Chapter 16
“I don’t usually have the luxury of following the cacklings of a complete lunatic to find my way in the dark.”
Lunara looked up from the ground with a grin. “Hello!”
She sat against one of the carved, wooden posts that circled the practice grounds, her back pressing in to every nook and cranny.
It was bliss. No radiating torment, no biting or bruising. No pain.
It had been so long since she’d felt her body without it that she hadn’t even realized what she’d been living with.
Hedda arched a brow at her as she lit a few of the orbs perched atop the nearest pillars with a wave of her hand, the stone shining with golden light. Solyrian’s light.
Stunning.
“Are you… alright?”
Lunara didn’t bother to stifle her giggle. Why should she? “Perfect.”
“Hmm. You seem awfully cheery for someone who’s going to be throwing up her supper in the next few hours. Come on.”
That cured some of Lunara’s mirth as she stood, but couldn’t smother it fully. “Why in the realms would I be vomiting?” she asked, following the Demon to the center of the field.
It was Hedda’s turn to laugh. “Because that’s how I’ll know you’ve had enough. Are you sure you want to wear a dress for this?”
Lunara pinched her lips. “I confess, I had no idea what was appropriate. You Demons wear so little, and this is all I know.”
Hedda’s attire was all black, skin-tight and moving with her body in ways Lunara had never seen before.
Though she was technically covered from neck to ankle, most Nachthellians would be picking their jaws up from the floor for days if they saw her.
Revealing that much of their body for anyone to peruse? They’d rather die.
It was probably a result of her isolation, but Lunara liked it.
Hedda considered her for a moment. “Are you able to repair your clothing?”
Don’t answer th—
“Yes. Why?”
You know, it’ll be your own fault when this goes tits-up. Just remember that.
Hedda knelt in the grass at her feet and gripped her skirt at the knee. “I’ll find you something better tomorrow, but this’ll do for now.”
“What are you— Wait!”
Too late. She’d already rent the fabric apart with a heave, tearing around and around until Lunara’s legs were free. She folded the piece neatly and held the square up. “For later.”
Lunara couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. “You know, verbal statements of intention go a long way towards being on the same page. For the record, it’s much easier for a Sorcerit to shrink particles up or stretch them out than it is to join them back together.”
Hedda tilted her head. “What’s the difference?”
Lunara let a thread of power free. It latched on to Hedda’s clothing, and she commanded the particles to stretch.
In the blink of an eye, the Demon was standing there swearing and swimming in her clothes.
“It’s like breathing, or bending your knee.
Everything contracts and expands in ways it understands.
” Another blink, and it fit her again. “Repairing a tear is like healing sundered flesh. I have to convince two things to bond that no longer realize they belong together. It takes far more power and concentration.”
Lunara shrugged, but inside she was frolicking. Stars above, the ease. With the well so full, aiding her, that output of magic had been nothing at all. It was like she didn’t even know herself anymore.
“Huh. Good to know.” Hedda seemed to store the information away before nodding. “Now, do as I do.”
Apparently, they were done chatting.
Hedda began to bounce on the balls of her feet, bobbing side-to-side, and Lunara mimicked the movement.
“You need your muscles to be warm before you abuse them,” Hedda said, eyeing her. “Straighten your spine, shoulders back. Good. If you start straight in on the harder movements, you run the risk of harming yourself. You have to take care of your body to be able to use your body.”
Already, Lunara’s lungs were straining, sweat gathering on her brow.
Sweet Sisters, how are you ever going to make it?
Funny how Lunara’s place in this life was to care for others, but she'd so easily forgotten her own needs. She knew how to stop bleeds and seal cuts, how to mend broken bones and regrow limbs, but she didn't know the first thing about training. About making herself strong.
"All right, that's enough of that. Now, we stretch.”
Once again, Lunara followed Hedda’s movements—raising her arms above her head this way and that, bending to touch her toes, drawing out her spine. She couldn't deny it felt good. Freeing. Like her body had been wound too tight and she was helping to loosen all the coils.
“Now, this is the part where I make you puke your guts up,” Hedda said.
Lunara did her best to remember she wanted this, even if there was a frisson of fear trying to convince her otherwise.
"You're going to follow the lights.” Hedda pointed to the orbs atop the circling posts.
“Jog first, nice and easy. When I give the word, you sprint for all you’re worth to the next pillar.
Then, it's back to jogging until I say otherwise.
