25
Alarie
Nik showed up on my balcony like he had done every couple of days for the last month or so to pick me up for my lesson. It was the most consistency I’d had since I had shown up at the High Court. His reliability and the repetition of it all was almost comforting now.
He was in training clothes, which meant that he’d only come to the High Court to retrieve me. He was wearing a pair of forest green shorts, which was different for him.
The tattoo on the top of his right thigh peeked out from the bottom of his shorts. It had grown and now spread down, wrapping around the back of his calf. The new addition was a kind of pattern that reminded me of the shadows that often unfurled at the Prince’s feet. Except the tattoo was green and blue, instead of black, which made me think of ocean waves crashing into and splashing up his muscular legs.
I was dressed and ready for training as well. I wore a pair of dark, textured green leggings and a white sports bra with a loose white tank tied in the back. I’d grown fond of the supportive yet comfortable clothes I wore for training and would sometimes wear them even on days when I was not expecting Nik to pop onto my balcony.
“Ready, princess?” he asked, his hand held out for mine.
I didn’t even bristle at his favorite nickname for me anymore. I took his hand and felt his dark shadows enclose around us and pull us into the quiet, dark place between here and there.
And he traveled me right into the middle of a fucking ocean!
Before I could figure out where I was, a wave smacked me in the face. I tasted the salt water in my mouth as I treaded the water, just barely keeping my mouth and nose above the waterline. My clothes were soaked and dragging me down. My tennis shoes felt particularly heavy and unnatural in the water. I took the time to reach down and pull them off, momentarily allowing my head to bob below the water. Without my shoes on, my clothing was still heavy, but I felt like I had more control to keep myself floating. No longer frantic, I treaded water and looked around for Nik.
“What in the actual fuck, Nik? This isn’t funny,” I screamed into the vast ocean surrounding me.
There was no answer.
“Nik! You asshole!” I yelled.
Still no answer.
I was alone. In the middle of the fucking ocean. I spun around in the water, trying to see if I could figure out where I was. I spotted what looked like the faint outline of the M in the distance. So that is where I needed to go. Luckily, I was a strong swimmer, having grown up spending my weekends at the beach, swimming and surfing. But the coastline was farther away than I’d normally swim, and weighed down by my clothing, it was much harder. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my breathing and think. But I kept swimming toward my final destination.
I tried to think rationally. Nik was a bastard, but he did this for a reason. He wanted to test my shielding abilities. I’d seen Luke throw up a shield any number of times. There was the very first time Luke had shielded me. The crude statue of the high fae lord and the lesser fae servant had exploded. Luke had wrapped his arms around me, then he’d cupped my head with his hand, pressing it to his firm chest. And I was protected from the explosion and the ensuing white dust bomb. I felt myself calming as I thought of Luke and his arms around me.
If Luke could shield us from the remnants of the statue, then maybe I could shield myself from the water. But that was absurd. I wasn’t thinking about shielding myself from an afternoon shower. This was an entire ocean. Was it possible? I guess almost anything was possible depending on what powers a fae had.
I let myself get lost in the rhythm of my breast strokes synchronized with the kicks of my feet. And then I tried to recreate the feeling of Luke’s arms around me and the protection I’d felt. Nothing happened. I was still treading water. Damn. Okay.
I tried to think of another time Luke had shielded me. When we were in the ocean together at the Silver Court! Why hadn’t I thought of that first? Luke had shielded us by filtering out some of the sounds that surrounded us, and he had filtered out the impacts of the waves but not the water itself, allowing us to swim, or well, do other stuff, peacefully in the ocean.
I continued with my breast strokes, but this time, I imagined that with each spread of my arms, I was smoothing the waves around me. I kept swimming. Was it in my head or did this part of the water feel smoother? I stopped swimming for a minute and looked around me. Sure enough, the water around me was smoother. In about a six-foot circumference around me, the choppiness of the water had turned smooth as glass. Without a tide or waves pushing and pulling at me, I felt nearly weightless in the water. I breathed out one final sigh of relief, knowing that I could now easily make it to the shore.
Even with the shielding I’d managed to perform, it still took a lot of effort to propel myself to the shore. By the time I reached the shoreline, I was almost crawling. I reached the beach, stumbling, and decided I’d like to sit there for a minute. I landed gracelessly on my ass and sat down with my elbows propped up on my knees. I leaned over and rested my head on my arms, staring down into the sand but not really focusing on anything.
“You look like a mess, princess.” I could hear the amusement in his voice.
I slowly drew my head up and looked at the Prince from underneath my eyebrows.
“You—” I began, but then I noticed that he was soaking wet too.
“You were in there with me the entire time?” I asked in disbelief.
“It was a nice day for a swim, don’t you think? Especially after you got that shield going. Swimming in your wake was a piece of cake,” he said with a feline smile.
I stared daggers at him.
“I called for you,” I whispered.
“And I was right there,” he reassured me.
“I hope you don’t think that this justifies what you did. Just because I managed to put up some kind of shield,” I said.
“And why doesn’t that justify what I did?” he retorted.
“Because…” I said. Planting a hand in the sand, I pushed my exhausted body off the sand. “You can’t just do that to people!”
I was standing in front of him. I could only imagine what I looked like with my wet hair plastered down my back and my makeup smeared. He looked frustratingly handsome, sexy even, with his wet t-shirt plastered to his muscled chest and his dark, wet hair slicked back.
“Princess, you have some kind of block on your powers. They’re there, but you cannot use them unless you are put in, well…” He tilted his head, indicating our current predicament. “Tough situations. If you don’t want to be put in these situations, you know what else has worked before.”
He raised his eyebrow at me, inviting me to take the bait. He meant sex. The only other time my powers showed their stupid face was when I was having sex with someone. Or very angry or frightened. He stuck his arm out to the side, and it disappeared into a shadow of darkness. He pulled his arm back out and threw a towel in my face.
I took a deep breath and took the opportunity to gather myself. I was wringing out the end of my hair with the towel when I finally decided to ask a question that had been on my mind ever since my first training session with the Prince.
“Why is it that your magic was not affected as much as others?” I asked.
Nik finished brushing the back of his head with the towel in his hand. His hair now looked disheveled instead of slicked back, but it still managed to look good somehow.
“I think that when the magic started to fade, some fae started using their magic less or stopped using it altogether, like they thought they could save it up. But I don’t think it works that way. I never stopped using my magic. I use it just the same as I always did. And I’ve been impacted, princess, don’t doubt that. I…” He gritted his teeth in frustration. “You’re right that my powers have not diminished to the extent of many others. But everyone’s magic is different. I can’t claim to know what makes everyone’s magic work. I just know how mine works,” he explained.
His thoughtful and direct answer surprised me.
“And my magic? What are you doing here? With this?” I said, gesturing at our bizarre situation.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, princess,” he replied.
“And why are you the one who is tasked with figuring out what makes my magic tick?” I asked. This was another question that had been on my mind.
He looked at me like he was weighing his options. “Enough questions, princess. We aren’t done with today’s training,” he said. He peeled off his soaked shirt, wrung it out, then laid it across his shoulders and began to trudge up toward the M.