Chapter 46
Chapter forty-six
Annalise
Islow as I reach the riding grounds.
The fog is thick, but as far as I can see, there are no riders or instructors, just like every other morning when I run out here.
I may not be able to see him, but I feel him.
WHOOSH. WHOOSH. WHOOSH.
Tyr’s wings beat somewhere above the low canopy of clouds, and I hear as they slow.
The fog comes to life, moving around us as Tyr lands in the center of the riding field.
“You’re thinking too loudly again.”
The deep rumble of his voice tickles my mind, sending a wave of shivers rippling through my body.
“Like I’ve been telling you for the last week…I don’t think loudly, you’re just nosy.”
A huff of heat rolls from his nostrils, laughing at me. Something he has done a lot since we bonded.
“Last class you said my magic will start to manifest soon. Do you know what my power will be? What’s going to happen to me?”
“Yes, I know, and you can stop worrying you’ll turn invisible, and no one will be able to find you. Not only is invisibility not an actual magic you could get, but they are also not infinite, so even if you could get that part of me, which again, you can’t, it wouldn’t last forever.”
That’s what he thinks. Maybe he just can’t see or hear the people who have invisibility magic.
“You’re making me second-guess my choice to bond you…” I can feel his amusement pulsing through our bond. “Anyway, you have nothing to worry about. Your power will be—”
“What? You can’t trail off like that and not tell me.”
His tail flicks up, knocking me over and making me giggle.
“Morphing, Little Faren. Your magic is physical morphing.”
“Oh, thank the gods! I was really hoping I wouldn’t have Earth magic. I can only imagine slipping control while I’m running and then freaking out when tree roots start pulling at my legs in the woods.”
He huffs again, and I can’t believe I was ever scared of him as he leans his head on my leg while I sit on a tree stump.
“So, what exactly does morphing mean? And if that’s what I can do, what do you do?” I ask, imagining him transforming into a dog. He could go on runs with me and sleep in my room...
“I would not reduce myself to looking like a dog,” he growls before continuing, “And magic is adapted to the user, so you have the humanized version of my magic. I can camouflage my appearance to my surroundings.” Suddenly, the space beside me appears empty, but I know it’s not.
I can feel the weight of his head where it’s still pressed against me.
“You’re invisible!”
“Not invisible, just blending into my surroundings.”
“Uhm, I’m pretty sure that’s the same thing when I can no longer see you, but you’re sitting right next to me.”
He slowly fades back into his normal coloring, and I wonder if the Cheshire Cat had the same ability.
“Semantics. But as I was saying, we cannot become different beings. We can only change how we look on the outside. You’ll only be able to alter the little things like your hair length or eye color for a while."
He nudges my leg for me to put my hand back on his head.
“You’ll have to be close to me at first, and even then, the changes will exhaust you.”
“A nap sounds great,” I murmur.
“Practice sounds great,” he corrects. “And it’ll only be like this in the beginning. As the bond strengthens, and with practice, your abilities will get stronger. You will be able to control what changes, when, and for how long.”
My pulse kicks up. “That sounds…powerful.”
“You bonded an Alpha, did you think I would give you weak magic?”
“Well, no…but I also didn’t plan to bond an Alpha.”
“But we did…and that’s why it’s important you only tell the people who have to know. That includes not telling your…men.”
This feels like it’s going to be impossible, but I guess I don’t know Aiden’s. And Matt will eventually get an ability he won’t be able to tell me about either.
I hate secrets.
Rather than focusing on that, I ask the next important question, “What about our communication? How long does it take until we can hear each other from further away?”
“Right now, I can only hear you when we’re together or if your emotions spike high when we’re far away from each other.
I’ll feel the sharpest edges of what you feel.
But the more our bond grows, the greater the distance we’ll be able to communicate across.
With time, we’ll be able to hear each other’s thoughts with clarity wherever we are, whenever we allow it.
“And once your power settles, your mind will no longer shout at me,” he adds.
“So…when you hear me, I’m shouting?”
“Constantly.”
I flush just before a gust of warm air hits my face.
“You are anxious, hungry, and pretending you are not afraid of what all of this means.”
My mouth drops open. “I…you know what? Rude.”
“You shouted it, I just listened.”
“Wait, do you always know where I am? Is our bond like a built-in tracker?”
His tail curls, tapping against the trunks of the trees behind us in amusement…Yup, just like a dog.
“I am NOT like a dog, I could eat dogs if I wanted to.”
“Oops!” I try to hold in my laugh as he pushes me with his muzzle.
“To answer your question, no, Faren, I was not gifted with Aura tracking.”
Tyr goes still then, his voice dropping lower. “There is something we need to discuss.” He pauses heavy enough to make my heart stutter. “The day I approached you in the riding grounds…when I intervened…”
I’ve been dying to ask what happened, but I’ve been too scared to upset our fresh bond, so the words have never been able to come out.
“While only aura trackers can track people, all alphas can see auras. When you were on the field that day, your aura looked dark, almost black. So when I saw you engaging with a pup and one of our females…”
My pulse trips painfully. Images of my father. His hands.
“You thought I was evil.”
He bumps into my hand, and for the first time, I feel his emotions come through the bond. Regretful, protective, and is he nervous?
“I thought you meant them harm. And when you came at me the next class, I could see your anger and the defiance written on your face. I planned to end you right then, but then you spoke. You talked of your fear with such honesty, and I found myself needing to hear what you had to say..”
Tyr’s eyes blaze.
