by Ella M. Lee
Hush... he whispered to me. Stop thinking.
I froze and tried again to clear my mind. This time it worked. I uncoiled myself against him, pulling myself closer, molding to him. Nicolas was so familiar to me now. I knew every inch of his body, his scent, the movement of his muscles, the fabrics of his expensive clothes.
He held me, his arms like bands of iron across my shoulders and stomach, my back pressed into his chest. I turned my head and pressed my lips against his neck. His breathing hitched.
“I love you,” I murmured.
“And I love you,” he replied. His tone was warm and pleased.
We stayed like that for a while, not speaking, not moving. I reminded myself over and over again that Nicolas loved me, replayed his words and touches in my head. I had no idea what his mind was on, I just hoped it was something equally good.
Eventually, he shifted. “I should go.”
He tipped my chin up with his palm and kissed me. My heart pounded in my ears as I pressed my lips into his, wanting him more than anything in the world. He returned the intensity, and I fell for him a hundred times over again, each time harder than the last. I felt his lips twitch into a smile against mine.
When we finally broke apart, his eyes were unfocused in pleasure. I pressed my nose against his, our lips only a millimeter apart.
“I’m yours,” I whispered.
“Remember that always,” he said, his hot breath on my cheek.
“Do you really have to go?”
“I do. I have a meeting with Sylvio in a few minutes. He’s just back from viewing the property Dan is most excited about in Osaka. I think this may be our finalist for the location.”
“Oh, wow.”
I had completely forgotten about the pictures Daniel had recently shown me: a pretty little stretch of farmland abutting some small mountains just south of Osaka city. It had a dilapidated-but-authentic temple on the property, as well as a huge building that served as the monks’ dormitory and additional outbuildings.
In the excitement of Daniel’s promotion, I had pushed aside my concern for our new home after Shatterfall.
“Will you come back here after?” I asked.
He sighed. “Your apartment is too hot. I can hardly stand it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sorry we don’t all have sanctums keeping us warm. Maybe you should sleep there tonight.”
He smiled. “My sanctum would be an unpleasant place to sleep. It isn’t as warm as you think.”
“Oh, really?” I asked, interested.
He cupped my chin in his hands, and suddenly I wasn’t in my apartment.
I gasped.
I was standing on a windswept arctic tundra, smooth ground covered in swirling snow stretched out as far as the eye could see, dimly set against the long shadows of eternal twilight. In the distance, there were towering glacial cliffs. Everything was white on white on white, utterly desolate. I felt the cold of it in my bones, could taste the scentless barrenness of it, could feel the icy wind ruffle my hair.
Nicolas was with me, his body still pressed against me.
This is all mine, he whispered in my mind.
After another few moments, we were home in Hong Kong. The feeling of his sanctum around me lingered, deeply still and imposing. It had felt huge and ancient, even compared to Daniel’s rather competent work.
My eyes were wide. “Christ, that’s what your soul looks like?”
He laughed. “My sanctum isn’t my soul, it’s merely the core of my magic. There are reasons why I’m so strong. One of them has to do with how my sanctum is designed, how stripped down and minimal it is. It both creates and echoes the structure of my mind and my power.”
“This explains so much about you,” I teased, touching his nose. “Thank you for revealing that. I’m sure it wasn’t easy. I know it makes you feel vulnerable.”
He didn’t respond, but his expression was still warm. This was his way of extending trust, and I wanted to be worthy of that.
He pushed me off of him lightly, and I let him stand.
“Can I wait for you in your apartment?” I asked.
He smiled mischievously. “I’ll tell you what. You can wait for me in my apartment if you can break the shield and get inside.”
“What? That’s not fair! You’re a commander.”
“Ah, but you have an advantage,” he said. “A commander’s sanctum tells you a lot about them, and now you’ve visited mine.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Fine.”
“And tomorrow,” he said, turning toward the door, “we will work on your shield. Ryan has taught you well, but I shattered it too easily today. It’s time for a master class on magical defense.”
I had never been taught by Nicolas, not in any meaningful way, nothing more than a passing piece of advice or a light correction. He didn’t teach anyone anymore, now that Dan no longer needed his lessons. I was simultaneously excited by the idea and horrified at the prospect.
“I have to meet Daniel tomorrow…” I said weakly.
Nicolas was at the door. He looked back, his hand on the handle. “Oh, no. Daniel had far too much of your attention today. Tomorrow, you’re mine again.”
Chapter 17
I put on slippers and a sweatshirt and walked the hundred feet to Nicolas’s door. As promised, it was shielded. I examined it, touching it with both my hands and my magic. It was a standard shield, nothing fancy, no tricks or traps.
In theory, I knew how to shatter a shield. I had even done it once by mistake, during a lesson with Ryan. He had been fairly stunned.
I studied Nicolas’s shield as it reacted to my touch. I understood now why it felt so cold, why it had the color of blue ice, why it had leagues of reflection and depth within it. It was a direct mirror of his icy sanctum.
And it was strong as hell.
A bullet train’s force of magic would be stopped by this shield. It seemed like a dozen non-commanders couldn’t break it, yet I was supposed to, and Nicolas believed the key was in knowing his sanctum.
