Chapter 13 Tessa
TESSA
“Use your hips and your hit will be more powerful.”
Tessa spun at the voice, finding Eliza standing in the doorway.
“I’ve never seen you in here before,” the female said, striding deeper into the training room until she came to a stop a few feet away from where Tessa had been throwing punches at a giant bag of sand that was bigger than she was.
“I wait until the room isn’t in use,” Tessa answered, her hands clenched at her sides.
They were wrapped the way Luka had taught her, but it had been quite some time since Luka had trained her.
She was just in here trying to avoid falling asleep, and if she was doing that, she may as well continue her training on her own.
Which was stupid because she had no idea what the fuck she was doing.
She mainly tried to go through drills that Luka had taught her, but if her form was off, there was no one here to tell her.
Until now apparently.
Eliza nodded, pushing her red-gold hair back over a shoulder. The female was in looser pants than normal and a low-cut tank top. Clothing Tessa rarely saw her wear. It felt too…modern for the clothes Eliza favored. Despite that, there was still a dagger shoved down the side of her boot.
“Your form is decent enough, but you need to swing more from your hips. Not just your torso. Use your whole body. Your hit will have more force,” she said, crossing her arms and jerking her chin.
Tessa stared back at her, unsure of what to say because was she…giving her an order?
“Well?” Eliza said irritably.
“Well, what?” Tessa asked.
“Are you going to try it? Or is this a waste of my time?”
“I didn’t ask you to come in here,” Tessa said, utterly perplexed by this entire interaction.
“Just try it. And don’t tuck your thumb,” she added.
“Yeah, yeah,” Tessa muttered. Luka had drilled that into her as much as he’d drilled her stance into her.
Planting her feet in the proper position, she readied herself, inhaling deeply. Then, twisting from her torso and hips, she punched out, keeping the path of her fist straight. And, yeah, all right, there was more force behind it.
“Good,” Eliza said. “You learn quick.”
Tessa turned back to her, hands dropping to her side. “I’m sorry, but what are you doing here?”
“I brought you something. Or rather, I stole you something. But I hear it’s yours anyway, so is it really stealing?”
There was a bright burst of flames that had Tessa twisting away, but when she turned back, the female stood there with a bow in her hand.
Memories of the last time she’d held it clawed up from the dark places she’d locked them away, and with them was her magic as her control slipped the smallest amount.
Auryon’s bow.
Her bow.
“You stole this?” Tessa said, reaching tentatively for the weapon. “From Luka?”
Eliza nodded. “I’m sure he’ll be pissy as fuck when he realizes it’s gone, but I’ve dealt with plenty of dragon tantrums.”
Tessa took the bow, feeling the weight of so much more than wood and string as she held it in her hand.
“I don’t even know how to use it,” she whispered, but gods, her power was buzzing inside her. Frenetic and forceful, it was drawn to the bow in the same way it was drawn to power, and she wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that.
“No better time to learn,” Eliza said. “We can go outside.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” Tessa argued. “I won’t even be able to see anything to shoot at.”
“And I’m a fire Fae,” the female retorted, lifting a palm where flames sprang to life. Flames that were allowed to breathe and dance and had purpose.
“Tessa?” Eliza asked when she didn’t respond.
“Sorry,” Tessa murmured, still transfixed on the fire before she shook her head to clear it. “I get… Wait, where is Razik? You two are never apart.”
The female huffed a laugh. “We are, in fact, often apart. My Court is on one continent; the king he serves is on another.”
“That seems inconvenient.”
Eliza shrugged. “We make it work. Are we going outside or not?”
Truthfully, breathing fresh air and seeing the sky sounded like the perfect distraction, so Tessa nodded, falling into step beside Eliza as she looped the bow across her chest.
“You are his Source, right?” Tessa asked, keeping her voice low since the rest of the cave slept.
“I am,” she answered.
“By choice.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Eliza glanced at her before looking ahead again. “That is a long story.”
“Is it because you are his twin flame?”
“No. I actually hated that for quite some time and refused to accept that bond.”
Tessa tripped on air at those words. “You… What?”
“Razik figured out what we were before I did, but he never pushed for it. He’d experienced someone trying to force a bond on him, and he swore he’d never do that. He…” Eliza sighed, the next words sounding pained. “He would have let me go if I had wished for it.”
