Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Aurelia
The day after Keres baited me into training with them, I stood in the grass behind Frithhold and breathed in the sharp, cold air, the clearing before me soft with fog and edged with frost-bitten pine.
At the far edge of the yard, the ground dropped away into a sheer overlook, and through the mist that clung stubbornly to the mountainside, a city lay faint and ghostlike below—its towers blurred to smudges of silver and shadow.
Close enough to see. Far enough to never touch.
“What city is that?” I asked as Thorne walked by.
“Ravenna,” he said.
I looked at him sharply. “That’s the Midnight Court down there.”
“Yes.”
So, we weren’t inside the city after all.
“Will we visit it?” I asked.
“That’s not up to me,” he said and walked off.
After another glance at Ravenna, I turned back to the yard. A circle of stones marked the training area, the dirt tamped flat by years of boots and blades.
By now, the sun had risen to directly overhead, but the wind remained brutal and unrelenting. The cold climbed through my feet, up my spine, rattling my insides. The fog that had rolled in before dawn never lifted—only softened until the trees looked like they’d been painted with a wet brush.
Even out here, the cabin’s kitchen exuded the scent of warm bread and simmering roots, soothing in a way that made me angrier than if it had been all chains and iron.
Captivity wasn’t supposed to be cozy. But outside made up for it.
The wind was a scraping blade that cut to the bone if you stood still long enough to let it.
So, I didn’t.
“Again,” Daegel said before I’d come to a complete stop.
He stood at the edge of the circle with his arms folded, patient and immovable, beard catching the fog’s fine droplets.
I tightened my grip on the sword in my right hand. Latha, Sonoma’s last gift to me, hummed low against my right palm. Dorcha rode my left; lighter, eager—the blade of my childhood.
From inside my palms, my furyfire burned as it licked from around the edges where I gripped my swords. All day, Daegel had been pushing me to wield both at once. So far, doing so had proven harder than it sounded.
I barely conjured a spark before I was done with the next sequence.
“You lift your left shoulder when you’re angry,” Amanti called from where she sat along the stone circle. “Keep it down.”
“I’m always angry,” I muttered.
“Then learn to be angry and precise,” she said without missing a beat.
She still wore the sling, and after her own one-handed hour of sparring with Thorne, sweat clung to her tunic and matted her hair.
One wing lay too still across her back, dark scars weaving through it like stitches of the dead.
The other wing remained tucked tight, stubborn.
Every time she’d shifted her stance or parried Thorne’s blade, I saw the torn edges, and something inside me caught.
But the dark circles no longer carved hollows under her eyes.
She was healing. Slowly. Far more slowly than she would have as an Aine. But I’d take it.
Keres sat to her left, braids coiled, sleeves rolled. She held a blade and a whetstone, the steady scrape of steel on stone filling the silence. She hadn’t said much today, which was fine by me. I’d heard plenty yesterday and had no desire to hear more of her self-righteous opinions of me.
Thorne leaned against the far post, eyes on the tree line, attention flicking between me and the horizon.
Earlier, when he sparred with Amanti, I’d watched the way he moved—fast, clean, not just his blade work but the grace with which he spun and leaped.
Only the Aine moved like that. Now, his stillness was another gift.
Maybe the ley lines had something to do with it.
Daegel’s throat-clearing called me back. I blinked then fell into my stance and began working through the steps. When I’d finished, my breaths were labored, and sweat dotted my brow despite the wind chill. It had been long weeks since I’d trained properly, and it showed.
Then again, I’d never attempted both furyfire and swords at the same time.
“Again,” Daegel said when I stopped.
“After a break,” I panted. “And some water.”
“Do as he says,” Keres snapped. “Water breaks are for soldiers who follow directions.”
Scowling, I began again, concentrating on the form Sonoma had drilled into me until my muscles knew it better than my mind—cut, turn, shoulder-check with the heel pivot, guard up, slide, feint.
Latha sang through the air, Dorcha following, while blackened flames licked at the edges of my grip on them both.
Twice more, I ran through the sequence. My flames grew each time but barely.
My frustration grew along with it. On the third sequence, as I spun and sliced, a dark shield sprang up before me.
It swayed and swirled like I’d seen from Rydian’s shadows, but when my blade struck it, the clash rattled my teeth.
Furyfire shot from my hands, their flames eating through the shadow-shield until it winked out again.