“And when your hand touched my muzzle, I felt the truth. The darkness was not yours. It was inflicted on you. And beneath it…”
Was it dark from years of enduring what I had? Or because of what I had tried to do? Could it have lingered from my nightmares the night before? Does it even matter?
His voice softens, making my chest ache.
“Listen to me, Little Faren. Beneath it, you were light. Unbroken. I could feel someone had tried to break you, but you are good.”
I blink hard, fighting the sudden burn in my eyes as his cheek gently grazes mine.
“The moment I understood that, I wanted to kill whoever had hurt you.”
Something inside me cracks, and I can’t hold back the tears.
“I spared you because it was you who was wronged, but I bonded with you because the first emotion you sent me, through all the darkness, was not hate. It was hope.”
My heart clenches painfully.
He pulls back just enough for his molten eyes to meet mine fully. “You are mine to protect now.”
Neither of us says anything else, but we don’t need to. Our bond hums as he lets me lean against him. We sit here in peace until we can hear the sounds of Scion waking up for the day in the distance. And as we go our separate ways, I’m suddenly sad I won’t be able to talk to him in my mind all day.
The mat is slick with sweat as Emily and I block, dodge, and swipe our mercurial blades—currently in sword form—at each other.
When this starts to feel more like a dance than a fight, I throw a kick to Emily’s stomach, but right as my shoe brushes her shirt, she’s lifting it into the air. High. Too high. I fight to free my leg, but I’m thrown off balance and land hard on the mat.
As soon as I hit the ground, she’s on top of me, dagger blade pressed to my throat.
“Good, Emily!
“Annalise,” Korr barks. “Do us all a favor and at least try to stay off your back in this class.”
Fucking asshole.
“Yes, Sir,” I grit out.
“Reset?” Emily asks as she helps me back to my feet.
We get back into fighting position, and with a nod, we start.
I stay low this time, knees bent.
Again, we jab and block, circling each other while we look for openings in the other’s stance.
Korr yells suddenly, “Annalise! Emily! I want a show. Stop dancing like amateurs and fight like your life depends on it.”
Instantly, I have a plan. This isn’t class, this is fighting for my life—and I know how to do that better than most.
Emily lunges, and I grit my teeth as I let her sword blade slice my shoulder.
She’s midway through her follow-through when I step into her and attack from behind. My sword becomes a whip, and I throw it around her throat, catching the end of the whip and pulling it tight.
She tries to get her fingers between the thong of the whip and her throat, but my hands are locked tight on both ends. As I begin to cross the ends over each other, cutting off her air and blood supplies simultaneously, she taps out, and I release immediately.
Looking up to gauge Korr’s reaction, I can’t help the disappointment I feel when I spot him across the arena, not even looking this way.
Emily regains her composure after a few deep breaths, “Impressive! My boyfriend is definitely going to have some questions when I see him later.” She smirks, but the croak in her voice is unmistakable, and I feel a little guilty for the pride her words give me.
“Why are you talking and not fighting recruits?” Captain Korr calls…of course, now he’s paying attention. Like I said…Fucking asshole.
We go round after round, and when Korr blows the whistle to head to the hill, I have various cuts across my uniform and a giant bruise on my throat from Emily throwing my own move back at me.
I honestly don’t know if I’m improving or if I’m so desensitized from the pain that I feel like I’m taking fewer hits than I am.
I was hoping for an easy day in Environmental Tactics—maybe a lecture, or some worksheets, literally anything that doesn’t involve eating deadly mushrooms—but Commander Varin believes in hands-on learning. And today, “hands-on” means poisoning half the class.
The pop quiz is simple on the surface: identify which forest-region mushrooms are edible and which are deadly. The twist? To test your answers, you have to eat the ones you deem safe.
That should’ve been my first clue that the day was about to go to shit.
Damien, a lanky kid from Barracks B, is the first to get it wrong. The moment he swallows, he drops to his knees, convulsing so violently his boots squeak against the floor. Foam bubbles at his lips. Someone screams…maybe Perry, maybe me, who knows.
In a split second, all my studying comes rushing to my mind. I’m calling out for ingredients to counteract this type of toxin. I look around, ready to find something to grind them together before I force them down Damien’s throat.
But it’s just a daydream. I wish I could help him, but that wasn’t real, and I can’t, because what I have actually learned is that there are no natural antidotes we could make to counteract the type of mushroom Damien just ate.
So, we all stand here, watching his body thrash until Commander Varin finally sighs…actually sighs, like we’ve inconvenienced her, and casually strolls over. She pulls a pink vial from her belt, uncorks it with her teeth, and unceremoniously dumps it into Damien’s mouth.
Within seconds, his jerking stops.
She instructs Perry and another guy to carry Damien to the infirmary. “Try not to drop him. He’s mostly conscious.”
Four more kids hit the ground before class ends, each with varying degrees of horror-show reactions—seizures, vomiting, full-body swelling, hallucinations. Ten more of us get milder symptoms. I get some sharp stomach cramps, but luckily, nothing that will follow me to Vanguard.
Apparently, poisoning her students brings out the fun side of Commander Varin, though. By the time the last mushroom is eaten and the only remaining antidote is administered, Commander Varin looks…delighted.
“And now you appreciate the value of arcane medicine,” she chirps, as though she hasn’t just observed kids collapsing on repeat. “At least they won’t have to suffer through track classes this afternoon. I’m practically doing them a favor.”
A few of the recruits shift uncomfortably.
But something must be really wrong with me, because I can’t hold back my laughter.