense gray eyes seemed to bring forth a similar reaction as the Almelyte gas had.
Heat was sliding along her skin the longer she kept going, and the fact that he hadn’t blinked in the past minute was almost as unnerving as the absolute silence in the room, which made her own heartbeat sound like an army was marching through her veins in perfect sync.
How absolutely fitting.
“Can you feel it?” His tone wasn’t the velvet thing from her dream, but it drove a shiver chasing the heat spreading over her back and along her neck.
She could feel something, all right, but admitting that the way he kept looking at her made her wish it wasn’t as intense a sensation, and that it wasn’t including the area between her thighs—
“No idea what you’re talking about. There’s nothing. Not a flicker of power.”
Naturally, Falcrest could see right through her. “I’m pretty sure by now you can no longer tell if the sensation has anything to do with magic or if it’s just because I make you nervous.”
“You don’t make me nervous.” Her retort shot out too fast to be anything other than obvious denial.
“Tell me where you can feel it.”
She’d expected him to enjoy tormenting her with her physical responses; instead, he kept his focus, tone calm, gaze assessing, as if carefully exploring unknown territory.
“Skin.” The generalized answer was probably safest because under no circumstances would she allow Falcrest to see the effect he had on her. Bad enough, the stories he’d invented.
A curt nod was all he gave her. “How does it feel?”
Thankfully, the torchlight masked the flush in Lory’s cheeks.
“Is it uncomfortable?” He shifted in his chair, where he sat across from her at the center of the room. Today, no one had locked her in, and no Almelyte gas was infiltrating the air. Whatever sensation rose in her was Falcrest’s doing and his alone.
“Is that part of your gift, bringing forth people’s powers? Is that how you got Thal’s water magic to finally show?”
“Who?” Falcrest didn’t avert his gaze, but a real question rose in his face.
“Thalric Heener.” Wiping her palms over her thighs, Lory explained how her friend Thal had returned from Falcrest’s training with his power suddenly cooperating.
“Ah, Heener. He already had his magic at the tip of his fingers; merely needed a nudge.” He ran his hand through his hair, taming the rogue strands.
“And me? What about my magic? What’s different? What are you afraid of?”
She hadn’t meant to say it, but the words were out, and Lory watched them hit with enough force to make the captain finally turn his head. A deep breath moved his chest as he rested his elbows on his knees. “Nothing … is different.”
“Something has to be, or you wouldn’t be so evasive. You wouldn’t keep threatening me, then saving me, then pretending you don’t care.”
“I don’t… care.”
“Lie.” This time, Lory fully intended to speak. She intended to push his limits, to unveil what lay beneath the Veiled Hand's mask.
Falcrest’s head snapped up, gaze locking on hers and sending the prickling sensation of fire consuming her all through her body. “It’s not a lie. I couldn’t care less about what sort of powers you have. Only what they’ll do to you if you have the wrong ones.”
“Like light magic?”
He looked so tired, like the burden of a thousand lives was resting on his young shoulders, and for a moment, Lory thought she could see the real Khayrivven Falcrest behind the facade—a man of dreams and hopes and wants.
A man who had given up everything to be right here, at this brutal academy, where dreams and hopes and wants were squandered, and lives were worth nothing if they weren’t given in the king’s name.
“Do you have any idea what they do to Flame-born when they’re discovered?
” The gravel in his tone was so unlike the smooth, aloof captain that an impulse in her stomach made Lory want to reach over the two-foot gap between them and place her hand on his forearm.
But he wouldn’t accept the gesture. Even if she never shared whatever was spoken in this room, he’d withdraw and pull up the mask, shutting her out again, the moment he realized he’d let her in.
So, Lory held still, not allowing herself to even blink for fear she’d miss a fraction of the person hiding in that ruthless shell.
“They execute them.” A shudder raked through Falcrest’s shoulders as if he was fighting a memory, and he sat up, folding his arms over his chest and gnawing on his lower lip for a few, long seconds while his features rearranged themselves into those of the captain who guided ashlings to their death at the tip of his sword.
“Right after a generous amount of torture, of course.” With every word, the smoothness returned a little more to his voice.
