Between Bromly’s pleading, Flint’s silence, and Darric’s indifference, something remained unsaid among the three. A grimace. A glare. Words written across their faces but not voiced. A plight I couldn’t figure out. Darric teaching me to fight was not the only cause of Flint’s tantrum. However, the additional element stayed hidden, and none of them were going to say exactly what it was out loud, at least not to me.
Despite the oppressive emotions choking the cavern, Darric and I continued leaving for the wisteria forest every morning well before dawn, when he was certain we wouldn’t be followed. He insisted it was imperative his brothers not find out I was training in combat and a Fae in the same week.
The guilt of learning something Flint longed to obtain weighed heavily on me. No, he did not possess our strange anomalies, but he could learn the basics. Why couldn’t Darric teach him something to pacify the situation?
“Stop thinking about it.” Darric pulled apart the tightly wrapped knot of my arms across my chest. He reached into a crevice created by a system of three intertwined tree trunks and removed two long sanded sticks, the same length and width as a sword, complete with smooth grips. “This is a waster,” he explained, flipping one stick so he held the imaginary blade and extending the handle to me. “It will be the first weapon you’ll learn to use. We don’t start with anything sharp. You would lose a limb. Or die.”
I took a firm hold of the polished grip, and he released the weapon. The weight surprised me. My wrist buckled, and the end smashed into the grass. “It’s heavy,” I exclaimed.
“It’s ironwood,” he stated, as if it was obvious. “What would be the purpose of having you train with something that wasn’t the same weight and length as a sword?”
“Valid argument.” I readjusted and lifted the waster. It fought my wrists, straining the joints.
“You’ll get used to the weight. Eventually, you won’t notice it.” He circled me as I familiarized myself with the feel of a training sword.
I rolled my eyes at the odd “weapon.” Though I trusted his methods, this seemed ridiculous. Did he truly perceive my skill as so underdeveloped that I couldn’t be trusted with an actual weapon? “At least there isn’t much you can do to me with a stick,” I quipped.
He gave a devious chuckle. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because this weapon has no blade, it cannot bring you harm.” He passed behind me, and a firm blow from his waster slammed into the backs of my knees. I tumbled towards the ground, shocked, as my own waster fell from my grasp and rolled across the grass.
Darric caught my hand, stopping me from hitting the dirt at full force, and eased me onto my back. He grazed his waster over my forehead and made a light tap with the edge. The hard wood knocked murderously against my skull.
“This is a heavy wood. In the right hands, it can be as deadly as a sword. With enough force it can crush a skull, break a bone, or simply bludgeon to death. It is a weapon.” He took my hand and jerked me from the ground. “And it’s the only one you’re touching until I decide otherwise.”
Defeated, I plucked my “useless” waster from the grass, holding it limply at my side.
“Time for review.” He recommenced his predatory circling. I watched intently, only losing him for a split second when he passed directly behind me. “You’ve learned concentration. Focus. Balance. Some haphazard grappling skills.” He disappeared and slammed the waster against the backs of my thighs. I buckled and fell, but this time he wrapped his arm around my waist to prevent me from hitting the ground. “And you are still not paying attention to your surroundings.” I pushed his chest, trying to wriggle out of his arms. He ignored my struggle and tightened his hold. “You keep making it this easy and I won’t need a sword to sweep you off your feet.” The gruff, rich tone of his voice left my knees weak.
“You are not as charming as you think you are, Mr. Ursygh.”
“I don’t recall ever claiming to be. Is that lustful effect getting to you again?” He raised a devilish eyebrow.
“Ugh, let me go.” I rolled out of his arms and scooped my waster back into my hand. Without thinking, I swung for his head.
He ducked and countered by smashing his waster into mine. The force of his impact tore the wooden sword from my grasp, sending unpleasant vibrations up my arm.
He laughed. “It would be advantageous for you to keep the weapon in your hand.”
Jackass. I snatched the waster and took a calming breath, attempting to lock my emotions back in their pit. He came at me before I could swing. By some insane reflex, I avoided his attack, and the wood grazed my hair as it sped past my head.
