Chapter 19
Nineteen
Lory
After breakfast, Anees and Bleek took Lory to the familiar stone chamber in the bowels of the academy.
Halfway down the stairs, Lory pondered asking if they had any news about the three Flames in Ashthorn’s dungeons, but she didn’t dare bring up the topic for fear someone could overhear them in the hallways.
Once inside the chamber, she readied herself to whisper the question to Anees, but the woman had already pulled a shawl-sized piece of fabric from the small cupboard in the corner and was holding it out to Lory.
“Today is about control, Lory. We’ve all seen you go up in flames. We’ve heard the stories about the Amrin Mountains and about how you turned into a living torch before you disappeared, but we know little to nothing about your control.”
Wait? How did they know about what happened in the mountains?
“Did Khayrivven tell you the details?” If anyone would tell her the truth, it was the two of them.
Bleek shook his head. “Lenya held a lecture for the rest of leadership and all tutoring students about what to expect if we were working on your powers. Not that your powers are anything to be afraid of…” he amended so fast Lory could barely get upset about the fact Lenya had found it necessary to voice a warning about her. As if she intended to hurt anyone.
“It doesn’t say half as much about you as it does him,” Bleek said with the sort of roguish charm that made Lory wonder if he was following his own agenda.
Khayrivven trusts him, she reminded herself. So she’d trust him, too.
“I guess you’re right. If I don’t learn how to use my powers in small, digestible doses, it will one day blow up in my face.”
“If you ever get upset with me when I tell you that, I’ll remind you that you said it first.” Anees gestured at the fabric in Lory’s arms. “Now try to singe that. Nothing more. No flame, no open fire. Just some smoke.”
Lory suppressed the eyeroll at the request, but the less defiant part of her was ready to dive right in.
“Close your eyes if it helps,” Bleek chimed in, his tone surprisingly unlike his courtier persona out of Gilded lessons. “Just remember to keep your eyes open when you face an opponent.”
With her focus on her palms, Lory reached for the well of power inside of her, finding her fire ready and waiting. This might be easier than expected.
With a tug on her magic, her palms turned hot, hot, hotter, and the fabric caught fire so fast it turned to ashes between her fingers.
Great—
Anees picked up a jar of water, which Lory hadn’t noticed sitting atop the cupboard, and poured it over the leftovers of the cloth.
“I’m sorry—”
“You didn’t think this would work at your first attempt, did you?” Anees said with a grin. “You’re already the most powerful student I’ve ever encountered; it would be severely unfair if wielding came to you easily, too.”
“So unfair,” Bleek agreed with a grin, his dark blonde hair bouncing as he walked to the side of the room and picked up a loose piece of wood, which Lory identified as part of the chair she’d taken apart with Aiden while searching for a way out of this chamber when Khayrivven had first used the Almelyte power to lure her magic out.
“Why don’t you try this instead. It’s sturdier than the textile, and if you can’t ration your fire when you release it, perhaps you can dial it back when it’s already out. ”
“You mean manipulate it while the chair leg is burning?” Lory asked for clarification, and when Bleek nodded, she dug deep into her well of power once more, this time not tugging but gently calling for a tendril of fire.
A whoop of joy nearly escaped her throat as the wood didn’t go up in the same inferno the fabric had. Instead, the heat spread from her palms in small orange tongues, wrapping around the chair leg.
“Please tell me this isn’t just because wood doesn’t burn as fast as cloth,” she said to Bleek over the glow of orange in her hands and found the phantom grinning with the sort of approval she knew none of the Triad would ever give her for a tiny achievement such as this.
“Not bad, Vednis,” the Gilded specialist praised, and Anees bobbed her head, her eyes on the intricate web of flames.
“Keep it low like this for a minute, then reel in your power like it’s a rope or a chain, whatever image works best for you.
The fire should shrink with every inch you’re withdrawing your magic. ”
Lory did her best not to break eye contact with her flames as she willed her magic to pull back.
Inch by painful inch, she spooled it inward until the fire feeding on the wood in her hands started dying down and the intense glow dimmed to the orange of embers and eventually winked out.
Such relief, not to have the flames break into a wildfire.
A sharp breath lifted Lory’s chest as she took in her handiwork. “I did it.”
“You did it,” Anees agreed with a grin, pride shining in her eyes, while Bleek merely raised a brow.
