CHAPTER 18
“You’re late,” Kilian said as I crossed the courtyard.
I bid farewell to Lana and the others before striding toward him. “I’ve been busy.”
He wasn’t dressed in the battle armor he had donned this morning, opting instead for sparring leathers and a dark shirt that hugged the dips and contours of his muscled frame. “Harassing Augustine? I’m well aware. Calendula told me.”
“I figured she might. Anyway, it’s not a secret. Echon let slip that the third challenge is taking place on Cosanus. I saw the opportunity to find information and took it.”
Irritation flashed through Kilian’s eyes. “I wasn’t aware Echon had spoken with you. What did Augustine say?”
I shrugged. “Just a bunch of crackpot scholar theories.”
His eyes narrowed.
“If you’ve got any information pertaining to the third Trial that you’d like to share, now would be the time.” I knew it was futile, but it was worth a shot.
He sighed. “I’m trying to help you prepare for it. Which brings us to today’s session. I thought we’d do things a bit differently. Away from the house for a change, so we can train and talk.”
I scrunched my nose. “Talk? About what?”
“Us.”
I let out a harsh laugh. “There is no us. There’s you. And then there’s me. And I’ve got a Trial to prepare for. One my fragile mortal life depends on. I don’t have the capacity nor the inclination to talk about us.”
“Well, lucky for you, you won’t have to do much talking. You can run laps and train. All whilst listening.”
“We’re not sparring?”
He shook his head. “There’s a park nearby. We’ll train there.” He started toward the archway, angling his head to look at me. “Are you coming?”
I hesitated. After what had happened between us last night, and what seemed to always happen when I was near him, I didn’t trust my body to not do something reckless that my heart would later suffer the consequences of. It was much easier to shut him out. To remain cruel and callous and unfeeling.
“Lirah,” Kilian said, the softness back in his voice. “Please come.”
I don’t know if it was the gentle, almost reverent way in which he said my name or the fact that he said please, but I forced my legs forward, falling into step beside him. Kilian did not strike me as someone who ever asked so nicely.
He led me out the archway and along the cobblestoned path.
We passed a signboard, written in the elven alphabet I now knew was called Rrasur, turning left.
Up ahead, I could see the beginning of what looked like a park.
Wide, open land stretched for miles, the grass green and neatly trimmed.
A sprinkling of snow had melted, leaving drops of dew glistening on the blades.
Tall trees and shrubs were scattered sparsely across the ground, lending shade against the warm midday sun.
A running trail curled through the field, sloping toward a small, secluded lake where ducks idly floated.
As we approached, I saw tiny goldfish flitting beneath the glossy surface, their scales sparkling in the catch of light.
Kilian took a seat on a bench before the lake, scanning the ducks swimming by.
He looked so completely out of place there in full sparring leathers, the sunlight glinting off his hair turning it blue black.
“Do you… come out here often?” I asked.
Kilian shook his head. “I rarely have the time.”
He looked more at peace than I had ever seen. His posture was relaxed, arm slung across the back of the bench, legs crossed at the ankles. For once, his muscles did not radiate tension, his eyes devoid of their usual wrath. And when I brushed tentatively against the link, I found a quiet calm.
His gaze slid to me, standing at the edge of the lake. “Take a lap around the park to warm up. When you get back, I’ll run through a few core strengthening and endurance exercises with you.”
“Okay.”
I did a quick stretch, pulling at my quads and hamstrings, and then my calf muscles. I tied my hair in a high ponytail and rolled the sleeves of my tunic up before setting off in a light jog.
The trail was surprisingly quiet, and I didn’t see another elven along the path.
It led me on a winding run through the park, past pine trees from which blue robins darted to and fro, carrying twigs and other bits in their beaks.
When I returned to the lake, I saw Kilian had not moved an inch.
He looked up at me as I slowed to a stop.
I swiped at the light sheen of sweat on my forehead and tried to stabilize my breathing.
“Ten minutes,” Kilian remarked. “You need to work on cutting that down.”
“I didn’t know I was being timed. You said it was a warmup exercise.”
“And I’m sure that the next time you’re being hunted down by a creature who wants to kill you, it will understand that you haven’t warmed up yet.”
I rolled my eyes. “What’s the next exercise?”
“Core strengthening. I assume you’ve done a plank before?”