I thought back to that moment with Ryan and walked myself through the exercise. The part that had worked was transmutation. I had transmuted my magic into fire, surprising him, making him vulnerable.
Nicolas’s sanctum, his magic, was ice, and what did ice hate?
Fire.
I was great at transmutation now. I could do it with finesse. I sent a glimmer of transmuted fire magic over his shield. It fought, defending itself, recoiling. It didn’t seem to know what to do with Water and Flame combined.
Perfect.
In a combat situation, I wouldn’t have all this time to think. If I made a move like this against Nicolas, he would notice it and adjust, as a sentient magician. It wasn’t as though he was vulnerable to all forms of fire. But a shield was a static object. It was meant to be hard and protective, but it wasn’t unbreakable.
What I needed was a crack, a tiny place to let the fire in, where it could be allowed to grow and bloom, but Nicolas wasn’t an amateur. His shields were second nature to him, completely flawless.
I would have to create a crack myself. I had to buckle the ice, and there was really only one way to do that.
Pure force.
Almost all magic can be defeated over time. That was a basic tenet across all clans. Magic was a thing that required energy input. If you wanted to attack, you needed to put energy into that. If you wanted to defend with a shield, you needed to put energy into that. Defeating someone in a magical battle was almost always a matter of overpowering their amount of energy with your amount of energy. Some outlying tricks and subtleties aside, whoever could pour in more energy would usually win.
This shield was a static barrier. It had a fixed amount of power. I just needed to use more energy against it to create a crack. But destroying the whole thing that way—with pure force—would take me hours. It was static, sure, but it had still been constructed by a commander with incredibly more power than me. So all I needed was the t
iniest opening, a hairline fracture, a tiny crack for my fire.
I sat cross-legged in front of the door. With a few deep breaths, I found my center, the core of myself and my magic. With each exhalation, my focus deepened.
I formed as much elemental Water magic as I could together—Teng had taught me this technique—and funneled it down to a point. I pressed my hand to the shield, ignoring its stinging, and shoved.
Like an ice pick, it dug into the shield. The shield held. I shoved again, and again, and again. Sweat formed on my temples with the effort of controlling my magic in the face of Nicolas’s work.
On the eighth shove, it happened. A tiny crack appeared.
Yes. Good.
I shifted the Water magic into fire and sent it into the crack. With effort, I pushed it, spreading it out along the shield, inside of it, through it, around it. I sent more magic in and watched as the shield struggled.
I smiled. I was going to win this.
I was breathing hard now. I didn’t actually use my magic a lot, and this was taxing. I should get quicker and better. Most of Nicolas and Daniel’s other group members could best me with barely a thought. They had decades of experience and muscle memory to draw upon.
I had let myself relax these past couple of months, focusing on research, but I was the lieutenant of one of the most powerful Water commanders now. I needed to be better.
There.
I felt it. The shield was weak now, barely holding. I flared my magic out, expanding it quickly.
Nicolas’s shield disintegrated, blown apart into tiny shards.
Yes!
I jumped up, stunned. I had done it. In any real situation, I would have been dead long before now, but this still felt like a small victory.
Gently, I touched Nicolas’s wards with my magic. Why, hello, I whispered to them. They knew me very well. I wasn’t even sure they alerted him to my presence anymore, but I always greeted them kindly regardless.
I stepped through the door into his freezing apartment. I laughed, shaking my head. My boyfriend, whose apartment was as cold as the frozen tundra of his heart.
I didn’t know when he would be back. Probably soon. Sylvio wasn’t a man of many words, and he hated wasting time. I didn’t imagine their meeting would take long. I hugged myself, looking around this place that was my second home.
The centerpiece of the space, in my opinion, was the grand piano in the corner. I had never touched it myself, but Nicolas had played in my presence a handful of times, and I had enjoyed watching his expressive performances.
Hesitantly, I went and removed the piano cover, folding it carefully and putting it aside. It was a Steinway grand piano, black and imposing. I left the lid closed, but I walked around the piano to lift the fallboard. I ran my hand over the smooth keys, not pressing them, imagining Nicolas’s fingers on them.
I was so lost in thought, staring at the keys, that I jumped when the door clicked open behind me. I spun to find Nicolas watching me curiously.
“Do you play the piano?” he asked, removing his jacket and draping it over the back of the nearest chair.
“Oh, no, not at all,” I said. I smiled. “I like it when you play.”
He seated himself on the bench next to me, idly caressing the keys with his fingertips, trying out several chords.
“What would you like to hear tonight?”
I was nervous. My mind blanked on every composer I had ever enjoyed in my life. “Rachmaninoff?” I said, grasping the first name I came upon. Had he even written solo piano pieces, or just concertos? I couldn’t remember.
Nicolas looked at me like I had gone a little insane, but he centered himself on the bench and said, “I don’t know much Rachmaninoff, but…”
His hands poised, he slowly slid into the somber and tolling bell-like opening of the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto no. 2, one of his most famous pieces. This was obviously a solo piano arrangement; Nicolas’s hands touched on some of the parts the orchestra would normally support in addition to the piano’s own part.
