Chapter 17 Baser Instincts
BASER INSTINCTS
CEDRIC
Step. Slide. Sweep. Parry.
Cedric narrated his movements in his head, thrusting the staff in his hands forward with measured steps.
With a grimace, he turned to look at the charred marks on the disfigured practice dummy he’d chucked to the side.
Thankfully, it was still early—so early, in fact, that the light of dawn slipping over the horizon was barely enough to illuminate this corner of the empty training yard.
Still, he would need to clean that up before anyone else ventured out for their own morning drills.
Despite the fact that he could feel the fire in his veins, the heat sizzling in the center of his chest, more acutely than ever before, he had only made marginal progress in mastering his power.
He thought perhaps he understood a little bit more about where the pool of magic sat within him.
Understood how to pull it back, keep it from spilling over at inopportune moments.
But being able to wield it purposefully, to call it forth without immediately setting his target alight with white-gold flames seemed an entirely separate matter.
So, after yet another failed attempt—and yet another practice dummy he’d have to replace—Cedric had decided to go back to basics.
The diversion was well warranted, he thought.
And if he tried hard enough, he might even have been able to come up with a reasonable excuse as to why he’d picked the quarterstaff to practice with over the myriad of blades hanging on the weapons rack.
Parry. Sweep. Slide.
He reversed his steps, mirroring his earlier movements, slashing through the air in a wide arc, a pleased smile tipping his mouth as he started to feel more comfortable with the heft of it, the length. Cedric spun the wooden staff in his hand a few times with a flourish—an outrageously long baton.
“Cute.”
Elyria’s voice was a silver bell chiming through the air, and Cedric’s eyes immediately shot to the source of the sound.
They locked onto her lithe form leaning against the far rail of the training ring, her cream-colored tunic tied in a knot at her waist, the fitted leather breeches tucked into calf-height boots.
Her hair was loosely braided over one shoulder, tiny sprigs of merryleaf tucked into the length.
Stars a-fucking-bove, she was a sight. The pale light of cresting dawn painted her skin an even lighter shade of porcelain than it normally was, and despite the early hour, her emerald-green eyes were bright.
Cedric tensed, his movements stilling for a heartbeat.
He forced himself into a casual pose, slinging the staff across his bare shoulders, bracing its middle against the back of his neck.
His eyes flitted wistfully to his shirt, hastily discarded and dumped over the railing when he’d begun to work up a sweat.
The very same railing that Elyria happened to be leaning against.
Retrieving it would mean approaching her, and he truly wasn’t sure he had the strength of will to move even an inch toward her without reenacting that stolen moment in the hall outside her room.
It had taken an alarming amount of restraint not to do exactly that during their visit to the Walk the other day, considering they’d been in a house full of children.
A blush crept into his cheeks at the thought, and he tightened his grip on either side of the staff.
His embarrassment deepened at the question that naturally popped into his mind at her unexpected appearance.
How long had she been watching him? Watching him practice with her signature weapon, no less?
In typical fashion, as though she’d heard his very thoughts, Elyria smirked as she pushed off the rail and strode over. Cedric cursed the delicate points of her ears and their superior hearing that he was suddenly very sure included being able to hear his walloping heart.
Get your shit together, he commanded himself, to little avail.
He’d been consumed by the thought of her in every spare moment since their encounter in the hallway.
Who was he trying to fool? It had been that way since that fevered kiss under the aurora during the final trial.
Hells, since their near-miss in the moonlight after the second one.
He was somewhat ashamed to admit it, but it might even have been since their very first encounter outside the doors of Castle Lumin.
He simply couldn’t get her out of his mind.
The feel of her soft lips on his, the scent of her skin, her body pressed against him, the brush of her magic against his own—it was a refrain, a pulse in his bones.
It didn’t matter how many times he fisted his cock in a fruitless attempt to rid his mind of her.
She was ever-present, like a thrall had been cast over him. Unbreakable.
As if he wanted to break it.
Even now, the sway of her hips and the close-lipped smile tipping her mouth as she approached had Cedric adjusting his stance, all too aware of the effect that her very presence had on his . . . baser self.
He was suddenly also quite aware of the position he’d chosen and how very much on display he was.
