Darkness in the Light
I woke with a smile the following morning, barely after first light, my barracks full of female fae and mortal women in every bed. I had just survived a whole day with my powers unblocked and hadn’t lost control. Being fae felt slightly less daunting.
And today would be the first day of a whole new life.
The schedule Drayce had drawn up for me included strength training before breakfast, private elemental instruction with Bramick after breakfast, private political catch-up with Kaelor (no idea what that meant), and then the rest of the day after lunch with the Arcanum order.
Not but a few moments after I opened my eyes, I realized what had awoken me so early—the muscle-head physical training coach Aerie pointed out yesterday was standing over the foot of my bed.
“What the—”
“Out of bed, soldier, we’ve got training in five!”
He turned and walked out of the barracks, leaving me in sleepy disorientation.
Shit. This was the one thing I was not looking forward to. Yes, I wanted to get stronger; I was done being weak. But did it have to be with this guy? He was already striking me as pushy and demanding.
A few of the others in the barracks grunted in their beds at his shout.
I dressed quickly, reached out to Noxie to find he was asleep, and left the barracks, where Muscle-head was waiting for me.
It didn’t make sense—I didn’t know there were so many muscles in the body. His muscles had muscles. And the fact that he was mortal made his physique even more impressive. And intimidating.
Come to think of it, I didn’t have fangs or pointed ears either, even after the magic-blocking cuffs had come off. Maybe I had subconsciously expected that to change when my power was freed, but part of me was happy to keep my mortal appearance. I’d ask the Arcanum leader about it later.
“We will have one-hour sessions before breakfast each morning to work on your endurance and your strength,” he said. “I expect you to give me your all each session, understood, soldier?”
I did not enjoy being addressed as “soldier” all the time, but I nodded.
“I need to hear it, soldier! You’ll respond with ‘yes, Garrick, sir’!”
I snorted and gave a halfhearted “yes, sir.”
Garrick did not like it. And I spent the next hour paying dearly for it.
He had me running laps around the compound, pushing me faster than my legs and lungs could take me, sweat pouring down my entire body. Just when I was at the point of throwing up, he directed me into a small building by the dirt rings. It was packed full of mats, weights, and benches.
“Weightlifting?” I gasped the question out between heaving breaths, my chest on fire in an entirely new way.
“You want muscle? You lift weights, soldier!”
I rolled my eyes.
“But you haven’t earned that yet. We start with the basics until you’re ready.”
Basics sounded great after that brutal running session.
But that turned out to be folly.
We did push-ups until my arms trembled and gave out, sit-ups until I couldn’t lift my back more than an inch off the mat. After that, I actually did throw up. He said we still had squats to do before I was done for the morning, and I said no.
“No?” he repeated coldly. “You don’t get to tell me no! If you don’t do them now, you’ll do them after dinner, doubled!”
“Fine. After dinner,” I said as I collapsed back on the mat, relieved to be done and unsure how I would get through the rest of the day.
Garrick took me back to my barracks, where the rest of my barrack mates were waking up, several looking at me as uneasily as I at them.
I went to our shared bathroom and stepped into the small basin.
This place had water that poured out like warm rain from above.
I had no idea how they’d done it, but it felt luxurious.
I stood under the water, letting the warmth soothe my aching muscles, then washed up and got dressed. The routine would be good for me.
I found Aerie waiting outside the barracks to walk with me to breakfast.
“How was your first training session?”
“I hate Garrick.”
She laughed, hard. “I can absolutely understand. He’s a tough son of a bitch. I was surprised Dray assigned him to your private training.”
“I would take literally anyone else. I’d have strangled him if I could lift my arms.”
“It’ll get easier, I promise. And with fae, strength comes quickly. Won’t be long before you’re running laps around him.”
“Can’t wait.”
She stood in line and sat with me again at breakfast, the mess hall substantially busier than yesterday, and I couldn’t help but feel like it was because the rebels wanted to see me. Silence didn’t greet us this time, but whispers and odd looks certainly did.
I hated it. She seemed unfazed. Then again, it was me they gawked at.
As we left, after a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and bread, I caught a few distinct phrases… “dangerous” and “are we safe with her here?” were the ones that made my ears grow hot.
Before I could spiral too far into my dark thoughts, Bramick was there to greet us at the entrance to the main building.
“Good morning,” he said with a yawn.