Surprised, I stumbled backwards, and a surge of fury broke free of its cage. “That would have killed me!” I hissed.
Bam! My legs went out from under me, and my stomach hit my throat. He was at my side in an instant, cradling me in his arms. “You are not trying, and you are not concentrating. Be aware and alert. That is what makes you accurate.” He set me back on my feet.
I swung. He blocked. I was too slow. His movement increased. I felt him brush alongside me and grab a tight handful of my hair. He pulled my head back, forcing me to meet his penetrative eyes. “You’re tense, and you are staying in one place too long. Agility and fluidity are key. You are small and nimble. Use it. I’ve taught you to see when blinded. You can anticipate your opponent’s actions. Why are you not employing your clairvoyance?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Maybe I’ve decided I don’t want to see it coming,” I retorted.
He clenched his jaw, suppressing an amorous grin, and released my hair with a gentle tug to the curls.
I tried to catch him lingering behind me, but he maintained a perfect illusion in my blind spots, only occasionally flashing into my periphery. I grew dizzy from rotating.
Another yank to my hair. This one hurt.
Finally, a full glimpse of him. I swung and hit nothing. He gripped my shoulder and spun me completely around so I faced the opposite direction. What the hell was the point of this?
Legs gone again. Righted once more.
“Use what you have learned.”
Darric aimed to relentlessly knock my knees out from under me. This time I observed a definitive change in his muscle tension as he prepared to strike, his arm held to the side ready to catch me. I turned at the last possible moment to avoid the attack, but he swiftly changed tactics and planted his foot on the train of my dress. I landed on the ground with a thud.
“Aya, that was terrible.”
I rubbed my hands over my face.
“This dress is a hindrance.” He pulled at the woolen fabric. “I’ll have Bromly sew you a pair of—”
“I’ll learn to move in it,” I interrupted. “I’m not wearing pants.”
“If you intend to ever fight like a man, you will.”
“I don’t intend to fight like a man. I intend to fight like a woman who can kill a man.”
A satisfied smile crossed his face. “Fair enough.” He helped me to my feet. “My brother is going to resent you when he realizes you’ve become a skilled assassin while wearing a hideous frock.”
“It’s an heirloom,” I informed him, “and your brother wouldn’t resent the idea so much if you had half a heart to teach him.”
“I’m never going to teach Flint combat.” He plucked my waster from the grass and tossed it in my direction. I caught the fake blade without issue.
“It isn’t right. You’ve made him feel worthless. He’s eager and enthusiastic. He envies you.”
“Envy . . .” He scoffed.
I controlled my anger exceptionally well. It transitioned into something lighter, almost aerial. The breeze rushed through the forest and ruffled my hair. “Why not him? Why only me? He’s your brother, and I can’t possibly be more important than that bond.”
“This is not a subject we are discussing right now,” he said, looking around at the sudden change in the wind.
That was it! I’d had enough! I grippe
d the edge of my waster and threw it at him.
He moved nimbly away from the wooden sword and stared at me, stunned. His lip curled into an unpleasant shape, and his shoulders tensed. Every ounce of friendliness vanished from his eyes, and an impending sense of doom slithered up my spine.
He slammed his waster to the ground and sped towards me. I jumped, the blood draining from my face. Run. Run now. But my feet stayed firmly attached to the grass, as if I were part of the landscape. The cat hissed, disembodied, from some unknown location.
Darric towered over my frozen form, running a hand along my waist and slowly up my back. My heart spasmed as a wicked grin parted his lips. “Three,” he growled.
He violently twisted his fingers into the nape of my dress and hauled me to the nearest tree. My ankles bent and I stumbled, trying to grind my heels into the dirt to stop him. He pulled a coil of rope from his hiding place.
“No,” I yelled, contorting my body in an attempt to slip out of his grip.
He caught my wrist. “I told you there would be consequences. I’ve been lenient. Now I’m punishing you.”
Punishment? He was going to punish me?