“Once,” he commented. “You did it once.”
With a frown, Lory called upon her fire again, watching the flames come to life one by one as they licked up the piece of wood like honey flowing against gravity to the tip of the stick, then pulled back her power until the fire died on the blackened surface.
The expression on Bleek’s face when Lory eyed him sideways was almost comical.
“All right, you did it twice.” Bleek pulled the chair leg from her hands and offered her another piece of fabric, this one raw silk in the colors of the sky. Beautiful and too precious to burn.
“You’ll be able to fix soot stains on this with your power if I mess it up, right?” Lory threw at Anees, already calling her magic to her fingertips.
This time, it wasn’t more than a soft summons, her inner voice calm and collected, and her magic uncoiled from her veins and flowed into her palms, where it waited. Waited like a beast ready to pounce if she made one wrong move.
You can do this, Lory. Giving herself a pep talk was something she’d learned in her years alone on the streets, when not even Evven had been there to tell her she was capable. When she’d depended on nothing and no one for fear she’d lose whoever she got close to.
Now, she had friends. People who rooted for her, even in this dark and dire place.
As if that knowledge opened a dam inside her, Lory’s fire soared from her hands, shooting in a circle around the burning fabric in her hands before splintering into a million sparks just below the ceiling.
Lory wasn’t the only one who ducked and sought cover as the sparks rained down on the stone floor.
Anees was crouching beside the cupboard, her arms raised above her head, and Bleek stood at the side of the room, back pressed against the wall and head turned to the side as he eyed the spectacle.
Only when the sparks extinguished on the cool limestone did Bleek push away from the wall and shake his head in wonder.
“Eroth have mercy, Lory. What the fuck was that?”
Anees giggled so hard at Bleek’s cursing that she could barely get to her feet. “I haven’t heard you use that sort of language since I kicked your ass in hand-to-hand when we both were ashlings,” she told him, swatting off flecks of ashes where sparks had hit her.
Lory was still cowering on the ground, mortified. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… Are you all right?” When she finally got to her feet, both Anees and Bleek were staring at her, slightly disheveled, but otherwise impressed.
“How did you do that?” Anees wanted to know, pulling the leftovers of the silk from Lory’s hands and balling them up in her hands.
Lory watched the soot disappear and the holes weave themselves back together until everything looked like new. What useful power Anees had. “No idea,” Lory admitted. “I’m sure you’ve already thought of this, but if you can make fabric fix itself, can you also destroy it with your magic?”
Anees chuckled. “How do you think I usually undress my lovers?”
That earned her a sideways glance and a cough from Bleek, and Lory could have sworn a blush tinged the phantom’s cheeks. “I thought we were talking about Lory’s powers here, not Anees’s.”
Rolling her eyes at him, Anees shoved the fabric into his hands and took Lory’s into hers. “So how did you summon sparks? Have you always been able to do that?”
Unsure what was so special about that particular manifestation of fire magic, Lory shrugged. “I didn’t even know I had magic until I came to Ashthorn,” she reminded them. “Not that I came willingly.”
Anees waved a dismissive hand. “I know that, trust me. I had a front row seat when they first captured you.”
Lory pulled back her hands, tucking them behind her back. “About that… You were there to get information out of me that day in the brig, right?”
To her surprise, Bleek answered the question.
“They would have killed you then and there had they believed you’d known about the Almelyte.
Lord Airmal Ycken usually carries it with him in case he comes across potential magic wielders.
It’s the only way to be certain they do have magic.
” He pointed at the wall he’d been pressed against a minute ago, which Lory recognized as the one that had lifted when Khayrivven had locked her and Aiden in that very same room.
“Ashthorn is using it to trigger slow students, and Ulder’s Advisor on Magical Affairs is using it to expose wielders. ”
“Advisor for Magical Affairs? Is that Airmal Ycken’s official title?” Lory was about to laugh at the ridiculous name, but Anees interrupted her thoughts, and her mind went blank.
“Ycken does advise the king, but the person in charge is Bohem Cann. He pulls the strings of all things magic eradication, while Ycken is tasked with finding rare gems in a kingdom filled with useless rocks.” Anees paused, taking in Lory’s wide-eyed expression with a slight frown.
Bohem Cann. The same Bohem Cann who’d sat beside the king at the dance. Her father.