Chapter 17 Baser Instincts #2
“The luster of the celestials has been somewhat diminished of late,” he said with a shrug.
“Especially hers. Now that I understand exactly why she was banished—and where she was banished to. She holds no power, tied to the Sanctum as she is. What good is invoking her name? Perhaps she cannot even hear those who still do.”
Elyria hummed in thought. “And, of course, it has nothing to do with the fact that she’s the reason you had to—” She cut herself off, lip curling as if she suddenly tasted something rank.
Refocusing her gaze on the staff that Cedric was still leaning on, she continued.
“You were handling that thing quite well. Ready to trade in your sword, Sir Knight?”
Cedric noted the abrupt change of subject but would not push against it.
He smothered the instinct to preen at Elyria’s words of praise.
“I’ll admit to understanding the appeal—the distance and leverage it provides alone can be quite the advantage.
” With a flourish, he offered the staff to Elyria. “But I think I’ll stick to swords.”
Her mouth tipped up to one side as she stepped forward to take it, her sweet almond scent wafting across Cedric’s nose.
She twirled the weapon, spinning it in the air like a great baton.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Her eyebrows lifted.
“You seem like the kind of person who knows how to . . . wield things properly.”
Heat flooded Cedric’s cheeks in response, the tips of his ears turning pink.
Grinning broadly, she went on to ask, “Have you given yours a name?”
A sort of choked sound rumbled out from Cedric’s throat. “My—my what?”
“Your sword,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “That’s a thing you humans do, isn’t it? Name your weapons?”
Cedric swallowed, trying to reclaim the tiniest bit of his composure. He walked over to the railing that held his discarded shirt, hoisting it over his head before snatching up the scabbard leaning against the rail. “It’s not a ‘thing’ for Arcanians, I take it?”
“Not for the fae.” She placed the staff back on the weapons rack. “Dwarves name their hammers, I believe. I’m a little bit scared to ask Thraigg what he calls his.”
Cedric huffed a laugh. “I cannot say I blame you there. But, yes, we name them. It is our right and our duty when we become knights of the realm.”
“So? What is it then? Don’t hold a girl in suspense.” When Cedric hesitated to respond, she added, “It cannot possibly be worse than the names I am currently inventing in my head, so you might as well just tell me, Sir Knight.”
Cedric swallowed. “Ashrender.”
“Ashrender? Stars above, that’s dramatic.”
“I was sixteen,” he grumbled, his grip on the sword in its scabbard tightening.
Elyria tapped her chin. “No, no, I like it. Very fitting.” She squinted at the sword, her gaze darting between the amber stone set in its pommel, the wing-shaped crossguard, and Cedric’s face. “A little too fitting, actually. A blade to turn enemies to ash, wielded by the knight who rose from it.”
Cedric swallowed hard, the memory of his mother’s voice echoing in his mind. “What’s gotten into you, my little phoenix?”
Chewing on his lip, he ran the pad of his thumb along the hilt before buckling the sword into place at his waist.
Several heartbeats passed between them in silence before Elyria finally said, “You’re sure you didn’t—” just as Cedric simultaneously blurted out, “I didn’t know—”
They both released a nervous chuckle.
“Like I said, I was sixteen when I named it,” Cedric said. “It was actually my father’s sword, I’m told. The one item Lord Church was able to recover from my former home after . . .” He cleared his throat. “Well, the one item aside from”—he held up his hand to show her his ring—“this.”
“Also your father’s?”
Cedric nodded.
“You didn’t have that during the Crucible.”
“I did not take either in there with me. Took a different sword as well.”
Elyria tilted her head. “Why?”
“In case I didn’t . . . I did not want them to be lost, even if I was.”
She straightened, rolling her shoulders back as though the thought made her uncomfortable.
“I do not know what name my father gave his sword though,” Cedric said. “If he ever told me, I was too young to remember. So, I picked my own when I became a knight of the realm. Whatever additional meaning it might have now is simply coincidence.”
Elyria’s voice was quiet when she said, “After all we’ve been through, you still believe in coincidence?”
Cedric loosed a breath. “I don’t know what I believe anymore.
” His gaze returned to the charred training dummy still haphazardly thrown aside.
He didn’t even realize he was frowning until a light finger was suddenly touching his forehead, Elyria’s thumb brushing against the parallel lines that had formed between Cedric’s eyebrows as if she might smooth away his worry.
His breath caught. Her eyes—those pools of silver-flecked green—were only inches from his.
“You aren’t the only one trying to make sense of a power that doesn’t want to cooperate,” she said, exhaling slowly, her dangerous almond scent enveloping him.
“Nox wants me to shadowstep, and maybe one day I’ll figure out how.
Until then, I can at least focus on other manifestations of my shadows—even if I can’t travel through them. ”
She stepped back, apparently satisfied with the release of tension in Cedric’s brow, and he could not ignore the feeling of loss that came with every increased inch of distance between them.
