“Keep your feet apart, offset.” He looked at my shoes, causing a lock of hair to fall into his eyes, and he blew a puff of air to move the blond tress from his forehead.
Once I was stable, he released me and strolled backwards, curling a finger towards himself to beckon me forwards as his eyes stayed locked on mine. Enchanted, I watched his elegantly lazy footwork and followed across the log.
When I reached the midpoint, he jumped to the ground, making the beam bounce. The abrupt change quaked through my legs. I knelt and wrapped my hands tightly around the trunk.
“Stand up,” he ordered.
Fighting the tingles in my knees, I pushed up again. He walked next to me as I continued down the thinning beam. Finally, I gripped the floral branches that had once been the treetop.
My brazen instructor nodded. “Turn around and do it again.”
I walked the length for an hour, eventually finding a rhythm to solve my instability. Growing more confident, I increased the length of my strides and moved faster. Just as I began to feel comfortable, Darric abruptly shoved his weight against the trunk. The tree twisted. My balance vanished. I toppled over, and the ground rushed towards me at an astonishing rate, sending my stomach lurching into my lungs and forcing the taste of bile up my throat.
Darric caught me inches before I smashed into the forest floor. My body shook as I tried to untie the nauseated wreck in my core.
“Concentrate on your footing.” He pushed me back onto the beam. “Maneuver with the spring of your surface. Don’t work against it. Allow it to move through you.”
I regained my equilibrium and took one step. Again, he violently shoved the log. The trunk spun, and my feet flew out from under me once more. My back landed on the bark, arching my spine with a crunch, and I rolled to the side, clutching my stomach as I fell.
Darric scooped my limp frame into his arms and eased me onto my feet. My head bobbed like a doll, and he put his hands on either side of my face to steady it.
“Are you all right?” he asked, trying to meet my disoriented gaze as my eyes rolled in my head.
I nodded, stifling a small cry, and palmed my back in search of the forming bruise. “Your brutal tendencies are going to get me killed.”
“Not today.” He grinned slyly and massaged his fingers into the thumping ache in my spine. “When you walk across water, you careen, transferring your balance to maintain stability. This is the same concept, but you are letting the fear of falling control you.”
“I could crack open my skull doing this.” The soreness in my back waned with the soothing motion of his hand.
“I’m right here. I’m not going to let you break your neck,” he reassured me.
I put my hands on his chest and gently pushed him. He complied with my silent request for distance and lifted me onto the beam. I clung to the bark like a vise as he hopped up next to me.
Wrapping his hands around my wrist, he pried me off the trunk and pulled my back into his chest. “Feet offset,” he reiterated, nudging my calf with his boot.
His fingers trailed over my stomach, and my increased heart rate sent throbs through my belly. The soft breath from his smile moved the hair behind my ear. Ridiculous, Ayleth, pull yourself together.
“Hmm, my lessons on self-control haven’t yet stopped you from wearing your emotions on your sleeve.”
I clutched his bracer and spun out of his hold. He countered by weaving our fingers together and lifting my arm above my head. Gently, he rotated his grasp, forcing me to spin as if performing the slow steps of a dance. Lost in his gaze, my balance remained perfectly intact.
He chuckled and twisted his leg around my knees, deliberately taking my footing. I fell into the crook of his arm, and he arched my back with a mischievous smirk. “You falter when you overthink.” He eased me back onto my feet and hopped off the tree.
My head spun. I opened and closed my fists several times to lose the feeling of his skin pressing into my palm.
“Move across again. Quicker this time.” The toying lilt in his voice disappeared as he paced before the tree.
I gulped with a nod and set into a light run. I should have expected it; he slammed into the fallen trunk with the force of a battering ram, shifting the entire beam. It vanished from beneath my feet and I fell completely off the timber and into his waiting arms. He immediately shoved me back onto the bark. “Again.”
I slammed my fists against the wood. “Let me get my bearings before you rotate the damn thing.”
He snatched my wrist and constricted my fingers. I winced, trying to pull away. “Don’t question me. You want to be trained? You do it my way.” Annoyance vibrated his shoulders, and he raked a hand through his tousled hair. “And don’t swear. As much as it entices me, it’s unbecoming.”
“Then don’t touch me like that, you ass!” I shoved his chest, which made me lose my balance and nearly topple off the log.
He jerked me off the beam and pinned me against the trunk. “You’re testing my patience,” he snarled, the blue in his irises graying. “This morning, you wrap your arms around me and allow those exquisite lips of yours dangerously close to my neck. Even with my proficiency in control, you did not make it easy for me to keep my head straight. We are here for one purpose: to ensure you escape an encounter with the Onyx Guard. I am not your friend. I am your instructor.” He punched the bark beside my shoulder. “This tree represents any surface you might move across during a fight. Perfecting balance will make it impossible for an opponent to knock you off your feet, and that’s extremely important if you want to survive. To be able to accomplish complex maneuvers, you need to understand your surroundings even when blind to them. Backwards. Forwards. Sideways. So, fall off as many times as you want. You are stuck on this beam until you can flip while blindfolded.”
My face fell. “You could have said that without unleashing your savage temper.”
