Chapter Fifteen #2
A huge water ball slams into me without warning, knocking me backward into the shallows.
My whole body is submerged for several seconds before I splutter back to the surface.
Utterly drenched and gasping for air, I claw my way to my feet, my fingernails full of sand and pebbles.
I am slicked to the skin, water pouring off me in rivulets.
“Infernal hells! What was that for?”
My shriek draws the attention of the vintners offshore, but I am too angry to care about causing a scene.
I stomp out of the shallows with my glaring eyes fixed on Soren.
He is still standing precisely where he was before, arms crossed over his chest, booted feet planted on the beach, enigmatic smile on his face.
“Instincts.”
I blink. “What do you mean by—”
Another mammoth ball of water clips me in the chest. I tumble backward again, ass over elbows, and hit the water face-first, ending up with a mouthful of briny seaweed.
Choking and spitting like an enraged beast, I burst out of the bay intent on murder.
My clothes are plastered to every curve of my body as I slog back toward the beach.
To my great annoyance, the waves seem to be ferrying me along, kissing at the backs of my knees.
Soren’s doing.
“So help me gods,” I thunder, storming toward him the second my sodden boots hit the rocks. “This is not amusing!”
“I fully agree,” he says solemnly, though his lips are twitching.
“Do you care to explain what that was about?”
“That was you failing to trust your instincts.”
I gape at him, totally confused. “Have you gone insa—”
Another water ball slams into me. This one is smaller. It does not take me down, merely douses me where I stand.
“Stop that!”
He just stares at me, watching the water course down my body. I can feel it dripping off the ends of my hair, pooling in my socks, saturating the leather strappings of my thigh sheath. My anger is matched only by my mystification.
Why is he doing this?
I thought Soren and I were becoming, if not friends, at least…Close acquaintances. Comrades in arms. Allies of a sort, beyond mere teacher and pupil.
With the exception of our maegical lessons, we do not spend an exceeding amount of time together.
He is, after all, rather busy with the business of running a kingdom.
But on the occasions he is not meeting with Arwen or consulting his advisers or mingling with his people, he is at the villa.
He does not go out of his way to avoid my presence.
Often, he actually seeks me out—joining me on the terrace for a glass of wine at sunset, or in the library where I am reading by candlelight, or in the kitchen where I am fixing myself a meal.
Sometimes he cooks. Sometimes I do. He is undeniably a dab hand with a whisk or a spatula, but I am not completely incapable of pulling together a passable dinner.
As we eat, he tells me stories about the happenings down in the city—Arwen’s warpath regarding the rapidly approaching wedding, the grueling process he’s been overseeing to remove the burned-out wreckage of the Selkie from the harbor floor, the mediation of several trade disputes between rival merchant companies.
In turn, I tell him about my progress with my powers, brimming with excitement over my increasing control.
He never pushes me to reveal anything beyond what I offer willingly, nor does he share much of anything personal. I think we both feel safer that way. Keeping conversations light, never straying into deep waters. Superficial though it is, I cannot deny it feels…
Restorative.
There is a part of me that craves normalcy. Lightness of being. Levity. Before I arrived in Hylios, I could not recall the last time I had a conversation with anyone that did not reference war or wounds, devastation or death. To have someone to simply chat with about nothing of any real importance…
It is like a gift.
One Soren has given to me, one for which he does not expect anything in return. And that, in itself, is another kind of gift. For it is perilously rare to receive something without any expectation of reciprocity.
But now, as I stand here on the beach, sopping wet and mad as a hornet, I cannot help but question our burgeoning camaraderie. Perhaps I have been mistaken. Perhaps we are not as close as I’ve presumed. If he thinks torturing me for sport is an amusing diversion…
“Look,” I grit out, still seeing red, “I don’t know what you think this is accomplishing, but…”
My words falter into silence. Because, suddenly, I do.
I feel the faint surge of maegic stain the air between us the instant before he summons another water ball, before his fingers so much as twitch to send it flying.
One split second of awareness. Hardly enough to process what is about to happen, let alone dodge out of the way… but long enough to counterstrike.
