TWENTY-SIX
“Maybe we should skip to the killing part,” I say, my scowl deepening.
Rumors must have spread about what happened to those men in the clearing.
Not that I’m sorry about it. But half of Wolf’s Keep probably wants me dead, so learning how to handle a sword seems like it should move to the top of the training list.
But Bishop is already walking toward the courtyard, forcing me to run to match his long strides.
He stops in a section partially sheltered from the wind by the astrolatory’s retaining wall and strips out of his coat.
Despite the weather, his tunic is sleeveless, putting his corded biceps on full display along with the markings of his power.
Vestiges. Proof that he’s killed other scions.
A lot of them, from the looks of it. The silvery lines travel the full length of his left arm, intersecting in a brutal but somehow beautiful pattern that travels all the way to his knuckles.
His right arm is half covered from his hand to just above his elbow.
“Have you—”
I only get a few words into my question before he cuts me off. “No more answers that you don’t earn.”
The words land like a gauntlet thrown at my feet.
Bishop thinks he knows how stubborn I am, but he’s about to discover a new definition of that word. Resolve hardens like steel in my chest.
But he tips his head in my direction. “You’ll probably want to lose that coat.”
“What?” My eyebrows shoot up. I glance around us like maybe I’ve had a blow to my head and we aren’t standing on the side of a mountain in early winter. Nope. Still here. “It’s freezing.”
“Suit yourself.” And then he sprints across the courtyard, continuing along the slight trail sloping up the mountain beyond the astrolatory.
“I guess we’re starting,” I grumble. Taking a deep breath, I follow. The path narrows as it climbs, loose rock skittering beneath me, my boots slipping with every stride. My calves start to burn almost instantly, a promise that the worst is yet to come.
I’ve nearly caught him when he turns and races back down, so gracefully that I consider catching up just to shove him off the side of the mountain. I force myself to continue to the same spot where he turned. By the time I reach it, my lungs are on fire, too.
“Downhill will be better,” I mutter to myself and follow him.
But he’s already on his way back up. Sweat breaks over my forehead.
This is why he took off his coat. I pause just long enough to shuck mine from my shoulders and toss it in the general direction of the courtyard.
I start back up—just as the bastard flies down past me again.
I’m panting when I reach the top, but the cold air feels good on my feverish skin.
If this is his way of showing me how out of shape I am, then … well played.
The air is too thin on the mountain, and by the fourth trip, I skid to a stop at the bottom and double over.
Bishop is there a second later, a few strands of hair sticking to his forehead the only proof that he’s even exerted himself.
He studies me, frowning slightly like I’ve failed the first assessment.
“Take your time. This isn’t a race. If—”
But I’m already starting back up. If he does it, I will, too. It’s the only way that I’ll be able to hold my own.
By the seventh lap, my legs are wobbling. Then they start to tingle. When I reach the top for the eighth time, I’m not sure they belong to me at all. Do I even have legs?
Bishop, who is somewhere between four and one million laps ahead of me, stops again. “Sit,” he orders.
This time, I listen, but only because my legs are about to give out regardless. At least when I crumple onto the rocky soil, it seems like I’m doing it on purpose.
“You brought me all the way up here to run? Are you serious?” I ask in bursts, chest heaving in time with my pounding heart. “When do we start training?”
He looms over me, his silver-blond hair haloed by the late-morning sun. He’s not even breathing hard. “I brought you all the way here to see how much you’d argue before you start listening.”
I stare at him. “You said you would teach me how to fight.”
Not try to kill me with oxygen deprivation.
“I said I would train you,” he corrects me. “Fighting comes later—if you don’t give up.” But he has the decency to wait until I’ve caught my breath before he helps me stand.
I dust gravelly dirt off my pants, not daring to look at the path back to the courtyard. Because even the descent feels impossible now. Bishop starts down the hill, moving at a slightly slower pace, which I’m sure has everything to do with me, because he’s barely broken a sweat.
“What does this prove?” I call after him, trying to ignore the dread pooling in my stomach at the thought of this lasting a minute longer.
“That you’re alive,” he yells over his shoulder without breaking stride.
Alive. The word hits me like a punch in the gut. I can run because I’m alive.
Kieren will never run again.