“They’ve at least conceded that my sparrows could prove quite useful.”
“Your . . . sparrows?”
“That’s what I decided to call them.” She flexed her fingers, turning her wrist, palm up. Wisps of shadow gathered in her hand, just like at the orphanage when she’d conjured those ghostly butterflies—a feat Cedric still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around.
With a purse of her lips, Elyria blew into her hand, and Cedric watched in amazement as her breath coalesced into black smoke that joined the shadows in her palm, forming a small sphere. And from that sphere sprouted two shadowy wings, a delicate head, a tiny beak.
A sparrow conjured from the dark.
Cedric’s jaw went slack as the shadowbird flitted into the air, silent as a ghost, dark mist trailing from its wings as it circled his head. It was already so much more formed, so much more real, than what she had demonstrated to the children of the Walk.
“You made a bird. From shadow.”
“You conjure fire,” she shot back. “We all have our tricks.”
Cedric shook his head. “You misunderstand my meaning. This is . . .” He tracked the bird flying overhead, trying and failing to come up with a word capable of encompassing what he was witnessing. “Incredible,” he finally said, his voice little more than an exhale.
Elyria shrugged, as though this shadowy miracle was nothing of note. Though, as the small creature landed on her shoulder and she turned her head to whisper something to it, Cedric caught the faint curve of a smile tugging at those perfect lips.
A few moments later, the sparrow was back in the air, flying a winding path around the room before finding its way back to Cedric.
This time, it landed on his shoulder, though if he hadn’t been tracking the miraculous creature so closely, he wouldn’t have been able to tell.
It felt like nothing. Like less than air.
Which is why it was all the more shocking when hushed, melodic words made their way into Cedric’s ear from a shadowed beak.
“Why thank you,” came Elyria’s voice, as surely as if she’d been standing right next to him, whispering the words in his ear herself. “You’re very kind, Ashrender-er.”
Cedric’s mouth popped open.
And then the sparrow was gone, dispersed back into the ether from whence it came.
“It spoke.”
Elyria nodded. “I can construct a few at a time. Nox says it is a . . . unique skill. They have me working on maintaining the sparrows’ corporeal form for longer.
They think I could get them strong enough to skip through the shadows, to carry my voice quite some way.
Maybe even carry the voices of others.” She pursed her lips to one side of her mouth, as if irritated at the thought that her sparrows might master shadowstepping before she herself could.
“A way to communicate across distance,” Cedric said, incredulity making his voice crack.
“Probably no more reliable than our current methods of sending missives, but it could prove useful. We’ll see.”
A few moments of stuttering silence passed between them as Cedric searched for what to say in light of this new revelation of her power. He’d seen the raw physical power she wielded thanks to her shadows, but this was something else entirely. New, strange.
Miraculous.
What else can you do? he wanted to ask. Is there anything you can’t? But the words wouldn’t form.
As if she heard them anyway, Elyria shrugged, her shoulders lifting in an uncharacteristically bashful manner.
Though, there was no disguising the pride beaming in her cheeks as that smile she’d been suppressing finally broke through.
It radiated from every inch of her, illuminating her more than the burgeoning dawn.
The sight stole the breath from Cedric’s lungs, tugged at him from behind his ribs.
Four fucking hells, she was beautiful.
Voices broke across the training yard, and Cedric’s head whipped toward the source of the sound. Several squires had emerged from the barracks and were making their way over, their arms laden with equipment.
Shit. With Elyria weaving shadowy miracles and providing the ultimate distraction, Cedric had lost track of time.
Worse still, he realized with a panicked pang that the quiet corner of the yard he’d chosen to practice in was, in fact, right next to the small hut that housed the whetstone and armor polishing station.
The sun was rapidly rising, and the area would soon be crawling with squires and attendants and knights coming to maintain their weapons.
And Cedric still had a charred training dummy to dispose of.
Thoughts racing, he ran a hand down his face as he contemplated how he might haul it out of here without drawing attention to himself.
“Mmm, yes, I see your predicament,” drawled an amused, melodic voice.
Cedric twisted his head to find Elyria standing close to his right, surveying the mangled mannequin with interest before lifting her eyes to the approaching squires.
“Mind if I lend a hand?” she asked, not bothering to wait for his response before clenching her fist. The ground rumbled, pebbles rattling across the dirt floor of the training yard, swords and staffs and axes clattering from the weapons rack.
And then the earth split, a small rift opening to swallow the dummy whole.
Shouts of alarm drew Cedric’s gaze back to the squires, scrambling on their hands and knees, their attention blessedly on retrieving the items they’d dropped thanks to the miniature earthquake that just rocked through the yard.
Elyria released her fist, her hand dropping loosely to her side. As quickly as it had ripped open, the ground sealed. And her wild grin and the twinkle in her emerald eyes was the last thing Cedric saw before she strode away.