43. Chapter 43 #2
It’s not a smart move. It has some sort of claws underneath its belly that start punching at me, and it’s all I can do to roll out from underneath it with my body intact.
What ensues is a lot of me rolling and it screaming while I stab it everywhere I can and still fail miserably at killing it.
I end up pinned to a tree with its fangs in my face, and I attempt to stab it in the eye but hit its forehead.
It doesn’t care. It’s not even a little fazed.
I rift to the outer edge of the beach and drop to my back, huffing and puffing. Micah kneels beside me. “Eyes and vital organs, Ember.”
I sit up, riled all over again. “I tried! I stabbed that thing over and over, and it did not die.”
“You’re operating out of fear, not strategy.”
“It was scary,” I argue.
“It’s nothing compared to a demon.”
I glower at him in utter frustration. “Then you go kill it.”
“All right. I will.” He disappears.
I rift to the area where I left the spider, and Micah is standing in front of it while it screams in his face.
Daggers appear in each of his hands. He shoves them into the spider’s eyes, and as it squeals in pain, he yanks the dagger from the sheath at his thigh and plants it in the top of the spider’s head.
The spider collapses. Micah yanks the blade from the spider’s head, cleans it on the ground, and then shoves it back in his sheath before walking toward me. “Now you know how to kill a spider.”
“Is there a book that tells me what’s in the forest?”
“You don’t need a book on the forest. This forest will submit to you the minute you prove you’re its ruler. And you do that by showing it who’s boss. You need to learn to kill demons. Read about demons.”
“Then why am I fighting in the forest?”
“Because you can’t go back to the human realm until you can control your powers and suppress the serpent. That means magic needs to be second nature. I could have killed that spider twenty ways. You need to know you can, too.”
“With magic?”
“Yes. With magic. Where did those extra blades come from? Why do you think it died from my blades and not yours?”
“Magic.”
“Right. I used poisoned blades. But none of this is about spiders or giant crabs. The minute we leave Elysium, you need to know who, when, where, and what when it comes to demons. We’re going to the library, and you aren’t going to get distracted by spellcasting books.
We’re going to study demons. Together. After which, we’ll meet Gabriella, and you will learn to use your fire.
If you can master it, it’s the answer to everything. ”
“You agreed to no fire.”
“I changed my mind. You’ll be dead without it, and so will we.”
I don’t argue over the fire. Micah is in too foul a mood to hear any of my arguments.
We spend hours in the library, holed up in the lower level with a table between us and books piled on the floor next to us.
We study one demon after another, and Micah makes me recite what I learn.
At one point, he actually drags me to my feet and insists I act out a kill scenario with him.
He’s intense, and there is no small talk between us, but he finally eases up after he eats a meatball sub and most of a box of donuts long before I’m even slightly hungry.
Apparently, food is the way to the man’s good moods, and I’m thankful for it.
“How do you prepare for the Fray?”
His brow inches upward. “Still talking about the Fray?”
“I guess I am. It’s training I will never have.”
“You train before the Fray,” he says. “You survive the Fray. And in answer to your question, you can’t fully prepare. You never know what is coming for you, and every Fray is different. You basically train for anything and everything.”
“Like me now.”
“Exactly.”
“Which reminds me, what time do I train with Silas?”
“You’re not. You stay with me.”
I’m instantly combative. “Because I was a little beaten and bruised? That’s part of training, Micah.”
“A little beaten and bruised?” he asks incredulously. “You were incapable of standing on your own, Ember. No. You are not training with Silas.” His tone is absolute.
Mine is defiant. “You can’t stop me.”
Anger sharpens his features. “I can stop him.”
“Don’t be an asshole. I want to train with him. I want to know what it feels like to have him come at me like that and walk away tall and strong.”
“In the meantime, you plan to stay beaten and bruised while I become your caregiver?”
I bristle. “I wasn’t aware I caused you such hardship. I don’t need you to take care of me.” I stand up. “I need some air.”
He’s already on his feet, right in front of me. We seem to do this a lot. “I cannot see you like that again,” he declares, scrubbing a hand through his dark hair, leaving it in disarray that mimics the look in his eyes. “I won’t.”
The sincerity in his worry for me soothes the wound I’d wrongfully assumed.
He’s not being a jerk. He’s being protective, too protective.
“You’re frustrated at me for not being able to beat the spider, but you won’t let me push myself.
Do you think I want to feel that pain again?
I don’t, but I want to leave here able to control my powers and control the serpent.
I need to be able to keep up with every one of you. ”
He tilts his head back, staring at the spiral of floors towering for miles, it seems, where books line shelves and knowledge hides, before he fixes me with a stare. “Two times a week. You cannot learn anything else if you are that battered and beaten.”
“I won’t be battered and beaten for long. I will learn to keep up. And I want you to train me just as hard, Micah. I want Gabriella to do the same.”
“Learn to use your fire, and we’ll train you until you break. And I mean really learn. You have to try. You have to want it. Deal?”
I hesitate only a moment. “Deal.”
It’s near sunset when we meet Gabriella at the outskirts of the forest, the sky streaked orange and yellow again, as it had been two nights before.
Micah creates a protective shield big enough for three, and I sit down in front of a cauldron, this time with Gabriella across from me, while Micah stands behind her and watches me.
It’s unnerving.
I chant my spell, and I try, I really do, but there is no fire.
“You have to believe, Ember,” Gabriella presses. “Dig deep and find the fire inside you.”
The problem isn’t me not believing in myself. Not anymore. The problem is my fear that I have far more than fire inside me. I don’t want to do this, and when I glance up at Micah, when our eyes collide, there’s disapproval in his stare.
He knows what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling, and he’s not pleased.
“That’s all for tonight, Gabriella,” he says after a full hour of training. “Let’s meet in the morning for breakfast in the cove. We’ll work together, the three of us, before Ember is battle-worn. Same spot.”
Gabriella and I push to our feet, and the cauldron and shield disappear.
“You’ll get it,” Gabriella promises me, offering me an encouraging hug.
“I know just what we should have for breakfast. I’ll treat.
” She smiles a beautiful smile—she really is a stunningly beautiful woman—and then simply disappears.
Micah steps in front of me, and without a word, captures my hand and rifts us to the door of my room. His hand lands on the doorframe beside me, and the way he looks at me turns me inside out, mostly because I can’t read his expression at all, but I can feel him without even touching him.
Without him touching me.
“What we are doing right now, what we are preparing for, is bigger than either of us, Ember. What matters is you being ready. It’s all that can matter.” He catches my arms and drags me to him. “You have to believe that fire saves us. Doubt is a weakness, and it’s already old. Get rid of it.”
His words stab at me with truth I don’t want to realize. “I know.”
“You don’t know. You need to know.” He cups my face and leans his forehead against mine.
“Damn it, Ember,” he whispers. “It has to be this way.” He leans back to look at me, his eyes as unreadable as minutes before.
“Go to bed and think about how to make fire in the morning.” But he doesn’t release me, and I think he wants to kiss me.
God, I want him to kiss me, but he doesn’t.
He releases me and walks to his door, pausing only a moment before he disappears inside.