I shove the thought aside, but it’s enough to ignite a new fire inside me. So, I run until my lungs burn, pushing my muscles past their limit. My freshly healed skin chafes, but I don’t stop. Not anymore. Not when every time I do, the ache in my chest threatens to swallow me whole.
The sky feels too close, pressing down on me, sitting like a weight on my chest. The pressure is enough that my vision fractures slightly at the edges, my head starting to swim.
Bishop pauses at the bottom, takes one look at me, already poised to start another trip up, and mercifully doesn’t.
As I finish, he retrieves a canteen from his pack and hands it to me first. I drink most of it, gulping it down like it can quench the blaze in my muscles before I remember that he’s with me.
“You’re enjoying this,” I accuse, passing it back to him.
But he shrugs. “It’s just running.”
Just running? Like there’s just seven hells? And I’m pretty sure I might be in one now.
I shake my head, still trying to get a breath deep enough into my lungs. “Is this some kind of test?”
“Isn’t everything?” He returns the canteen to his pack.
The sun passes high above, bursting through the rainy clouds and showing itself already headed down toward the western horizon.
I have no idea how long we’ve been running, stopping long enough for me to recover, and then, Stars help me, running more.
Hours, if it’s already midday. It feels like several lifetimes.
I brace for him to start up the mountain again, but he twists his neck, stretching it like he’s preparing to finally move on.
“Is it time for a sword now?” I ask, a fragile bubble forming around my heart.
“Not yet.” Bishop bursts it, crossing his arms over his broad chest. His measured tone is anything but reassuring. “Now you’re going to work on covering ground while moving sideways.”
“Nooo.” The word escapes as an almost inaudible moan.
“Different muscles,” he says, and I swear the ghost of another smirk flashes across his face.
The asshole is definitely enjoying this.
Moving sideways over wet stone turns out to be even more difficult than moving forward and back. The wind and rain continue to batter me until the sun is no longer high in the sky.
I look up from my nearly ceaseless shuffle from left to right, right to left, and find Bishop gone.
I could stop, but my feet can actually tell whether they’re on wet stone or rock without looking now, which is a good thing because I think my brain froze in my skull sometime around midday.
And I’m not quitting until Bishop realizes I’m not giving up.
He reappears and tosses me the refilled canteen. “Take a break.”
I resist the urge to weep as I unscrew the top. His eyes linger on me as I guzzle the water.
“Are you done yet?” he asks when I finally pass it back to him.
I square my shoulders, ignoring the inferno growing by the second in my calves, in my shoulders—seven hells, in every fucking muscle in my body. “With the water?” I force a flat smile. “The rest is yours.”
We both know that’s not what he meant.
His nostrils flare slightly before he finishes off what’s left in the canteen.
My attention snags on the movement of his throat as he swallows, and for one treacherous, glorious second, I forget how much I currently hate him.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and tosses the canteen with his pack. “Let’s get back to it, then.”
I suck in a whimper. He won’t break me. He can’t.
There’s nothing left to break.
But when he picks up a loose paving stone and holds it out, I wonder if I’m wrong. I take it from him, nearly dropping it on my feet when he releases his hold on it. Air whooshes out of me, but I readjust my grip, the rock’s rough edges biting into my fingertips.
“What is this for?” I stare at it like the stone might actually answer me.
“Swords are heavy.”
“No shit.” I roll my eyes.
His forehead inches up, but he doesn’t lecture me. “Hold it over your head, smart-ass.”
That’s what I get for asking a simple question. I swallow a whimper as I raise it over my head. Thanks to the gardening, I make it about twenty seconds before my arms start to tremble, just long enough to manage a smug smile. “Now what?” I grit out.
He blinks back at me like it’s obvious. “Keep going.”
A minute later, I’m regretting that I wasted energy on a smile or words or even breathing.
“Okay,” he says, but before I can drop my arms, he continues. “Now walk, one foot in front of the other, to the door and back.”
Even my ankles are wobbling by the time I make it to the door and turn, one wolf looming above me on either side. I make it two more steps, and he calls out, “Close your eyes.”
I bite back a retort, but only because I don’t have the strength with every ounce of me focused on keeping the rock from falling and smashing me in the face. Clenching my eyes closed, I focus on two things: steadying my feet and imagining throwing the rock at him. If I could even hurl it that far.