“But you chose him.”
“I did.”
“And he chose you.”
“Obviously.”
“And you don’t regret it?” Tessa pushed as they stepped into the fresh air.
Eliza was quiet for a long moment before she answered, “No, I don’t regret any of it, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone. Only you can decide if it’s the right path for you.”
“Right,” Tessa murmured, tipping her face up to the sky.
Within seconds, there was a rustle before Roan and Nylah appeared, climbing over the rocky terrain.
It was not that they couldn’t come inside the cave.
They just…didn’t. Roan appeared in there every once in a while, but for the most part, they stayed outside.
Patrolling and guarding, apparently finding her safe enough when inside.
But they were always here when she ventured out with Xan.
It was cloudless tonight, revealing all the stars usually kept hidden.
The moon was waning though, only a sliver of it visible, allowing the dark to obscure those wanting to stay hidden.
A part of her wanted to just sit here and soak it in.
It was peaceful, as if a piece of her soul loved the dark and night.
Or maybe it just made her feel closer to him.
It didn’t matter in the end. Not as flames erupted in a large perimeter, burning nothing and lighting up the night. The heat warmed her skin, and Tessa wished she was in a tank top like Eliza rather than the fitted long-sleeve training top she wore, even if it did leave her torso exposed.
With a flick of her wrist, another pillar of fire sprang to life, twisting and writhing until it took on the shape of a large and broad male. Then Eliza turned back to her, motioning impatiently to the bow slung across Tessa’s chest.
“You can’t shoot it that way,” the female chastised.
“I know that,” Tessa grumbled, her fingers winding into Roan’s soft fur while Nylah sat near the perimeter. “I’m not going to be shooting anything without arrows. Auryon always just…had some.”
“Yeah, I know someone like that too,” Eliza said. “I found these though when I was looking for that bow.”
Another burst of flames receded, and she held a quiver.
“Where did you find it anyway?” Tessa asked, lifting the bow over her head.
Eliza pulled an arrow from the quiver before setting it aside. “He hid it in one of the narrow passages off the gallery.
“What gallery?”
“The one with all the empty frames on the walls. So maybe not a gallery? I don’t know, but it was in a narrow tunnel off that.” When Tessa only blinked back at her, Eliza said, “You didn’t know about that space?”
“No. I…” She trailed off before clearing her throat. “This is only the second time I have been here, and the first time I didn’t exactly get a tour. I try not to intrude on his space…”
She trailed off again, trying not to think about what had transpired the first time she had been here.
It was why she kept herself busy, and she suspected it was also why Xan often took her outside.
But now that she was thinking about it, she had to actively work against the onslaught of emotions she was trying desperately to keep locked away.
Her magic thrived when she was… Well, when she was unbalanced.
“There’s no such thing as balanced,” she murmured, dragging her fingers along the smooth curve of the bow.
Streaks of her power were left in their wake, curling around the wood before seeming to sink into it. It warmed beneath her touch, and more power rushed from her so suddenly, it took her a moment to wrestle it back into submission.
Tessa’s head snapped up, her gaze locking onto Eliza’s grey stare where the female was watching her cautiously. “The stars and the realms are obsessed with the balance, but there’s no such thing. We are all wasting our time. How do we find something that doesn’t exist?”
Eliza seemed to weigh her words before she finally said, “Maybe balance isn’t something to be found or fixed or rectified. Maybe balance is something to be created. Maybe we get to decide what that balance looks like.”
“For the realm? We decide that for everyone? For the spaces in the voids and the stars that cease to shine? For the kings and the forgotten? For the magic wielders and the mortals?”
Each word was more panicked, coming faster and faster.
“That can’t be right,” Tessa went on, her heart beating too fast. An agitated growl rumbled from Roan where he sat a few feet away, his glowing eyes glimmering brighter with the flames.
“It’s not up to one person to decide what balance is for the realms, Tessa,” Eliza said. “But you do get to decide what balance is for you. Just because the world is trying to tell you what it should look like doesn’t make it true. What is balance for me may not be balance for you.”
“But you gave in to your balance,” Tessa argued. “You accepted a bond you didn’t want.”