He cleared his throat. “How long were you watching me train?”
Elyria began walking in a slow circle around him, a predator circling prey. Cedric suppressed a shiver when she stopped behind him.
“Why? Looking for a proper tutor?” she said with a low laugh, her breath whispering against the back of his neck. She walked two fingers along the length of the staff, and though she wasn’t touching him directly, Cedric felt each tap, tap, tap like she was prodding his very soul.
Felt it elsewhere too.
“I thought you might be working on a different kind of training anyway,” she said, finally circling to Cedric’s front. Her eyes darted over his shoulder to the practice dummy still blackened and broken on the ground. “Or perhaps I already missed it?”
Cedric ground his jaw. “I’m trying.”
“I see you didn’t bother taking me up on my suggestion to seek outside help.” She clucked her tongue. “Granted, Nox is hardly my favorite teacher, but the bastard does seem to know their stuff. I would bet good gold they’d be more than happy to provide you the same tutelage they’ve been giving me.”
Finally swinging the staff down from his shoulders, Cedric plunked one end into the dirt. “You’ve been taking nocterrian magic lessons?”
“They have significantly more experience wielding shadows than I do,” she replied with a shrug.
Cedric’s brow creased. “Is that true? I recall them declaring how powerful your magic is. How much can they really be teaching you?”
She stiffened. “When you spend all your time trying to bury your power instead of learning how to use it, there is a bit of a steep curve to catch up.” She inclined her head at his token, her jeweled gaze raking over the rectangular stone hanging against his bare chest. “I would think you understood that now.”
The words might as well have been a slap across Cedric’s cheek, and he found himself leaning into the staff still gripped in his hand, like it might support the weight of his own magical failures.
Elyria must have seen the defeat in his eyes because she was quick to barrel on. “Perhaps you’re better off not looping Nox in on your mystical training,” she said breezily. “They can be rather tyrannical. They’ve been on my ass like a rabid volacarnii.”
If her plan was to distract Cedric from his doldrum-dwelling, it was working. “Volacarnii?”
“You didn’t come across one during the first trial?”
Cedric shook his head.
“Ah, well, Kit and I managed to miss them somehow too, thank the stars.” She plucked a practice sword from the nearby weapons rack and spun it in her hand. “Wicked, ferocious things.”
Cedric thought back to the myriad of vicious creatures that had nearly been his end during the Trial of Strength—the dragon, the grotesque pack of gnarlings, the first savage beast for which he had no name.
White-streaked black hide and a scythe-tipped tail filled Cedric’s mind, and he found himself wondering if that creature, the same one Zephyr had secretly taken the form of, had actually been a volacarnii.
He shuddered. “What do they look like?”
“It’s been decades since I’ve encountered one,” Elyria said casually.
“They are quite rare, actually.” She swung the blade through the air, as if beginning a dance with an invisible enemy.
“But imagine a mountain lion”—slash—“size it up to a smallish horse”—thrust—“give it wings and an extra set of razor-sharp teeth”—jab—“and that should give you a loose idea.”
Cedric blinked, unsure whether the way his mouth hung slightly open was due to watching Elyria’s gracefully lethal movements or from the horrifying description. “A horse-sized lion that can fly?”
She spun to face him once more. “I said a smallish horse.”
“Well, consider me grateful to have avoided that particular horror in the Sanctum then. I think I’ll stick to dragons and fyre wyrms.”
Her cheeks flexed, and a swell of pride stirred inside Cedric. He really loved seeing her fight a smile. He especially loved it when he was the one making her do it. “So, what exactly has Nox so, er, demanding that you’d make that particular comparison?”
She hesitated. “They are determined I figure out how to shadowstep.”
“You can’t?”
“It’s a lot harder than it looks,” she said, raising the sword, its dulled point aimed at Cedric’s chest.
Chuckling, he lifted his free hand in supplication, and Elyria smirked as she placed the weapon back on the rack.
“Never in a thousand years would I suggest it looks in any way easy. For Aurelia’s”—Cedric cleared his throat—“for fuck’s sake, we’re talking about walking through shadows here.”
She tilted her head. “You don’t call on Aurelia’s name anymore?”