“The way they deserve.” He cleared his throat, shifting his legs, as he studied Lory in the flickering light.
“Every Flame-born has a mother or father, a sibling or a cousin, uncle or aunt, or even a friend who might share their abilities, and if they rat out the others, they are promised they’ll be allowed to live. ”
Lory swallowed the lump in her throat.
“They are killed anyway. After all their loved ones are rounded up and have gone through the same trials, they are executed—but not in public as you might think. Those are the regular magic wielders. Only the Flame-born are dangerous enough to scare a king into thoughtless cruelty.”
“Careful, Khayrivven.” Lory forced a smile, the coldness ruling his expression once more nearly unbearable after the glimpse she’d got of the real him. “One might think you’re talking treason.”
Falcrest went rigid in his chair, hands grasping the armrests with white knuckles. “I’m stating facts, not opinions. Treason is for those who’d like to change facts.”
Lory couldn’t tell what scared her more: the glimmer of suppressed anger in his eyes or the indifference smothering it the moment it appeared there.
“If I have fire magic, I don’t have family or friends they could kill.”
“If you have that sort of magic,” he cut her off. “We’re still working under the assumption that you have light magic.”
The day she’d overheard him and Anees whispering at her bedside, after her magic was first triggered, flickered through her mind.
If I prematurely alert them, I won’t have time to find out if she can be useful to us.
“But you don’t actually believe that, do you?”
Lory watched him force his fingers to relax as he pulled his hands off the armrest, folding his arms in front of his chest once more, the movement making the shirt pull taut over his biceps.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe. I’m here to teach—that’s the only thing I do.”
They stared at each other, the heat returning to Lory’s skin at Falcrest’s intensity.
“Teach me, then.” The challenge in her tone came as naturally as the smirk returning to Falcrest’s face, and when he spoke again, his voice was silk and velvet combined with a honed edge that made Lory squirm in her seat.
“I don’t want to teach you, Gutter Gem. I want to show you.
” Without a warning, he reached into his pocket, pulling out a black leather pouch and dangling it between them.
“We have two options: Either you let me put you to sleep and I’ll coax your magic out that way, or you take the Almelyte powder and your magic will be forced out like the last time. ”
“What do you mean, put me to sleep?” Did this have anything to do with his dreamweaver powers? “I thought you were already triggering my magic.”
Falcrest ignored her question. “I know you don’t trust me, so I’ll understand if you choose the Almelyte, but I’d rather get into your head than carry you back to Hand Nahrit’s infirmary.” Again, he let the pouch swing between them. “Your choice, Vednis.”
Lory folded her arms to prevent herself from leaping for the powder. Neither did she want Falcrest to take a walk in her mind while she was sleeping. “Is there a third option?”
At that, he got to his feet, pocketing the pouch and glancing down at her like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with her. “There is. But you won’t like it.”
Squaring her shoulders, Lory held his stare. “Try me.”
Slowly, Falcrest leaned down, bracing his hands on the armrests of her chair as he brought his face level with hers. “Emotion, Lory. Raw, unfiltered emotion brings forth magic.”
His scent swallowed her, and her heart leaped into her throat in a blend of fear and heat that had nothing to do with the fire that had caused the pale spots on her skin.
“Fear is what most people opt for, but there is something even more potent, and considering the way your pupils blow out when you meet my gaze, the way your heart rate spikes when I invade your space, how you can’t seem to take your eyes off me… I’d say let’s go for that other emotion.”
Lory swallowed the dryness in her mouth as the captain pulled away, prowling to the back of her chair and placing his hands on top of the backrest, right above her shoulders. “You need to consent, Lory, because I don’t want the new story to be that I assaulted you.”
As it dawned on Lory what Falcrest was aiming for, Lory leaped up from her chair, facing him with her dagger in her hand. “If you think lust is potent, you haven’t tried anger.”
The expression on Falcrest’s face as Lory held the point of her dagger under his chin was priceless, as was his smirk of approval as he slowly lowered his hand to the blade at his hip, drawing it with casual grace as he shoved her dagger away with two fingers.
“If anger is what you want to go for, Gutter Gem, by all means, please do. Consider it foreplay.”