33. Made to Suffer
The sun was scorching as Wilder led Lyra through a number of stretches. She was more limber than he expected after watching her stumble through three laps around the grounds. But he didn’t have high expectations about her strength.
“Do you know what a push-up is?”
She scrunched up her nose before shaking her head. They’d been out here long enough that he could see the flush of sun across her cheeks, and what looked like the beginning of freckles across her nose.
“I’ll show you,” he replied, sinking to his knees.
She bit her lip as she watched him.
He lay flat on his stomach, and the dirt clung to the sweat that had seeped through his tunic. In one swift motion, he pushed up. And just to burn off the building steam in his veins, he pumped out fifty more.
Lyra watched with the kind of boredom one would display watching grass grow.
He stood and gestured to the ground. “Just do as many as you can.”
She flicked her braid over her shoulder, the picture of arrogance, and lay on the ground. It took him a moment to realize she was trying to push up, but couldn’t. He could see her arms trembling through her light-colored blouse.
“Not so easy, is it?”
She turned her head and glared at him. “It’s as difficult as it should be to someone with a larger brain than muscles.”
Wilder tapped the side of his head. “This brainless, muscled prince is the one in charge of your training. So maybe fewer insults and more effort.”
Lyra ground her teeth and shoved up.
So anger was an excellent motivator for her, after all.
“One,” Wilder counted.
Her arms wobbled before collapsing out from under her.
“Again,” he ordered.
She bared her teeth and pushed again, not making it half as far up as she had the last time.
“I don’t even know why we’re trying to break the bargain that gave your merfolk more power. It’s obvious they need it if all of their females are as weak as you are.”
Lyra pushed harder, completing one entire push-up.
“I don’t know why we don’t just wage war instead. Your people wouldn’t be able to put up an adequate fight.”
She went down and then pushed back up again.
“How you managed to survive this long is quite the mystery,” he mused.
Again, she went down and back up. There was a tremble to her arms, and her face was as red as the apples that grew in the nearby orchard, but he kept pushing her.
“It must be an inverse relation, this strength to smarts for you. You must be incredibly smart because you’re no stronger than a fairy.”
Up and down, she struggled through another set.
“That’s five. Good. You can stop now.”
She collapsed face-first to the ground.
“You did that on purpose,” she said into the dirt, before rolling over onto her back.
“Very smart, indeed,” Wilder teased. “Up you get.”
She found her way to her feet. Dirt clung to her chest and her forehead, but she made no movement to wipe it away. Small hairs had slipped her braid and were stuck to the moist skin on her neck.
“Do you know what squats and lunges are?”
She blinked at him. “Torture? And death?”
“Close!” Maelys called from her position beside the table.
“Both on the first day?” Ridge asked. “That seems like a lot.”
Wilder waved them off. She needed to be pushed. No one had ever dared to do it before. And a part of him was curious to see where her breaking point was.
He demonstrated both. Lyra’s eyes widened. When she gulped down a swallow, he smirked.
“Start at that end of the grounds and do a single line of lunges, then turn around and do a line of squats. When you get back where you started, you can take a break and get some water and some fruit.”
Lyra stared at him like he had grown two heads.
“But that’s really far …”
Wilder nodded. “You’ll have to read a lot more to keep your brain larger than your muscles when I get through with you.”
When she didn’t move from her rooted position to the ground, he realized this was going to be like the pushups all over again.
“Come on, Legs. I’ll do it with you.”
He strode for the fence at the far end and could hear her footsteps lightly crunching behind him.
When he started lunging, she groaned out loud.
“So how did you survive so long, being so weak and puny?”
She started lunging. The grimace on her face nearly made him laugh, but he kept going. Lunging very slowly so that she could keep pace.
“I had teeth and claws,” she retorted. “Is this supposed to burn?”
“It doesn’t for me. But, yes. You’ve never used your muscles before.”
When she didn’t reply, he looked over to see her mocking him.
“I don’t have to do this with you. I can just walk and yell,” he offered, stopping and standing upright.
“Good. Why don’t you go stand over there and breathe someone else’s air?”
Wilder shrugged and walked away, leaving her struggling to bend into her third lunge.
He leaned against the table beside Maelys and Ridge.
“This is unbearable to watch,” Maelys murmured.
“Then don’t. Go spar with Otto and the guards,” Wilder replied, jutting his chin to the other side of the grounds, where swords clanged against each other.
“I’ll spar with you,” Ridge offered.
“That’s better,” Maelys replied, and they set off arm-in-arm.
Wilder watched as Lyra struggled through one set of lunges. She stopped on the far end and leaned over the stone wall. She didn’t move for quite some time, and Wilder gave up on waiting for her.
“Move!”
When she didn’t move or snap back, he pushed off the table, cursing all the gods as he walked over to her.
“Is there a problem?” he asked when he was close enough that she could hear him.
“I hate you,” she groaned.
“There’s that sharp tongue. You just have one more set to do.”
She shook her head, and that’s when Wilder noticed the vomit clinging to the end of her braid. She had leaned over to retch. Dread soured his tongue as he bit back a groan. He shouldn’t care that she was in pain. That was the point.
Training was pain.
“I can’t do it.” Angry tears spilled over the rim of her eyes. He felt a piece of him wither away to ash. He had pushed her too far, and now she was crying. Her anger smelled like a thunderstorm.
“I want to be strong. I do, I swear. But I was never raised to train. I was raised to suffer. I only know suffering, and I can’t take it anymore.”
Wilder froze, and ice slid through his veins. She had been raised to suffer?
“Lyra,” he breathed. “I’m not doing this to punish you.
” That was a lie. “I’m not inflicting this on you to relish in your suffering.
” Not a total lie. “Training will make you better—stronger, even.” That was the truth of it.
She would eventually grow stronger. “But we can call it quits today if you’ve had enough.
Today was for learning where your boundaries are, and pushing you to them—but not through them. ”
She nodded then, wiping the tears off her cheeks.
“Do you need help?” he asked, a shade quieter.
“No. I can at least make it to the table on my own two feet,” she muttered. But when she straightened, her legs trembled.
“I won’t carry you. But take my hand,” Wilder bade her.
She stared at it for a heartbeat before looking up into his eyes. When her fingers clasped his, her eyes widened. A slight shock went through him, like the energy in a budding storm.
Lyra focused on where their hands touched and swallowed. He didn’t know what that meant, but he had the strangest feeling fate had tied them together.
Whether he liked it or not, his future was inexplicably tied to hers.