Watching him was incredible. There was no ice in him now. He was warm and expressive, flowing nimbly into the rather impressive first theme of the movement. I moved further along the bench so as not to crowd his elbows.
After a minute or two, the theme shifted a little, and Nicolas hit a sour note. He went on, but his melody quickly fell apart. He smiled.
“I think I’d need the sheet music for the rest of this one, sorry,” he said, amused.
I shook my head. “You play beautifully. How come I don’t hear it more often?”
“It’s hard for me to play sometimes, with all the distractions,” he said, tapping a finger to his temple. “It’s the same reason I don’t read. I only do those things when I’m alone and relaxed, or when I want to push myself fully into a state of focus.”
He turned his head to look at me. His eyes were topaz tonight, a lovely and rich brown-gold, less hooded than usual in his enthusiasm for the music. He was handsome beyond words. Brilliant. Generous. Inventive. Forgiving. I did not deserve him in the slightest.
“You’re very clever, you know,” he said, and I knew he was saying the words to distract me from my panicked thoughts. “I was barely gone twenty minutes, and you disintegrated my shield. Good job.”
“Hardly,” I said. “It still took me fifteen minutes, a whole lot of effort, and your hints about your sanctum. Fifteen minutes is about fourteen minutes and fifty-nine and a half seconds too long if I’m facing a commander in a fight, and I probably won’t know their greatest weaknesses if they’re my enemy.”
Nicolas touched my hand for a moment. “It was your first try. You’ll get better. There are multiple ways to break a commander’s shield, and I’ll teach you all of them.”
“You don’t need to waste your time on that…” I said, embarrassed to need his help. “I can keep studying with Ryan and Daniel.”
“If you haven’t noticed, Daniel doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing right now,” Nicolas said dryly. “No. It’s about time you moved up a level. Ryan, Teng, and Daniel have laid an excellent base. Time for the advanced class, magic lessons from me. If Daniel has a problem with that, I’d be happy to remind him of his place—however necessary.”
“Please don’t,” I groaned, grimacing.
“You act as though Dan and I don’t understand each other very well, like we can’t work through a disagreement or an issue,” Nicolas said. “We have them more frequently than you think.”
“He’s still a kid. A gentle kid. I worry about him. I worry when you make him do insane things like try completely new magic with no preparation.”
Nicolas looked at me. “The Daniel you know is very strong, nothing like when I found him five years ago. How do you think he got this way? I put a lot of effort into turning him into who he is today. He required specific handling, and yes, some of it was rough and trying.”
“Would you have treated me that way?”
“No, but you’re different. I met you at double the age Daniel was when I bought him. You were an adult with a stable upbringing and prior experience with magic and clans. I treated you exactly how I felt would best work for you. You needed logic, convincing reasoning, and for me to present you with a compelling option for your future. Dan was a very broken kid, with a very warped sense of how the world should treat people. When I got my hands on him, he was starved, abused, depressed, and grieving. He didn’t give a damn about anything, not even himself. He had a shell so thick around him that a lightning strike wouldn’t have cracked it. Two weeks passed before he even spoke a single word to me.”
Nicolas frowned. “He needed a firm parental figure. I didn’t want to act like a parent to him—I’m not the parenting type—but it helped establish his respect for me. I had to be strong and competent enough for him to want to fall in line, and I had to carefully encourage his independence.”
I recalled what Daniel had confided early on in our friendship. His b
rother had told him, “If someone beats you, join them.” That’s what he had wanted out of Nicolas. Someone to look up to, someone to join.
“Our relationship evolved a lot after I clanned him to Water,” Nicolas said. “It evolved even more a few months later, when I made him my lieutenant. We have a balance between us that took a while to find, but don’t you think I’ve done a good job?”
I smiled. Nicolas had done a good job with Daniel; he didn’t need my confirmation.
“How did you turn him into what he is today, then? It sounds like he wasn’t much of anything five years ago,” I said.
Nicolas touched my cheek, and suddenly there was an image in my mind. Fifteen-year-old Daniel, he said in my head.
I flinched, taken aback. Fifteen-year-old Daniel was a tiny thing, frail and too thin. He looked more severe with dark hair, although his eyes were still the same lovely color and shape. His expression was withdrawn and aloof—almost stony—with none of the warm openness and sunny smiles he had now.
“That was the night he was brought to the clan house for auction. He was frustrating but incredible, even in the beginning,” Nicolas said, smiling fondly at whatever memories he was recalling. “He’s intensely curious, and the fastest learner I’ve ever known. He didn’t speak at first, but he read books all the time, in Chinese, English, and Japanese. He’s an excellent Go player who can offer even Ryan—someone with an impressive amateur dan ranking—a challenge. When I got him a martial arts instructor, he showed me he could be hardworking and dedicated. When I first gifted him magic… Well, I had never seen anyone happier to have power at their fingertips. He was easy to teach because he wanted to learn.
“Daniel is unique in my life. I’ve taken on group members many times, but never in quite the same way as Daniel, and I’ve never treated any of them like him. In a way, I poured myself into Daniel, so I feel closer to him and love him more than anyone else. The only one since who has rivaled that is you.”