I stumbled back, breathing heavy, as I steadied myself enough to glare at Daegel. “What the Hel was that?” I demanded.
“Motivation,” he said.
I stared at him, debating whether to attack with my sword or toss a ball of furyfire at his head. “You could have warned me.”
“That would have defeated the purpose,” Keres said dryly.
I didn’t bother glancing at her.
Daegel held my gaze then finally shrugged. “I’m a ward.”
“What the hell is that?”
“How it sounds. I can create wards—shields of protection.”
Wards. Shields of protection. It was kind of impressive. If he hadn’t been using it to knock me off my feet.
“When were you planning to tell me?”
He shrugged. “Now seemed like as good a time as any.”
I glared at him.
“Oh. And don’t overextend on the strike,” he said mildly. “If your opponent is worth the iron in his blade, he’ll take your wrist and your pride with it.”
“Got it,” I said through my teeth.
“Again,” he said, the word somewhere between suggestion and request.
I complied, mostly because I wanted to see that stupid shield again.
To learn what it was made of or how to pierce it.
I never figured out either one, but we went again and again and again.
Until my knees buckled, my arms screamed at the idea of holding my swords high, and my furyfire was nothing but a plume of gray smoke.
Daegel didn’t look bothered. “You did well.”
Despite the exhaustion of my muscles, I hadn’t felt more like myself in ages.
“I’ll take the blades,” Daegel added before I could exit the stone circle, still gripping them.
I handed both blades over before my mouth could protest. Agreeing had less to do with trusting these fae and more to do with the way Amanti’s expression eased when I did.
Daegel wrapped the swords in oiled leather, careful as if he understood they were more than metal. “Thank you,” he said quietly.
“You’re welcome for the privilege of disarming me.”
“I’d hardly call you defenseless,” Thorne said.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to roast you in your sleep,” I told him.
Keres snorted. She looped a fresh sling over Amanti’s shoulder with competent gentleness and tightened the knot. Thorne stepped in to lift Amanti’s hair from the strap, fingers careful not to graze the torn edge of her wing.
“Hovering again, Varros?” Amanti asked.
“Supervising,” he said, solemn.
Amanti patted his cheek. For a heartbeat, he looked younger, and she looked ancient.
Keres pressed a tin into Amanti’s good hand. “Salve. You’re not a blacksmith’s anvil. Stop treating yourself like one.”
Amanti shot me a look that said she wanted to argue but wouldn’t.
We filed inside and ate warm bread with dried meat and soft cheese. Thorne leaned in the doorway, watching clouds slide past like a hunter waiting for a sign of its prey. Daegel finished first and stood, muttering something to Thorne that I couldn’t hear. Then the two of them left together.
A few minutes later, Amanti excused herself to take a nap, leaving me with Keres.
Great.
We finished eating in silence, and I prepared to return to my room.
Or maybe wander the shelves to see if I’d missed a book or two printed in the common language.
Anything to pass the time so I wouldn’t have to think about what waited for me out there.
And not just the threats either. Rydian was in my thoughts far more often than I liked.
I was determined to chase him out again.
“We can go again this afternoon if you want,” Keres said, and I looked up in surprise at the offer.
“Daegel already put my swords away,” I told her.
“No blades. We’ll work on controlling your magic.”
“You say that like it’s easy,” I muttered, tearing off another hunk of bread that practically melted in my mouth. Whoever baked it had a gift.
“It could be,” she said simply. “If you stopped fighting everything and everyone.”
For once, I had no good retort.
Twenty minutes later, in the shade where the Trolech loomed and fog laced low through the branches, Keres lifted her palm to face me. A thin filament of darkness rose from her middle finger. It arced like spider-cast silk and hung between us, impossibly fine.
“What is it?” I asked, noting how similar it looked to the threads woven into Amanti’s broken wings.
“Shadow-thread,” she said. “I can stitch flesh and armor with it. Or I can use it to cut your throat in less than the time it would take for you to reach for your sword.”
“Delightful,” I murmured.
“Meet my magic with yours,” she said.
“No way. Mine would burn you alive.”
“Not with your whole furyfire. With a thread. Like mine.”
Tentatively, I held out my hand. Heat gathered—eager, curious, deadly. I curled a fist, took a breath, then forced it open again. A thin line of black flames licked at the thread. The webbed stitching held for a heartbeat, two—then sizzled out with a sound like butter in a hot pan.
I tensed, wondering if I’d hurt her, but Keres didn’t flinch.