Chapter Twenty-Eight Riela
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Riela
Traveling through the ether while awake was an experience—part exhilaration, part terror, all magic. It required vast amounts of power, and Garrick collapsed to the floor as soon as the castle’s kitchen materialized around us.
He rolled over onto his back and swore quietly. “Guess I shouldn’t have built your house after all.”
“You should take a nap. Do you need help?”
Heat flickered into his exhausted smile. “Are you offering to take me to bed?”
Answering desire slid through my veins, but I shook my head. “No, I was offering to help you climb the stairs, but if you’re well enough to flirt, then you’re well enough to crawl.”
He chuckled, and the low, warm sound rolled through the room like distant thunder. It would be so, so easy to forget the danger
he represented.
I’d already done it once, and I couldn’t afford to repeat the mistake.
“Is the courtyard safe?” I asked, changing the subject without the least bit of subtlety.
That sobered him. “No. Not unless I accompany you. I need to modify the protection charms, since I didn’t expect Feylan to
resort to non-magical aerial attacks, but I don’t have the power for it today.” He leveled a glare at me when I opened my
mouth. “And I am not borrowing your magic. Remember our bargain.”
“But this would be more for my benefit than yours. That’s allowed.”
Something calculating entered his expression before he smoothed it away, and the change immediately made me wary. “What?”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “Using your magic for your benefit is allowed. Help me up.”
He lifted an arm, but I didn’t take it. What was I missing?
Garrick climbed to his feet on his own with a stifled groan. “The boundary stones are outside. Changing the charm on the innermost
will be enough for today.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“You did.”
“It would be the first time,” I muttered, sure I was still missing something.
Garrick led me outside to a flat, round, light gray stone about the size of my palm. When I eyed it skeptically, he gestured.
“Try to pick it up.”
Magic nipped at my fingers as soon as I crouched and touched the surface, and for a brief, dizzying moment, I felt like I
was connected to every part of the island—to the bedrock itself. Garrick’s hand on my shoulder was the only thing that kept
me from falling over.
The small boundary stone appeared to be fused to the darker gray stone below it, with either magic or time. I couldn’t budge
it.
Garrick knelt beside me and placed his fingers on the stone. His expression was guarded. “Are you ready?”
I let my magic rise, then braced for the pain and nodded.
Garrick’s magic wrapped around mine and gently tugged. The expected pain did not arrive, and I smiled in relief. Maybe I was
getting better at this.
I was so busy marveling at the feel of my magic being pulled away without pain that it took too long to notice the utter blankness
of Garrick’s expression.
Worry whispered through me. “What’s wrong?”
A moment later, the draw of magic stopped, and Garrick quietly sucked in a deep breath. When he looked at me, his eyes were
blazing with fury, but his voice was deadly quiet. “You should have told me how painful it was the first time. Instead, you
made me a monster, and then kept asking me to repeat the experience.”
I stared at him with dawning horror. My pain had transferred to him—the pain that had caused me to pass out. And it had been ten times as strong, thanks to his vow, but he hadn’t so much as twitched.
Fury chased horror. “You knew this would happen.” I gestured between us. “Because of the vow. And you did it anyway.”
His eyebrows rose. “Explain to me why you get to be angry about that, but I can’t be angry that you keep offering to hurt
yourself for me.”
“The pain you felt was magnified ten times, and it was unbearable befo—” I snapped my mouth closed, but it was too late.
Garrick’s fingers left gouges in the solid rock below us as his eyes blazed brilliant silver. “‘Unbearable,’” he repeated
softly, dangerously. “You told me it ‘wasn’t that bad.’”
I lifted my chin in a flimsy defense. “Two things can be true.”
Garrick’s fingers dug deeper. “If you want me to be a monster, Riela, I will be. But not the one you keep expecting. You are
forbidden from sharing your magic with anyone, for their benefit or yours, until you learn how to do it without pain.”
I scoffed. “That’s not your decision to make.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You’re in my court, under my protection. Decisions affecting your safety are mine to make.”
“I’m not part of your court.”
“Wrong again, little mage.”
He didn’t seem to be joking. “But I’m human.”
“You’re a mage. Without the protection of a court, you’re fair game. More so than if you were Etheri, in fact.”
“So I have to follow your orders like a good little subject or you’ll let the other Etheri eat me?”
