Chapter 23
“I’m not certain how this is possible,” Segolayne sneered down at me, upside down from where I lay sprawled on the mat, “but somehow you’ve become worse overnight.”
I wheezed as I pushed myself upright. “I’m a bit… distracted,” I managed, shooting her as sour a look as I could muster.
Her eyes narrowed. Then, to my surprise, she held out a hand. I took her wrist, and she hauled me to my feet with little effort. I immediately doubled over, bracing my hands on my knees as I struggled to catch my breath.
“She’ll be fine,” Segolayne said curtly.
“Any sign yet of her…” I swallowed hard between breaths. “Coming back?”
“No.”
The single clipped word made my stomach sink.
She shoved the blunted dagger back into my hand. “Again.”
“How bad is it?” I pressed, unable to stop myself.
“Bad.”
My chest tightened painfully.
Levinica had screamed when they tried to take the book from her. Truly screamed. In the end, Segolayne had resorted to magic, violet threads binding her as she thrashed, sobbed, and called for Dannis while they led her from the room.
What haunted me most wasn't the screaming itself, but the confusion on her face. The terror. The way she looked around as though she no longer knew where she was or what was happening, weeping for her son as if he'd been taken only moments before.
Those cries echoed in my head.
I'd barely slept. Unable to quiet my mind, I slipped from bed and wandered into the living area, where Levinica's books still lay scattered across the table.
The book had been damaged during the struggle.
Its cover had torn loose completely. It took me several minutes to find it where it had fallen between the couch and the table.
The Little Moon Boat. I stood there silently turning it over in my hands, staring down at the drawing inked across the inside.
The faint tug of the bond pulled at my attention, and I turned instinctively toward the enclosed courtyard. I half expected to find Rìan standing there in the moonlight, his dark cloak billowing around him.
But if he’d been there, he never showed himself.
Eventually, I returned to bed. I didn't realize I'd fallen asleep until Segolayne burst into my room before sunrise, as she always did, to drag me to our lesson.
She always took great pleasure in barging into my chambers loudly enough to wake the dead. But this morning there was something harsher beneath it. The wall shook as the door slammed open, and one look at her tight, cold expression told me she'd spent the night with Levinica. It hadn't gone well.
As a result, our lesson was even more brutal than usual.
“Again,” Segolayne hissed through clenched teeth as she disarmed me for the fifth time.
She was just as worried about Levinica as I was—I knew that. She simply expressed it differently. Through violence. Through bruises. Through driving me into the mat whenever I missed a step or hesitated for half a heartbeat.
And this time, somehow, I didn’t resent it. Part of me thought I deserved it.
Sooner or later, during one of our lessons, Levinica would’ve stumbled across some childish drawing or forgotten keepsake tucked between those old pages—but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d caused this.
And to some degree, it was obvious Segolayne thought so too, because the next second the dagger went flying from my hand and my back struck the mat, my legs swept out from beneath me so quickly I hadn't even seen her move.
I rolled onto my side, dragging air into aching lungs.
“What…” I wheezed. “the fuck… is wrong with you?”
Segolayne crouched beside me and used the tip of the blunted dagger to tilt my face toward hers. She gave a small, careless shrug, but her eyes burned with something ugly.
“I told you,” she said coldly. “Again. Why weren’t you prepared?”
She hauled me up by the back of my collar so abruptly it sparked a flash of anger.
“Don't touch me like that.” I wrenched free of her grasp.
“You spend half the lesson getting up off the floor,” she shot back. “It’s infuriating. And it’s wasting my time.”
“You’re Fae,” I spat. “You have all the time in the world.”
“Doesn’t mean I want to spend it like this.”
“Then don’t.”
She held my stare for a beat, something simmering behind her eyes, before turning away and striding toward the wall of weapons.
A gust of wind curled in through the open terrace, brushing over my overheated skin. I closed my eyes for a moment, letting it soothe the ache in my muscles and the sting of fresh bruises.
“Wake up,” Segolayne snapped.
My eyes flew open just as something long and wooden came hurtling toward my face. I caught it at the last second, fingers closing clumsily around the curved frame.
A bow.
I stared at it, momentarily blank, as Segolayne grabbed my shoulder and spun me toward the open terrace.
Though dawn had come, thick storm clouds smothered the sky, leaving the world suspended somewhere between night and day. Only a faint glow along the horizon betrayed the hidden sun, washing the bay below in deep blues and muted steel-gray where the currents churned against the rocks.
