Chapter 17
AMAIA
My heart was beating like a drum, so hard that I thought Alaryk might be able to feel it throb into his own skin.
“You won’t be inside my mind, will you?” I whispered.
“Something you don’t want me to uncover?” he asked.
I tried to keep my expression impassive, hoping he didn’t see how much alarm saturated my eyes. He would be able to tell. It seemed he saw everything. “I don’t like the feeling of it,” I said quickly. “It feels…violating. Like I’m not my own.”
“Yes, it does,” he agreed, surprising me. He rubbed a hand down his jaw. “No, I won’t be able to dig around in your mind, Amaia, if that’s what worries you.”
“And I should simply believe you? Because you’ve been so forthcoming about everything else?”
His gaze snapped to me. I thought I might’ve offended him with my comment. “Do you have a choice?”
“I do, actually,” I said, feeling my spine straighten at the words. “Because I could walk away right now. From all of this. At no cost to me.”
He sobered. “Yes, you could. But I don’t think you will.”
I couldn’t even bring myself to deny those words. Maybe that made me a fool. But I realized that in helping Samryn, I would help save two beings. Even if the other unexpected one was infuriatingly smug and irritating.
“I was told you were worried about me,” I found myself shooting back. “When you brought me back to the hatchery a couple nights ago.”
“Does that fill you with satisfaction?” he wanted to know, cocking his head to peer down at me, eyes narrowed in shrewd observation.
He was closer than I’d originally realized.
But now I could see the strands of silver in his stunningly blue eyes, mesmerizing.
His lips were full, surprisingly soft-looking for such a severe face.
No matter what I replied with, I realized he would have the upper hand, and so I bit my tongue. He smirked, and I stepped back. But I forgot the edge of the walkway was right there.
Alaryk’s hand flashed out, quicker than I could gasp when I felt my foot slip, and he tugged me forward. A blur of reflexes that made me realize just how powerful he was.
“Be careful,” he warned, releasing me, stepping back himself. He ran a hand through his silver hair. I didn’t know if I just imagined it, but I thought it might have been shaking. “Are you ready to begin?”
“Will it hurt?” I asked, ignoring my near fall.
“No,” he said. “Just the opposite, in fact.”
What did that mean?
But I realized I would find out.
“Close your eyes,” he murmured. “And quiet your mind. You’ll feel the heartstone. When you do, latch onto it. Let it lead you. I’ll be there, waiting.”
His voice was quietly fading away as I did what he told me.
Closing my eyes in that strange place, I’d never felt more vulnerable, except perhaps on the back of an Elthika.
I focused on my breath. I’d never called my heartstone magic to me unless there was a purpose for it, unless it was needed to calm a pyroki or to heal a loved one.
There was no urgency here, no heart-pounding danger or desire for it.
And the more I searched for it, the more it eluded me.
I felt a breeze against my arms, but I knew there was no wind here in this crumbling, ancient, desolate cavern.
It tingled against my skin, sinking into me like a silken oil.
I felt my magic wiggle, like it was summoned.
But the more I tried to grip it, the more it slipped away.
My eyes opened. Alaryk was watching me, his handsome face drawn in observation across from me.
“Resisting again?” he asked.
“I can feel it,” I said, frustrated, “but it’s not coming forth. I…I’ve never had to use it unless I needed to.”
“I can call it forth,” he reminded me. “But you need to learn to do it yourself.”
Easier said than done because it had always felt effortless. I’d never had to think about it.
I closed my eyes, trying again.
“You’re too focused,” he declared a moment later when I could feel my frustration rise even more. “It should feel like breathing. We’ll need to coax it from you until it becomes familiar.”
“And how do you want to do that, exactly?” I asked, my eyes popping open, propping my hands on my hips.
“I was taught with pain,” he told me, making me freeze. “But that’s because I responded to it most. That won’t apply to you. But maybe another’s…”
Crouching, he unsheathed a dagger that I realized he had strapped to the side of his calf. When I realized what he would do, I gasped. “Don’t!”
The tip of the blade was poised over his hand.
Even still, I felt my magic rise, and I gripped onto it with desperation. “Don’t do that because it’ll drain me to heal you.”
“Then don’t heal me,” Alaryk growled. “Can you feel it?”
“Yes…but it’s slipping. Because I’m annoyed with you,” I snapped.