I hadn’t, but I knew what it was. “Obviously.”
I settled on a grassy spot a few feet away from the lake and positioned myself on my forearms and the balls of my feet. It was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be. “How long do I have to stay like this?”
“Hmm, let’s say, the length of time it took for you to warm up.” There was amusement in his voice. “And you’re doing it wrong. Your back needs to be lower. Lower.”
Kilian groaned in frustration, and I could see his boots striding toward me.
He dropped one knee to the ground beside my head, his hands tracing the curve of my lower back, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the feel of his hands on my body.
He pushed gently, leveling me until I was perfectly parallel with the ground.
That’s when I realized that planks were the most torturous exercise on the planet.
“Keep your core tight,” Kilian’s voice was a whisper at my ear, and I trembled.
I blew a steady breath from my lips, holding the position for as long as I could. But with each passing second, my muscles vibrated harder, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I flopped onto my back, my chest heaving as I stared up at the cloudless sky.
Kilian sat on the ground beside me, shaking his head. “One minute. That’s pathetic, Lirah.”
“Fuck off.”
He chuckled. The sound was rich and dark, and I angled my head to look at him.
The meeting with Augustine still weighed heavily on me. One run and a plank was not enough to shake off the feeling of hopelessness left from that conversation.
“We thought… We thought Augustine might be able to help us prepare for the Rite. But he basically told us we were going to die. I’ve known about the Trials nearly my entire life and how supremely unlikely it is for anyone to survive, but…
I don’t know.” I blew out a breath. I didn’t even know why I was telling him all this when he didn’t care.
“I guess I was just hopeful. Not even just for me. I want to survive, but I want Lana and Moric, the other candidates, to live as well.”
“Augustine didn’t tell you anything about the Rite?”
“He said there were methods to equip our bodies. He didn’t bother explaining, basically said we won’t master them in our remaining time here. Quite honestly, I’m wondering at the point of competing in the third Trial if I’m just going to die during the Rite.” It was morbid and depressing, but true.
“Augustine is right,” Kilian said. “There are things you can do to prepare for the Rite, to increase your odds of survival, but even then, it’s not guaranteed. And it takes a lot of practice.”
I raised up on my elbows to look at him better. “How do you do it?”
“The current that passes through you during the Rite can be managed if you have an adequate outlet for the excess. It’ll be a different method for everyone, depending on the power they’ve been gifted, but in theory, if you have a good grasp on the magic drawn from the link, you can use it to expel the surplus current.
You’d have to let some of the current through in order to effect the change from mortal to elven, but the rest would need to be expelled before it kills you. That’s the general principle.”
“If it’s a current…” I thought out loud. “Will it affect me? I’ve wielded your lightning before and it hasn’t majorly harmed me.”
“The current during the Rite is vastly different to mine, and a far higher voltage than anything you’ve managed. It will be too damaging for your body, unless you’re able to expel some of it.”
“Why isn’t this more widely known?” I asked. “If there’s something we can do to prepare for the Rite, we should have been told from the start.”
“You weren’t told because it’s not a guaranteed way to pass the Rite.
The type of skill required to discharge the extra current takes more practice than you or anyone else will have time for.
We try to train you in both magic and combat.
It’s never enough,” Kilian said. “You think we haven’t tried training mortals on how to expel the surplus current?
For the first few decades, all we did was train them.
And you know what happened? Everyone still died.
We don’t tell you because hope is dangerous, Lirah.
When you hope, the disappointment is even more heartbreaking. ”
“But there’s a chance, right?” I pressed. “Minute, but still possible. Right?”
“Yes,” he murmured. “There’s a chance. I want to train you. I insist on it. But you need to understand that there’s an even higher chance that the preparation still won’t be enough.”
“I understand that.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Show me what to do.”
He took my hand. Warmth radiated from the point of contact and my stomach somersaulted like I was in free fall.
“Septimus taught you how to clear your mind?” he asked.
“Yeah. I was able to summon a ball of darkness for a few moments.”
His eyes snapped to me. “Darkness?”
“Yes. Why? What’s wrong with that?”
He shook his head, but he looked unsettled. “Nothing. It’s just… an unusual manifestation of my power.”
“Why are you surprised? You told me to use it in the cave during the first Trial.”
“No. I didn’t.”