He tightened his hand into a fist. “Consider this your first warning, Aya.”
I nodded meekly and put my hand on his shoulder to hoist myself onto the log. He clasped my waist to assist me and gave a weary sigh. “I’m sorry.”
My gaze fell to my feet to avoid looking at him. I ignored the tiny rip in my heart and walked backwards, raising my eyes to the beauty of the overhead blooms. The blossoms helped distract from the relentless overthinking of my foot placement. If I couldn’t hold my balance across a simple fallen timber, then I certainly couldn’t handle anything else Darric would throw at me, especially when I seemed to misinterpret his gestures so drastically.
The rolling log snapped me out of my daze. I wobbled but kept my balance as the shuddering in my nerves faded.
By midmorning I had improved significantly, but it came with a price. Contracted into training to exhaustion, my legs were screaming, my hips were sore, and my ankles felt broken. I looked at Darric in desperation. He gave a satisfied nod and fed his hands up my thighs, firmly gripped my waist, and gently lowered me onto the grass. I trembled as my body became accustomed to the stable surface.
He left me resting against the tree and retrieved a strip of white linen from his haversack. I groaned—more training to this morning’s session.
“Take a detailed look at your surroundings, not just visually but sensuously too.”
I did not follow his instruction.
He turned me to face the bark. Before I could protest, he slipped the linen over my eyes and tied the cloth behind my head. “Let’s see how well you’ve been paying attention. Describe the forest to me.”
Drained and aching, I knew my location, but everything else was empty. Nothing coalesced. “I’m tired,” I despaired.
“I know,” he soothed, pulling my back into his chest. “After this, we are done for the day. I promise.”
I tried to visualize the wisteria and the stone, the trees and the grass, the placement of the fallen timber and the waterfall cascading into the small pond, but only one thing came into focus: my stranger. His hair brushed t
he side of my face. His hard chest moved against the contours of my spine as he breathed. Dominating me and impossible to ignore. “I can’t get you out of my head,” I murmured.
He forcefully spun me around and tore the blindfold from my eyes. I sucked in a sharp breath, trying to quell the unease welling up in my throat.
He stared at me with concern, jaw clenched. “We’re done for today.”
Unnerved, I wrapped my arms around myself. What the hell just happened? My gaze drifted into the wisteria blooms where the cat had lazily positioned herself over a branch, an obnoxious grin upturning her whiskers.
Darric leaned against a tree and slid down to the grass. He rubbed his hands over his face. “I’ve been thinking about our contract.”
I massaged my fingers into my biceps and bit my lip. “Ready to use your ambiguity?”
He shook his head and motioned to the ground beside him. I joined him against the trunk, his shoulder lightly brushing mine.
“I’ve been mulling over something you said. The contract doesn’t stop me from asking you questions. It just allows you the luxury of not having to answer them.”
Tumbling off the balance beam all morning had made my stomach uneasy, and sitting this close to him didn’t help my dizzy head. “The purpose was to persuade you to avoid questioning me.”
“After your interrogation last week, I would think you’d give me the opportunity to ask a few things.” He reached for his haversack. The glass bottles clinked together as he removed a leather pouch and the decanter of red wine.
“Regardless of anything I’ve asked you, it’s a contract violation. That was the deal. You leave my past alone. I give you an ambiguity. No trying to break through our agreement.”
“I’m not breaking through it.” He unlaced the pouch and retrieved a small handful of the salted pork. “I’m . . . testing the edges.”
He held out his hand offering me the pork. I pushed his balled fist, refusing the dried bits. “If I can’t berate you during training for fear of some bizarre punishment you’ve concocted, and if you’re eventually going to throw a ridiculous unknown at me, then no, you aren’t allowed an interrogation.”
“But your end of the contract states you don’t have to answer, so I should be able to ask any question I want.”
“You read people too well. No thank you.”
He pried open my hand and transferred the salted pork into my palm. “I want to know where you came from.”
“It doesn’t matter where I’m from—”
“It does to me,” he said over me.
“—because I’m going to do anything in my power to never go back there—"
“Why?” he asked before the last word left my mouth.
I dumped the pork into my lap and dusted the salt off my hand. “It was a dead end.”
He uncorked the decanter and took a long drink; the limited amount of alcohol sloshed in the bottom. “Aya, it means that somewhere in Brisleia there is a place beyond the reach of the Onyx Guard. Don’t you understand? No free Fae has ever reached adulthood. You were obviously safe there. You shouldn’t have left.”
“You don’t know the circumstances. It was complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it.”
“No.”
He groaned. “You astound me.”
I poked a piece of dried meat clinging to a loose woolen fiber on my dress.
“You’re not eating,” he observed.
“Neither are you.” I flicked a larger chunk in his direction.
“I eat as often as you do,” he said passively.
“That means never. I don’t have an appetite. It has been dwindling ever since I started dreaming.”
“Apparently, that’s something else we have in common.” He extended the decanter to me.
“Are you experimenting with food aversion now?” I grasped the bottle’s neck and brought it to my mouth.