The wrong thing to say because he brought the blade swiftly across the palm of his hand.
I gasped, dismayed, as black blood bloomed. “You’re insane!” came my shrill cry. “Why would you do that?”
The magic rose, beating against my chest. But no, I wouldn’t reward this. I didn’t like this. And so I snuffed out whatever tendrils I felt winding their way around me, like little ribbons encasing me.
“I’m not doing this,” I said, beginning to turn on my heel, feeling suddenly cold. “I don’t care if you used pain to help train yourself. But I won’t participate in this. It’s twisted and—”
His uninjured hand gripped my arm and turned me back toward him. He’d moved so fast, one moment crouched, the next looming over me.
“I think you’re afraid,” he murmured, his voice silken, like hot blood wasn’t dripping from his palm, tinging the air with a metallic scent.
“You’re afraid to embrace it because you’ve had to keep it secret your entire life.
Because you thought it was your own curse, one that could get you and your family punished.
And so you’ve shoved it down so deep it won’t respond unless threatened. ”
“What are you doing?” I asked, struggling against him.
“Threatening you,” he growled.
I looked up at him in surprise. This close, I realized how much larger he was. How much stronger. All of these things I’d known, of course. But knowing and being fully pressed against that realization were two very different things.
“You won’t hurt me,” I murmured, keeping his eyes as his heat sank through my clothing, until I could feel it warm my skin. “I know you won’t.”
“No, but I’ll hurt myself to get you to respond,” he told me. His vision went cloudy. “Maybe a part of me will even like it.”
Shock funneled through me. At the rumble of a confession in his voice, like it was one I hadn’t been meant to hear.
“I don’t want that,” I said, my words brittle. “I don’t want you hurt.”
There was a wildness in his gaze that hadn’t been there before.
Had it been brought on by the pain? Something sharp but something unpredictable…
it was tangible. There was a buzzing energy rising between us.
I realized I didn’t know him at all. Especially as a Karath, I thought that he might toe the edges of boundaries more than most. Because he needed to.
“There are those who would take advantage of you, Amaia,” he rasped.
“There are those who would hurt you for what you possess. And throughout history, pain has been more enticing and more easily controlled than anything else. Love. Kindness. Lust. It would serve you to identify what you need to control your own magic…before someone else does.”
What Tarkosh had said had been right, hadn’t it? Was I in danger in Karak?
I could see the pain in his eyes. Perhaps it was foolish of me, but it made me soften. If only slightly. I reached down to brush my fingertips across the back of his sliced palm, feeling my magic bloom. Not hurried or rushed though. Steady.
“Don’t do this again,” I whispered, feeling my magic ball up inside me like yarn waiting to unravel. “I use my magic when it’s needed because I don’t want pain when I can give relief instead.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
“Ah, I see,” he whispered. He tilted his head down. “No pain for you, mariss. You only need softness. Pleasure. How opposite we are.”
The cavern seemed to sway when he reached up to trace my face with his fingertips. Confusion swam in me as I stared at him in surprise. At the warm glide of his touch and the way it made a shiver race down my spine.
“Let me teach you this, then,” he murmured. “Seduction has its own place within magic. But seduction is just another method of control. It’s more pleasant than pain, perhaps, but also more cutting when wielded recklessly.”
I blinked, my thoughts thick and syrupy. “I…I don’t understand.”
“Using one’s magic is like seducing a lover,” he told me, making me suck in a low breath, my heart beating in my throat. “There is a push and a pull. There is power in holding it back and knowing when to release it.”
“And that’s all well and good if I could summon it,” I answered, once my thoughts had quickened. My cheeks felt hot, but I narrowed my eyes on him nevertheless.
His hand moved, drifting to my shoulder. Something strange happened. I felt the rasping touch of heartstone magic, but it was like I was wrapped in it. I heard the distant murmurings of whispers, but it wasn’t alarming. It felt like a comfort as I stared up at Alaryk.
“I…I can hear something,” I told him quietly, my eyes widening. His hand moved over me, skimming down my arms. I realized it was him. He was calling the heartstone energy toward us, like a magnet. Funneling it straight to me, to make it easier for me to grasp.
“Follow,” he whispered, leaning down to murmur the word into my ear. His lips brushed the pointed tip of my ear, making my toes curl in their boots. “Follow where I guide you. Or push me away, Amaia.”