My anger thrums close to the surface. I do not tamp it down.
I use it like fuel. The very moment he blasts me with another globe, I fling out my hand and send it barreling straight back at him.
He grins as it misses him by a large margin, already summoning another from the shallows.
It hurls at me quicker than should be possible, but I’m prepared.
I call a current of wind and catch it, an invisible hand closing around the ball.
Then, with all my might, I lob it at Soren’s head.
He deflects it easily, sending it splashing onto the rocks.
“Good.” His eyes are glittering. “Now you’re getting it.”
I’m panting too hard to respond.
“You have sharper senses than most, but they’re only good to you if you use them,” he says, not at all winded. “Once you can recognize the telltale signature of impending maegic, you can stop it before it is used against you.”
I raise my brows. “Are you planning to use it against me?”
“I am not the only one with maegic in this kingdom. Ll?rian bloodlines are strong despite the blight. Arwen herself has minor water powers. Nothing like mine”—his words gain a wry edge—“but enough to do some damage.”
I have no difficulty envisioning an attack from Arwen. The ice between us has not thawed since my first day here. If anything, it is thicker than ever.
“With focus, you will be able to sense far more than just maegical threats. As a wind weaver, you more than any of the Remnants are innately attuned to body and breath. You can sense the smallest hitch in a throat, the quickest intake into lungs. These are telltale cues from your enemy.” He takes a deep breath that broadens his whole frame, as if to underscore his point.
“You can feel an arrow as it flies at you through a sightless sky, can perceive the swing of a soundless blade as it arcs toward your neck. Think of it as an internal alert system. One that will protect you from harm, if you put it to use.”
Soren calls another globe of water from the shallows. Shafts of afternoon sun pierce through it, refracting in all directions like a diamond in the light, as he sends it hurtling toward me without warning.
But then, I do not need warning. Not this time. In addition to the brief swell of maegic in the air, when I hone my attention I can indeed sense the slightest change in his breathing—the infinitesimal huff that escapes his throat as he heaves the heavy water my way.
I cast out my arm and watch the ball careen off course under a wind current, splashing harmlessly into the shallows.
“Well done.” Soren’s smile is anticipatory. “But can you do it at double speed? Or how about two at once?”
His next few attacks come at me twice as fast and twice in number.
I dodge a strike coming at my face only to be struck from behind; duck an inbound volley only to be clipped in the shins.
Predicting his moves takes every ounce of my focus.
Despite my best efforts, he manages to douse me multiple times.
“I suppose there was no other way for you to teach me this lesson?” I grunt as I stop an incoming globe, holding it still between us. “One that did not involve me ending up soaking wet?”
From my peripheral, I see a secondary ball sailing straight for my head. I manage to stop it at the last second, throwing up a wall to shield my right flank.
Soren grins as he neatly sidesteps my retaliatory shot, his boots kicking up a shower of sand. “None that would be half so effective at drilling it into your head. Or half so amusing to witness.”
I respond by way of an eviscerating glower.
Unbothered, he sends a pulse of pure maegic my way. I am instantly dry, every particle of water leached from my skin and clothing in the time between two blinks. The sudden change is disorienting.
“Uh…thanks.” I run my hands through the wild tangles of my hair. It, too, is bone-dry, but still holds traces of salt, sand, and seaweed. “I don’t suppose you have a comb handy…”
He does not chuckle at my low request. He does not hear it at all.
His eyes are fixed over my shoulder, far out to sea.
I turn to follow his gaze. At first, I see nothing.
Nothing but a haze along the distant horizon, emerging from the mist that shrouds Prydain Isle in the north.
After another moment of squinting, I am able to pick out the familiar shape of matchsticks moving toward us.
Ship masts.
Many of them.
I look at Soren. “More wedding gifts for the blushing bride?”
He shakes his head slowly, eyes still riveted.
The look on his face is making me nervous. My heartbeat picks up speed. “The fleet from Daggerpoint, then?”
“No. Alaric’s ships are larger.” His voice is tight. His eyes finally cut to mine and, when they do, they are rife with fervor, all traces of humor stripped away. “Those are Frostlander longships.”