When I whistle, it's time to walk. We do this until you puke, or pass out. Whichever comes first.”
Lunara gaped at her. “That could be hours!”
Hedda threw her head back and laughed. “No. I give you three quarters of an hour, at best.”
As it turned out, Hedda gave her too much credit.
Lunara made it twenty-nine minutes—zig-zagging all over the stars-damned place to follow those lanterns as they lit to the tune of Hedda’s bellowed commands and shrieking whistles—before her knees gave out and she was retching into the dirt.
“Not too bad, Sorcerit,” Hedda murmured, combing gentle fingers through Lunara’s hair to hold it back while she heaved. “You did better than I actually thought you would.”
Lunara listed to the side and rolled flat onto her back, lungs wheezing. “I’ll never… survive… this.”
Hedda hummed a low sound. “Not only will you survive, Sorcerit, but you’ll thank me for it someday.
Now, come on.” For the second time that day, the Demon peeled Lunara from the ground and set her to rights.
“I’m fucking famished, and you will be too as soon as you walk it off and remember how to breathe. ”
Lunara would walk it off the minute she started feeling her legs again.
She was going to murder whatever it was that kept poking her face.
Slowly.
Lunara rolled over and groaned, every muscle screaming at her for daring to disturb them.
She wanted to go back to two nights ago, to a mountaintop and hazel eyes, and forget yesterday had ever happened.
“Good morn-i-i-i-ng.”
Nyri’s sing-song greeting was the last thing in the realms Lunara wanted to hear. And there was no way it was already morning. Her body had just hit the bed a moment ago.
“I know how to make people disappear,” she mumbled into her pillow. “No one will be able to find you.”
Not technically true, but she’d gladly use the threat if it would make the Demon leave her alone.
The mattress dipped and bounced along with Nyri’s giggling. “Hedda sent me. I’m to inform you that you’re only a quarter of an hour from being in trouble.”
Lunara snorted. “That sadist is the only one in trouble. She made me eat eight eggs for dinner. Every bite. I’ll never forgive her.”
She jerked back when something prodded her in the nostrils. Lunara cracked an eye open to see one of her own chestnut curls poised an inch from her face, clasped in two of Nyri’s fingers.
Her arm was leaden as she batted it away, wrapping the sheet around her head. “Go away. Just leave me to die here.”
“She said you would say that”—Nyri got under the sheet and shimmied her way in until they were nose-to-nose—“and to tell you she has a tonic waiting to make it all go away, if you can get to her of your own volition.”
Lunara was fairly certain her soul left her body along with the sniveling whine that escaped her.
Hedda had forced her to walk around the practice field three more times last night and made her stretch again. Deeper stretches, holding them for longer, until she’d been nothing more than a quivering puddle by the end.
She’d then sat Lunara down in the empty main hall with a glass of milk and a pile of scrambled eggs that was as big as her head, and said, “Eat. All of it. You can get up and go to bed when you’re done.”
Nothing had ever tasted so foul as those last handful of bites. She wanted to vomit all over again, just thinking about it.
Never eating eggs again. Never, ever.
Still, the promise of a tonic—
“I brought you proper clothes as well. We’ll match!”
Lunara opened both eyes that time and tried to see what Nyri was wearing. It looked much the same as what most of the others had donned in their practice yesterday. Not the strange fabric that welded itself to one’s skin, but linen. Loose and airy.
And not at all something Lunara could imagine herself in.
“I’ll help you dress, if you want. Which, you will. You won’t be able to lift your arms yet, I know. Hedda did the same thing to me when we started my training. But I swear the tonic is worth it. You’ll feel brand new!”
If only she could have a drop of Nyri’s buzzing energy to coax her from the downy embrace of the bed. As long as she didn’t move, Lunara could forget that her limbs felt as though they’d been chewed on by a dragon.
And yet, it wasn’t the pain of power over-spent. The agony of giving more than she had within her. Even now, she could sense the shredded fibers of her abused muscles knitting themselves back together—better, stronger.
The thought bolstered her somewhat, though she was still hesitant.
“Add ‘prying helpless Sorcerit from their deathbeds’ to the list of services you offer, and we have a deal.”
Nyri squealed and gripped her arm, simultaneously rolling and dragging until she was on her feet and Lunara was tumbling off the side of the mattress and crashing to the floor.
“Piss and shite! Ow, ow, ow.”
Burning. Burning everywhere.