He dragged me to the ground, pinning me to the grass with one knee, and leaned his weight on my torso. Uselessly, I bucked and wiggled beneath him and hammered my fists into his leg; nothing slowed him. He snatched my flailing arm and tied the rope so tightly around my wrist that blood throbbed in my fingertips. I threw a punch, narrowly missing his jaw. My puny fist landed on his bracer, and the knives stored in the leather caught my attention. I tore one free and sliced into the space between us.
“Fuck,” he drawled, avoiding the blade, and caught my hand. “Vicious little cuss when you’re angry, aren’t you?” He pried the small knife from my grip and flung it, then continued binding my wrists together.
With my hands bound, rage bellowed from deep inside of me. I screamed and let the insults fly, calling him every foul name I could remember from a lifetime. Adding to the indignity, he began to chuckle at my erratic swearing.
He pinned my bound arms above my head. I had never felt so exposed, as if my chest were bare and he could see everything. He wrapped his hands around my wrists and studied the increased pulse in my neck.
Lying under him, the same senseless mania that had snared my rational thinking during grappling training began to overtake me.
My heart fluttered.
I wanted to feel his lips on me.
His body over me.
I wanted him to engulf me.
I thrashed, inhaling a sharp breath, and pushed the lustful thoughts out of my head. Stop thinking such repugnant things about this ill-bred sadist while he has you pinned into submission!
Darric’s chuckling turned into depraved laughter as his mouth descended to my chest and his lips torturously dragged over the arch of my breast. “Emotions on your sleeve,” he sing-songed and flew off me.
He pulled hard on the rope, jerking me from the ground, and threw it over a branch above my head to heave my body into the air. I dangled limply with my toes barely scratching the grass. My arms screamed at the joints as I swayed with the breeze. Darric tied off the rope and cut the excess.
Next, he knelt to my ankle and unlatched Luken’s dagger. I kicked him and squirmed, trying to prevent the theft of my only piece of security, but he won and tossed the blade far off to the side. Using the remaining rope, he bound my ankles.
Pleased with his handiwork, he observed me hanging with satisfaction. I suspected he would have lit a cigar if he had one. “Get out of it,” he said through a dark and psychotic expression. “Use anything you know. Take all the time you need. Neither of us sleep anyway.” He settled by the base of a tree across the forest and leaned against the bark, ready to spectate the torment he had created.
Of all the impertinent.
Unorthodox.
Barbaric.
Ridiculous methods.
I craned my neck back and had to squint against the sunlight. I couldn’t look up for long. The pressure in my chest wouldn’t properly allow air to fill my lungs. My fingers had taken on a cyanotic hue as they brushed the bark. My shoulders ached, and my wrists felt as though they might snap under the strain. I needed to separate from the pain and work through the problem. I had to relieve some of the burden.
The forest grew quiet, letting me hear the creak of the rope as the wind swayed my body. I gripped the trace of extra line and pulled myself up so the pressure in my chest decreased. My stomach muscles scolded me for the action, and I groaned as my energy rapidly depleted.
I shot a quick glance at Darric. He smirked sardonically, resting his wrist on a bent knee and grinding his nails against the inside of his fist. When I get out of this, I’m going to stab Luken’s dagger into your throat. The breeze moved flecks of blond hair across his forehead. Why did he have to be so stunningly handsome when I hated him? Arrogant dual-wielding swordsman.
Despite his warning about succumbing to emotions, I let the rage take a firm hold on my senses. Between us, fallen petals whirled in a light vortex with faint white glimmers at its edge. The wind’s speed increased until the blooms flew out of the little tornado in a miniature explosion of glittering color.
I gaped, then quickly slammed my mouth shut, my brows knitting together to shade my eyes.
A new breeze flooded the forest. This time, I mentally grabbed the strings of flowing air. They came to life with iridescent sparkles and twisted towards my trunk, smashing into the space below me. Agony shot through my arms as the gusts propelled me into the air and over the top of the branch. I tossed my legs to catch the bough, and my stomach collided into it with a hard thud. The frenzied sway of the branches slowly stilled, leaving only fading white sparkles and an array of new foliage tumbling to the grass.
