Chapter Thirteen My Star #3
It was the wrong thing to say, judging by the way his eyes glittered in warning.
“This isn’t going to be easy, thief. We have to accomplish something that takes Sages decades of study and practice, in my case usually with a whole faculty of fighters, and we have a matter of days.
I’m going to train you as I would any other soldier under my command.
I need you to understand that I’m going to take you to the edge, but I will never break you. ”
Reya didn’t shift her gaze from his stare as she weighed the truth of every word, felt it settle into her skin.
The explicit language, she knew, was intentional, an offer of trust to someone like her who communicated by what she could feel.
And he wanted her to feel safe. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, fire fingers. ”
His eyes gleamed with something like pride as he continued.
“Try thinking of it like armor. It’s not uncommon for Sages to discover their magic for the first time under fire.
If that’s what helps you tap into this part of yourself, then so be it.
I’d rather start by letting you use a memory to find the trigger.
Then don your Ire like you would your sword. ”
Reya let her mind roam. When minutes passed with no progress, she blew out a breath, closing her eyes. “What if I just start practicing?”
She cracked one eye to find Caelan shaking his head. “If you cannot control your body, you will never be able to control the magic. Besides, learning to use your magic in your human skin may prove invaluable.”
She’d never even considered the possibility. Never wanted to. She tried again.
And again.
Again.
Again.
Together, they watched twilight come and go.
Caelan’s eyes lifted to the rapidly darkening sky. “We’ll revisit this when we break next. There’s a Sage in you somewhere, thief. So help me, I am going to find it.”
No matter what she thought of or did, she couldn’t summon her Ire. All Caelan had shown her in the two days since they’d started training—if they could even call it that—was how little she understood about herself and where she’d come from.
“You know,” Caelan said from where he leaned against a moss-covered tree, watching her in the pre-dawn light.
He never spoke during their sessions except to chastise her.
He just stood there in silent vigil, waiting for her to figure it out.
If he was making conversation now, he must have been bored.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about a few of your scars. ”
Reya’s eyes practically glowed with irritation.
She hadn’t expected this to be easy. But she had expected to have some sort of…
natural inclination. She’d been raised by two humans, and for all that they loved her, they knew nothing of magic or her Sage heritage.
There had been no one to show her how to do any of this.
Her Ire she’d hoped would be intuitive at least.
“Careful, fire fingers. It’s just you and me out here. No one would ever find the body.”
She went back to imagining using Caelan’s face for target practice to try and draw out her Ire when he spoke again. “There’s a crescent-shaped one on your left thigh. What kind of weapon makes a wound like that?”
With deadly calm, she asked, “Would you like to find out?”
His smirk was lethal. Reya needed to stop threatening him because she was pretty sure he liked it.
“You thought you could put on a display like that and I wouldn’t ask questions?
” Her hands fisted as he moved to circle her.
The action was unhurried, like he had a thousand years to stand there and wait while she failed at this.
“Or we could talk about the one on your right rib cage. I didn’t get a good look at that one. Perhaps you could show me again.”
“You’ll have to imagine it in your dreams.”
“Is that what you dream about?” he asked, his circles growing smaller. “Showing me your scars?”
Her cheeks were as red as her hair. What was she now, some simpering courtier? She did not flutter for men or males. When they weren’t sliding to their knees for her, she was making them bleed. “I’m about to show you something.”
He was so close now she felt the words rumbling in his chest. “If you were dreaming about that, you wouldn’t wake up screaming—at least, not the way you do.”
Bastard. As if she wasn’t humiliated enough that he’d had to restrain her when she’d woken screaming and crying in battle with an undead army that wasn’t there. She remembered how he’d cradled her face and hated him for using the moment of weakness against her.
Caelan halted behind her. “It would be my name on your lips,” he said, breath hot in her ear as his teeth dragged along her lobe. “While I work between your thighs.”
Reya’s back bowed—and he hummed.