“There is something about you I can’t figure out. A missing element. My intuition is notoriously accurate, but with you, it’s like I’m walking around in a volcano blindfolded. You are completely exasperating and dangerous, yet entirely addictive.”
I handed back the decanter. “I’m trying to forget my past. I left because I want to be someone else. Someone more like myself.”
“You ran away?”
“In a fashion.”
“Escaped?”
“That too.”
“Was the decision prompted because you’re a Fae?”
“Maybe a little. I didn’t start dreaming until I turned thirteen, and I didn’t know there were other qualities involved. I kept the secret to myself. I didn’t want to be insane. I wanted to fade into obscurity, but I’m starting to realize that is an unlikely possibility. So now, I suppose I’m just looking for answers until the Onyx Guard captures me.” I lowered my head, since he refused to part his gaze.
He shoved the cork back into his wine and tossed the bottle onto the ground. “If I have anything to do with it, that will never happen.”
I scoffed. “And when I finally tell someone I’m a Fae, of all people, I picked you. A former Medial soldier.”
“You couldn’t hide it from me even if you wanted to.”
“And knowing that, you still haven’t made any of this easy—threatening to kill me and hating me. And now you—”
I fell silent when he wove our hands together, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. “I do hate you, but not for the reasons you might think.”
I was so distracted by the caressing of his hand that I missed the burgundy feline with furrowed brows climb down the tree and fall at his feet.
“I tried to refrain from making you realize your potential,” he continued. “You may have eventually discovered it on your own, like you did with archery, but Bromly and Flint would have become too involved. I have to protect my brothers. I’m not sure what they are going to do to me when they find out I’ve hidden a Fae at the Hovel. Bromly will be livid. So, to avoid the risk of you conjuring water around our campfire, I had to intervene.” He once again fixed his eyes on mine. “But it is nice to talk to someone who understands what I’ve been experiencing the last few years.”
“When you told me you could dream, I felt a little less alone,” I said. “It was like finding a piece of myself. Even when I think back on how scared I was of you at first and everything I went through to get here, I know it was worth it. I would never have found answers back home, and my future was turning grimmer by the hour. The constant ridicule and control was never going to allow me the freedom I craved.” My voice slowly died as I rambled. I leaned closer to him, so I could no longer see the entirety of his face. My nerves and my new sense of contentment around him battled to the death.
“Whose?” His silver voice pulled me back to the surface.
“Um . . .” I tried to loosen his grip, but he refused to let go. “My parents.”
He sat up straighter and shifted uncomfortably. “You’ve never mentioned your parents before.”
I shrugged. “They are extremely set in their ways.” Luken would be furious with me by now. If everything went according to my plans, I would never have the chance to apologize for abandoning him. Terrible sister.
“Are they the reason you left? Ridicule and control, as in abuse?”
“No, nothing like that,” I hurriedly corrected. Be cautious how you word this, Ayleth. “My father is . . . was forcing me to get married to . . . someone.”
His expression lightened into an amused smile, and he rolled his tongue over his teeth.
“What?” Annoyed by his disregard for the grievous situation, I jerked my hand from his.
“Nothing.” He laughed.
“You think it’s funny?” I shrilled.
“That’s just not what I thought you were going to say.”
“And just what did you think I was going to say?” I folded my arms over my chest, waiting for his explanation.
“Not that,” he said derisively, and I glared at him.
“All right, I’m sorry.” He pursed his lips, a smile tugging defiantly at the corners. “So, you obviously didn’t like this arrangement.”
“No! I didn’t.” I balled my hands into tiny fists. “If I was the person they wanted me to be, then he would have been perfect. He was attractive and articulate. All the things I should have wanted in a husband. Everyone seemed to believe it was a brilliant match. My brother understood my perspective. He knew I wanted something else.”
He pulled my hand back into his. “A different guy?” he asked, finding my eyes, and his pupils dilated when he watched the Fae glimmering come to life in my irises.
His curiosity brought an abashed smile to my lips. “No, there was no one else.”
A single purple wisteria bloom fell onto our interlocked fingers. “You have a fiancé.” He let out a long breath and ran a hand through his hair. “That may break Flint’s heart.”
“I do not have a fiancé,” I declared sternly.
“Flint likes you. A lot.” His voice held a new caution I wasn’t used to hearing.
“Enough to be upset by my betrothal?” I challenged. “Flint isn’t exactly the future I had in mind.”
“You don’t seem to want the future your parents planned for you either.”
I shuddered. “I spent so long ignoring the years as they passed that I didn’t realize how numbered my days had become. I panicked. The engagement was unexpected after so much monotony, and yet I should have seen it coming. I’m eighteen. I was bound to end up married soon. If not him, it would have been someone else.”
“Ah, parental expectation and the passage into adulthood.” He casually bent his leg and rested his wrist on his knee. “I’m eighteen, and I’m not married.”
My disbelief was impossible to hide. “How are you only eighteen?” I glanced over his entire body. Suddenly the traces of a boy exactly my age emerged, and he looked the part. Why had I never truly beheld how young he was beneath the appearance of a seasoned assassin?
“Why? Do I look older?” he teased.
Dreams of the Fae: Transcendence Page 31