The rock crumbled under his fingers as his fists clenched. “No,” he bit out. “You should follow my advice because it will keep you safe. But I’ve vowed to protect you without limitation, so even if you march into the Blood King’s
palace naked and insult him to his face, I will still defend you to the death. You hold my life as much as I hold yours. Remember
that the next time you decide I’m a monster.”
He rose and stalked away, fury etched in every line of his body.
After he rounded the corner, I swore softly. If we were going to make this work then I was going to have to let go of some
of my anger and wariness and trust that Garrick wanted to keep me safe if nothing else. And I did trust that, right up until he turned all high-and-mighty and started issuing orders.
Then I wanted to defy him for no other reason than to prove I could.
But in the end, I either trusted him or I didn’t—and if I didn’t, then I had no business staying in his castle. By returning,
I’d already made the decision, but now I needed to actually live it, and that was far harder.
At the very least, I needed to apologize. Garrick had vowed not to harm me, and he had given me no indication that he intended
to break that vow, but I kept questioning his authenticity—and the value of his word. Repeatedly calling someone a liar to
their face was not a great way to build a working partnership.
I stood and the world spun. I clenched fingers that had gone stiff with cold as exhaustion slammed into me. Garrick had taken
a decent amount of my magic, and I hadn’t felt any pain at all.
Once I was steady on my feet, I returned to the kitchen. It was empty, as I’d expected. I stopped at the doorway. “Please
take me to Garrick,” I requested.
I stepped through the doorway and ended up in Garrick’s study. He was seated behind his desk, and he scowled when I appeared.
“That door was locked for a reason.”
I lifted one shoulder in apology. “Apparently, the castle doesn’t understand locked doors.”
He looked from me to the door without a word.
“One moment, please. I came to apologize. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you, and I do trust you to keep your word, otherwise I wouldn’t have returned with you. Sometimes my emotions just get the best of me.
It’s a failure, and I’m working on it.”
Garrick’s gaze weighed my sincerity for a long moment before he gestured at one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Join me?” The phrase had just enough lilt in it to be an invitation rather than an order.
Crossing the room under Garrick’s unrelenting gaze felt a bit like climbing a mountain, but I persevered and sank into a surprisingly
comfortable chair.
Garrick must’ve caught the surprise on my face because a faint smile touched his mouth. “Did you expect the chairs to be uncomfortable,
a penance for anyone who dared to bother me in my study?”
“Maybe,” I admitted.
He shook his head. “There are exactly three people who are allowed in my private study. Four now, I suppose. And I wouldn’t
wish discomfort on any of them, no matter how exasperating they might occasionally be.”
His pointed look did not go unnoticed, and I winced. “I don’t mean to be exasperating.”
“I know. You dislike orders, and I’m used to ordering. It puts us in conflict.”
“If you know that, then why do you keep trying to order me around?”
His eyebrows rose. “Why do you keep resisting?”
“Because—” I bit off the rest of the explanation as his meaning became clear. “Ah.”
“Indeed. Even with the best intentions, habits are difficult to break.”
I sighed. This would be so much easier if I didn’t like Garrick. Then I could remain cold and polite and distant, and his orders wouldn’t needle me nearly so much—mostly because
I would happily ignore them.
But I did like him, and I wanted him to see me as someone who was worth asking rather than ordering. And that was the crux of the problem.
I snorted softly at my foolishness, then met Garrick’s eyes. “I do dislike orders. That’s probably not going to change. But
I will attempt to be less antagonistic when questioning them. In return, you’ll try to actually explain your reasoning rather
than storming off.”
Garrick’s grin held an edge of self-deprecation. “The four people allowed in this room are the same four people who can get
me to storm off in a fit of fury. Welcome to the group.”
I left the study feeling lighter than when I’d entered. And now I desperately wanted to meet the other three people who were
close enough to Garrick to elicit an emotional response. The only way to do that was to open the door to Lohka, so I headed
for the courtyard.
I cast a wary glance at the sky as I eased out the glass door. Hopefully whatever Garrick had done to the protection charm
would work because Grim wasn’t here to fling me to safety.
Half of the clearing remained burned and blackened. The bench I’d been sitting on was missing entirely, and I wasn’t sure
if Garrick had removed it or if the explosion had destroyed it. No wonder he’d thought the worst. This looked like a battlefield,