Chapter Twenty-One #2
“Well,” he starts. Wyll rubs the back of his neck while we walk through the estate. “His wounds are healing rather quickly. Quicker than they should.”
“I, I” I trip over my words. Alarm bells ring in my head and my palms start to sweat. How could that have happened? Everything I’ve ever done for papa did nothing for him. What’s changed?
“Isla,” Wyll stops in his tracks. Worry fills his face as he examines mine. He holds his hands up in surrender. “It’s fine, lovey. You can keep your secrets. We all have them.”
Words are stuck in my head, so I give him a tight smile. The thing was, I didn’t understand what he meant. Sure, the trees whisper to me. They guide me through the plants, but that’s as far as it goes.
We walk through several sets of doors before we finally arrive outside. Wyll leads Raia and I to the sparring field. There are several pairs of guards training with swords, longbows, and hand to hand combat. I look around the field until my eyes find his.
He’s shirtless, sparring with Ewan in the middle of the field.
Irric and Maisie stand off to the side, watching both men grapple.
Raia raises an eyebrow and cuts her eyes at me.
They’re filled with mischief. Rhylen hooks a leg under Ewan, effectively knocking him off his feet.
Ewan lands with a loud grunt on the ground and chooses to just lay there.
“Spare me, spare me,” he pleads, gasping for breath. “I give up.”
Rhylen snorts. “You’re pathetic.”
“Be merciful, oh terrifying Hood. I beg you,” Wyll teases as he walks towards his friends.
Rhylen looks up at us walking across the field. “About time you showed up.”
Wyll rolls his eyes at his friend and looks at me. “Some of us wanted to sleep the day away.”
My jaw drops. “It’s not like we haven’t had anything going on lately,” I argue. They both simply shake their heads.
Rhylen grabs my arm, pulling me towards the edge of the field. There’s a variety of targets, training swords, and a small array of bows. He motions to everything before us. “I figured you would like to start somewhere.”
My eyes gravitate towards the bow. Rhylen follows my gaze. “Ahh,” he utters.
He moves towards the small bow hanging on the wall. Guiding me towards a shooting lane, Rhylen turns me towards the target. He briefly goes over the simple mechanics of the longbow.
Rhylen stands behind me, pulling my hips against his. My breath catches and I can’t focus on anything but the feel of his hands on me. His lips against my ear. “Feet apart, just the width of your shoulders. Not too far now.
I move my feet apart, prepping to pull the bow back. Placing my index finger above the arrow, my middle finger and ring finger below it, I put the string back towards my face.
“Breathe, Isla,” Rhylen barely whispers. “Draw the string back to the corner of your mouth.”
He gently touches my face, to the stopping point. His other hand burns in place on my hips. My breath catches at every barely-there touch, every whisper, every glide of his nose along my neck.
“Fire.”
I loose the arrow, watching it sail towards the target. It hits slightly left of center. Excitement shoots up my spine. I turn towards him, “I did it.”
“Again.”
We fire four more times, until my muscles are screaming. “That’s enough for today,” Rhylen remarks, erasing the tension that was building around us. “We need to talk.”
Rhylen tugs a shirt over his head. He grabs my elbow, leading me away from our friends, and lowers his voice. “Your affinity. What is the extent that you can do?”
Affinity? My pulse quickens. I swear he can hear the fast tempo as he waits for me to answer. “I, I” I stutter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Rhylen sighs. “Your magic. You speak to the trees, to the plants around you, but to what extent? Clearly, you’re adept at potions and healing solutions. Where does it end? What happened in the Grove?”
Healer Sibley flashes in my mind, the dark figure behind him. I take a step away from Rhylen, creating more space in between us. My chest tightens as my heart races, making the world spin faster. “I won’t let you use me,” I tell him.
“Use you?” Rhylen matches the step I’ve taken, closing the space again. “I don’t want to use you, love. I want to protect you. Your affinity puts you in danger. If the prince knew—”
“If the prince knew, I’d be dead.” I state. My face is blank. Numbness sweeps over my body. Rhylen cups my face, making me look at him.
“I just want to protect you. I can’t do that if I don’t know everything.”
I want to pull away from him. His closeness is suffocating. It’s overwhelming. He doesn’t understand. I don’t know anything about my affinity, about my ability to speak to plants, and create medicines from their encouragement. It never made sense.
Papa always spoke like it was normal. The trees and their tales.
Healer Sibley talked like it was dangerous.
It’s a conundrum. The longer I spend away from my village, and in the Grove, the more things don’t add up.
But it has always been something I knew I’d never be able to talk to Oliver about. But Rhylen?