She marched me to the very edge of the terrace. Outside, the wind whipped freely, tearing at my hair and clothes.
“Something different today,” Segolayne said, already impatient, as she dropped a quiver of arrows at my feet.
Below us, in the rougher stretch of water where the current ran strongest, a series of buoys bobbed unevenly against the swell. Painted along their bases were markings I assumed measured distance—I hadn’t learned numbers yet. Above them, in harsh red, were concentric circles.
Targets.
A dull roaring started in my ears.
My hand tightened around the bow, my palm suddenly slick with sweat as I stared out at the water and the floating targets below. And saw something else entirely.
Torchlight along crumbling battlements. Burning pitch. The rotting scent of the Infected beyond the walls. My quiver empty. One arrow left. I draw back the string as far as I can, shoulders straining with the effort, fingers burning. Aim—loose. Blood across snow. My father… My father—
“Elowen.”
Segolayne’s hand clamped down on my shoulder hard enough to jar me back into myself. She shoved an arrow into my hand.
“Shoot,” she ordered, pointing toward the nearest buoy.
My mouth had gone dry. I couldn’t swallow.
Missed.
I missed.
Oh gods.
Segolayne forcefully turned me back toward the sea. Standing behind me, she repositioned my grip on the bow, notched the arrow against the string, then stepped away.
“Pull. Aim. Release.”
The roar in my ears only grew louder. I stood there staring blankly at the target while my father’s final moments replayed over and over behind my eyes. My hands shook violently around the bow.
“What are you waiting for?”
I couldn’t breathe properly.
Segolayne stepped toward me again.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Then shoot the damned arrow.”
“No.”
I dropped the bow. It clattered loudly against the stone.
I turned on my heel and stormed back into the training room, heading for the door. When her hand closed around my arm, I spun on her with a snarl.
Her brows shot up in surprise before settling into an angry frown. “I didn't say you could leave.”
“Too bad.”
I yanked my arm free, but before I could take another step, she was in front of me.
“These sessions aren’t optional,” she spat, inches from my face. “You leave when I say you can leave.”
“Segolayne.” My pulse thundered in my ears as I struggled to keep hold of my temper. “I'm warning you.”
Something dark flashed across her face. Then, without warning, she shoved me hard toward the center of the room.
Missed.
Father…
Something inside me split open. Fear, anger, pain—it all came pouring out at once, and my magic answered with ravenous hunger after weeks of silence, surging through my veins with blinding strength. Before I even realized what I was doing, my hand lashed outward. Golden flame tore through the air.
Segolayne jerked to a halt. For one strange, suspended moment, nothing happened at all.
Then a thin red line appeared across her face, as though an invisible blade had carved it there.
Blood welled, then poured down her skin, spilling from temple to jaw in a crimson sheet.
It ran between her fingers as she instinctively reached for the wound, which had missed her eye by the narrowest margin.
Shock flashed across her face.
Then her expression twisted. Her teeth bared at me like an animal’s.
“Bitch,” she snarled.
I held my ground as fire burst to life across my fingertips once more—vicious. Wild. Furious. Aedric's magic.
Rage tore through me so fiercely I could barely breathe. And then my magic took it.
The fury vanished beneath the rush of heat flooding my veins. The fear. The loss. The hurt. All of it burned away in an instant, devoured so completely it left nothing behind.
Cold calm settled over me. Blissful emptiness. I stared at Segolayne through the dancing flames without feeling a single thing at all.
I would scatter her ashes across the floor.
I grinned just as she lunged. I thrust my hand forward and the flames erupted outward. Segolayne rolled aside at the last possible second. The magic missed her completely and slammed into one of the towering mirrors lining the training room instead. Glass exploded everywhere with a deafening crash.
Segolayne regained her footing instantly. I was already raising my hand, another flare of fire building at my fingertips—
The bond cinched so tightly that I staggered.
A heartbeat later, Rìan was there.
He moved so quickly I barely saw him appear—tall and terrible in black, his dark eyes blazing, he planted himself squarely in front of Segolayne, shielding her.
The air around him crackled with restrained power.
It pressed against my burning skin like the charged stillness before a lightning strike, the fine hairs along my arms lifting beneath the force of it.
His magic filled the room instantly—vast and suffocating and leashed so tightly it made mine feel rabid in comparison.
Mine was chaos.
His was a blade.