My heart dropped as I remembered picking him up and throwing him with my shadows.
“Bramick, I’m really sorry about the other night. My powers…I couldn’t control them, but I swear I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“What, you’re worried about that little thing? I forgot about it two seconds later,” he said, waving his hand absentmindedly.
“I just…feared I’d hurt you.”
“Ha! You see all that fluff on Bram?” Aerie chimed in. “Would’ve taken a lot more than that to hurt his giant-blooded ass.”
Gods, I was beginning to love these two. They didn’t tread lightly around me or treat me like an outcast. I felt like I could trust them. But that feeling had gotten me—and Nella, I thought with a stab to the heart—in trouble. I still needed to keep my guard up.
The three of us walked all the way to the dirt rings, the two of them chatting lightheartedly. There, Aerie left us with a dramatic transformation to her bird form and took off.
“Say hi to Noxie for me,” I yelled after her as she soared toward the avian house. Not that I couldn’t say hi to him in my mind, but it felt nice for him to have a friend that wasn’t me.
She cawed in response.
Then Bramick’s face turned serious. “Alright, today we’re just going to start with elemental basics.” He guided me to the center of the closest ring.
I’d heard “basics” once already today, and it had been brutal. So I took a deep breath and nodded. I was a lot more comfortable with him than Garrick, and frankly, I was excited to use the elemental side of my abilities and leave the dark and shadowy side for another time.
“You obviously have the element of fire, but for today, we’re going to go through some trials and see if you have any other elements you can control.”
“Do many fae have more than one element?”
“It’s not typical, but not unheard of. Pretty rare, actually, but I think anything is on the table right now with you.”
I wasn’t sure if that made me feel powerful or terrified.
“First thing, just to confirm it is fire,” he said. “I’m going to give you a device with a flint, a striker, and a burning agent called a flicker, and see what happens. I want you to close your eyes and let me guide you. Yeah?”
I nodded, skeptical and a bit hesitant. “Okay, yeah.”
“Great, you hold this.” He handed me the flicker, a smooth metal cylinder with a small stone on top, and I closed my eyes. “Now, the first thing I want you to do is place a hand over your heart, and I want you to envision your heart under your palm. Feel its beat and rhythm.”
I did as he instructed and immediately felt the thump of my heart. It was much slower than it had been as a mortal, taking me back to Noxie’s explanation of magic. It was a fae heart indeed.
Come to think of it, had I ever actually been mortal? There were still so many unknowns. How? Who? Why? I hoped the Arcanums held some answers.
“Okay, now what?” I asked, bringing myself back to the lesson.
“Now, keep focusing on the beating of your heart and picture your power as a box around your heart that beats with it, containing the magic within and giving it space to expand and take shape.”
In my mind’s eye, I pictured what he said, and suddenly the box expanded and contracted with each slow beat of my heart. I smiled at the control I felt so far.
“Good, good. Keep the image of that box in your mind at all times during these trials, okay?”
I nodded.
“Alright, so with fire, think of the box heating and glowing red. Think of controlled orange flames flowing out with each beat—in then out, flames igniting then extinguishing. Small flames.”
I concentrated on the image he’d painted and felt a light, pleasant heat surge through my veins. Nothing like the excruciating burn of my shadowy fire. This felt comfortable, familiar even, as if it had been there the whole time, dormant.
I opened my eyes to find the striker lit with a small, flickering orange flame and Bramick beaming in front of me.
“Excellent, well, that one was a given.”
“I controlled it!” I was ecstatic.
“Well…yeah, you did. Not to burst your bubble, but these trial tools won’t really allow for magic to be unleashed. They’re dampened some and, well…you did great with it.” He clearly saw my face fall. It had been exciting to make something happen, but it still wasn’t under control.
But I was determined to get there.
“So which trial is next, then?” I pressed on quickly.
He set the flicker down and picked up a jar of clear liquid with a glythyr drawn on one side. “We’ll try ice next.”
Ice made me think of Varyn, and I hoped I didn’t have it. I didn’t want commonality with him. Memories of flesh on flesh threatened to surface, but I pushed them away.
Bramick guided me through similar instructions to those in the fire trial, but centered this time on sharp, cold, and blue thoughts. I assume that if I had ice, the water would have frozen, but it didn’t. Nothing happened. Thankfully, I did not have the ice element.