Chapter Twenty-Eight Aria #2
“Focus.” Myla’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts and to where she is standing in front of me, her arms folded over her chest.
She wears her all-black uniform, the tattered cloak hanging from her shoulders pinned in place by bronze chains.
A dragon insignia decorates one shoulder, and it makes me wonder if Myla has her own dragon to ride.
My gaze travels down the long lines of her body, the curvature of her muscle noticeable even beneath the leathers that she wears.
From the clothing to her obvious mastery of weapons, even the lithe way she moves, all points to a female who’s been turned into a predator.
I might find it admirable, if her attitude didn’t thoroughly sour any feelings of admiration.
“You’re wasting my time.” Her boot gently taps the inside of my ankle, the one that works my scarred foot. “This is your weakest spot, which isn’t saying much considering the whole of you is nearly just as bad.”
My cheeks burn at her jab, even though worse has been said about me. Done to me. What was the weight of a few more words added on top of an already crumbling structure? “Can you show me how to do it again?”
With effort, she bites back whatever piercing retort she has and resumes the stance she wants me to mirror.
I follow suit, the muscles in my legs and feet straining to hold the position as her eyes move over my body impassively, down and up, before she lifts her arms in front of her. “Make fists and show me your guard.”
I don’t know what exactly she means by guard, but I mimic the way her elbows bend and how her arms block from her chin down to her chest. Even with Myla’s legs bent slightly, her height still forces my chin up to make eye contact with her.
But she avoids holding my gaze, instead focusing on all the parts of my body she clearly finds unsatisfactory.
I can understand her hatred of my kind, even if I don’t know why she specifically carries it so strongly, but her disgust when she looks at me leaves me feeling two feet tall.
It’s why I can’t keep myself from asking, “Why do you hate me so much?”
Not even the length of a breath passes before she answers. “Sirens started a war that led to the death of members of my family.” Her dark eyes lift to meet mine for a moment, and they pierce through me like the cold waters of winter. “Don’t let your guard fall,” she says, dropping her gaze.
I lift my arms up again and put that small bend in my knees that Myla has.
“You had family that fought in The War Of Five Kingdoms too?” I ask carefully.
I can’t tell her I am a siren princess, my self-preservation warning me that if she knew, she would likely defy the rules of the life debt between us and kill me anyway, no matter the cost. I had lost Mashaka.
I live in constant fear of losing Lyre. Perhaps this can be a unifying thread between us.
At least enough to soften her anger towards me.
“We aren’t talking about this.”
Or maybe not.
“How are you so stiff? I assumed that one of the sirens’ only admirable qualities was that they were elegant in the way they moved. Yet you’re proving me wrong with every minute that passes in your presence.”
“I am not used to doing this”—I drop my guard to gesture at my body—“on land.” Not that I was used to doing anything like this in the water either, but voicing that doesn’t seem wise.
“This is such a fucking mistake,” she growls, prowling to the other side of the cavern. “I would have more luck trying to teach a dragon to wield a sword.” She looks over her shoulder at me. “At least then there would be some honor in that.”
Pressure builds behind my eyes, my frustration mounting behind an already weakened facade. “Well, maybe if you were a better teacher—”
Her eyes flare, and in a movement so quick I can’t even track it, she unstraps one of the daggers sheathed at her thighs and hurls it.
The dagger’s zips right past me, and my responding gasp is already seconds past the sound of the dagger hitting the stone at my back.
I look down when I feel something tickling my foot to see a small collection of my ruby strands dusting the floor around me.
Mouth agape, my gaze snaps back to hers. “What are you—”
But Myla is already moving again, the look on her face so intense as she closes the distance between us that I retreat from it—from her.
“My patience is thin, Little Siren. A fragile thread that has frayed nearly to destruction, so I need you to understand that I mean it when I say that I am already tired of watching you flounder beneath my instruction.” Our chests heave in tandem, the small stream of sunlight coming in from a gap in the rocks above us highlighting that bronze dragon on Myla’s shoulder.
I can’t help but look at it, the sight of the beast forged in metal serving as a reminder of just who this female is.
Her lip peels back with a snarl as she adds, “You claim to have a reason for wanting to train, to fight, but you have given me nothing to work with beyond a doe-eyed gaze and a less than functional body.”
Beneath the shame her words conjure, the embarrassment and voice inside my head that agrees with her, a small spark of something hot and fierce ignites.
I do have something to fight for. Someone to fight for.
And as my eyes narrow in on hers, I wade into unknown waters for the first time ever as I stand up for myself.