“Wind,” I exhaled, awed by the newly discovered talent. “Wind!” I squealed ecstatically.
Darric leaped to his feet.
I tugged at the bindings, forcing the rope knot to the top of my perch. Raising my ankles to my hands, I loosened the ties and wriggled my legs free. My insolent instructor paced below, running an anxious hand through his hair. My ankle restraints fell at his feet, and I flashed a derisive smile at him.
I sawed my bound wrists back and forth against the bark, trying to cut through the rope, but the harsh cord rubbed burns into my skin. I needed something sharp or . . .
Air is abstract. It’s light. Fickle. A changeable energy that doesn’t luxuriate in staying in place.
Instead of waiting for the breeze, I envisioned it. I let the aerial ability vacate my core. It felt like someone cracked open my ribcage and ripped my lungs from my chest. I cried out. A powerful gale hit my branch, splintering the limb down the middle and shredding through my bindings. The force of the blast reverberated through the tree, violently tearing the trunk in two. The entire mess of broken wood, leaves, petals, sparkles, and myself fell to the forest floor.
Darric slid to his knees in just enough time to catch me before I slammed into the ground. Two loud thumps crashed on either side of us, sending a flurry of petals into the air, and morning sunlight spilled through a new hole in the tree canopy.
I blinked rapidly, staring into his astounded face. “I can control and conjure wind.” My chest heaved between words. “I venture you didn’t take that into consideration when you decided to tie me up. Have I rendered you speechless yet?”
His mouth twitched into a halfhearted grin, and he eased me out of his arms. “You’ve rendered me a lot of things.” He twisted onto the balls of his feet and rubbed his palms together, losing his amazed expression. “Flint is a cynic, Aya,” he stated dryly. “There is a perverse side to him that only needs to be nudged in the right direction to turn iniquitous. Teaching him to wield any sort of weapon would be like setting oil on fire.”
I wrinkled my nose, having never heard him say anything so disparaging about his brother. “He knows how to use a bow,” I said defensively, still catching my bre
ath.
“He’s not very good.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Flint seems harmless. A bit dimwitted and ignorant, but nothing more nefarious than a bunny rabbit.”
“If handled wrong, a rabbit can still bite. Flint lacks control. He doesn’t know how to hold himself together in a crisis or how to move forward and recover. There are too many deep-seated vexations addling him, and fear rules his mind. He will end up getting himself killed. I don’t want the disaster of what he would become on my conscience.”
“You are under the impression he would become some sort of mass murderer?” I realized I didn’t know every detail about their history, but it didn’t seem likely Flint would hurt anyone on purpose.
“Letting fear control your every action, without using it constructively, has insidious consequences. He is terrified of being abandoned and forgotten. His memory is extensive, and his grudges are deep. I brought Flint into these mountains to protect him when he didn’t deserve mercy. I feel no guilt for refusing to instruct him in combat.”
“Flint said you didn’t give him a choice about leaving Alamantia.”
“That’s accurate. Though considering his unrelenting want to travel with me, his teaching himself to use the bow that would become his downfall, one would have thought he would be elated by the opportunity. Flint didn’t want to leave Alamantia because he didn’t think what he did was wrong. He still doesn’t. He lacks the ability to empathize and refuses to take responsibility for his actions. The apologies you have received from him have been a new, somewhat forced, occurrence.”
I rolled onto my side and pushed into a seated position. My arms tingled. My shoulders drooped, and every part of me ached. “What did Flint do?”
Darric shook his head, hesitating. He left me sitting by the broken tree in a pile of wisteria blooms and retrieved the bracer blade I’d stolen. He brandished the weapon before sliding it back into place. “When the three of us lived in Alamantia with Mrs. Keene, Flint always claimed to know his mother. He had no tangible proof other than her tall, thin frame and red hair. He would watch her from the roof of our house with pure hatred. When I decided to leave to find work, he begged to go with me, but I couldn’t risk his life. I had no idea if I would be successful or even return. I convinced myself I would find a way to bring a steady income to the Keene’s or die trying. I owed it to them for giving me a home.
Dreams of the Fae: Transcendence Page 34