“When I returned, I was in the Onyx Guard. Knowing the dark assassins the Senate makes of Sights, Flint began asking me to instruct him in combat. But I couldn’t stop thinking of the way he always looked when he saw the woman he thought was his mother. The resentment in his eyes. The enmity. I feared what he might do to her if he knew how to wield a sword. When I refused, he began crafting arrows and taught himself to use a bow.” He groaned, sweeping a hand down his face as if seared by a painful memory. “I swore if I ever left the Onyx Guard, I would relocate the family. Anywhere other than Alamantia.”
“And that’s why you brought everyone here?” I confirmed.
He plucked Luken’s dagger from the grass and edged his thumb over the Medial crest. “We all had a form of psychotic breakdown after Mrs. Keene died. Bromly fell into depression. He stopped eating and slept for days at a time. The hatred Flint had towards his mother finally metastasized into something physical, and he attacked the woman he believed to be her. We had to flee into the mountains before the city guards could trace the crime to Flint.”
I threw my hands over my mouth and spoke through my fingers. “Was she all right?”
His stare pleaded with me not to be naive.
My heart shattered. “Flint killed her . . . didn’t he?”
Darric knelt in the grass and took my ankle to reapply Luken’s dagger. “He blames me. He claims if I had just let him travel with me, then he wouldn’t have had to watch her every day and remember that she abandoned him.” He sat back and groaned. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe I should have taken him with me. Maybe if I had brought him along, I wouldn’t have fallen into the hands of the Onyx Guard and that woman would still be alive.”
I mulled over the demolished remains of the wisteria tree. “The three of you . . . There’s so much death . . . It’s heartbreaking.”
He smoothed a loose curl away from my face and tucked the strand behind my ear. “We are criminals, and we ran from our crimes. We’ve all committed our share of murder. Flint succumbed to his emotions. Bromly fights by my side, killing any intruder that threatens us without question. And I . . . Let’s just say the Onyx Guard is not the only sordid part of my history.”
I shook in denial. “You’ve never seemed like criminals to me.”
“For some reason, you see the best in all of us. Despite our flaws.” He took my hand and laced his fingers in mine. “I love how you find beauty in everything.”
I raised a finger and gave it a little twirl, controlling the wind to make blooms fall onto us. “It’s human to be flawed. We can’t change our pasts. The only thing that truly matters is what we do with the future. I believe a person should be judged only by the inner workings of their heart. Good people make mistakes as often as evil ones appear as perfection.”
“See?” He peered into my eyes, watching the Fae glimmer travel over my irises. “Beautiful.”
My lessons changed drastically in the two weeks following my punishment. After introducing the wooden wasters, Darric opened the doors to combat. Despite my using clairvoyance, he was still faster and stronger. A sword was in the near future, but before my intimidating instructor would allow it, he wanted to be certain I bordered perfection in all the aspects he had taught me thus far.
I developed an eidetic memory and learned to navigate the landscape and block attacks while blindfolded. To explain the extent of this ability, he blinded himself one morning. After recalling the entire landscape in more exquisite detail than I could ever have imagined, he allowed me to assault him in any way I saw fit. He instantly incapacitated me.
“You trust your eyes too much,” he said. “Vision should be an additive, not a requirement. Rely on your other senses.”
I adjusted accordingly out of necessity. My lesson the following day involved both of us sightless in a full brawl with the wasters.
I often forgot about the danger involved with the ironwood swords. In the end, every part of me bore round bruises from being too slow to avoid Darric’s attacks. Each time I was hit, he reminded me that not only was he curbing his force to prevent mangling me, but if it had been a sword, I’d be dead. “If you must take a hit, an injury to the arm or leg will offer a better chance of survival, though any impairment of magnitude can prove fatal.”
I lost track of how many times he killed me.
Balance was still a tribulation. I had grown to hate the trunk beam, especially now that Darric was throwing knives at me. Once I accomplished the insane flipping he adamantly insisted I learn, he added the blindfold. Listening became the only way to avoid his blades. The metal made a distinct song slicing through the air, growing louder as the knife drew closer. The predicament: he didn’t want me to avoid his projectiles—he wanted me to catch them. Attempting to snare his daggers without losing a finger was terrifying. In addition to the sing of metal, I had to pick up on the trace whomping sound of rotation to grab the handle instead of the blade. Luckily, I kept all my fingers.
Between the bruises and full-body soreness, something was changing; I looked different. The skin on my face had darkened from spending many hours outside. My arms and shoulders were toned. The waster had become weightless. I felt lighter on my feet. I could move with agility and more fluidity, bending in ways I never thought possible.
The hours spent away from the Hovel steadily increased. We left before dawn and often would not return until sunset. Darric had carefully chosen the moment to tell his brothers about instructing me, waiting for the time when our training sessions would extend until the evening and prevent us from returning to the Hovel for most of the day.
Each night, he dropped me off at the cavern and occasionally joined us for supper before disappearing into the caliginous valley.
While Flint and Bromly slept, I practiced my balance and footwork on the seating logs and worked on flourishes with a stick. I felt ridiculous, but I was determined to perfect my skill.
I talked to the cat for company, though she never replied. As the long nights wore on, I inevitably would scan the blackened tree line for some sign of my stranger. I could have made it to the wisteria forest alone, but I’d promised him I would stay at the cavern. It was aggravating that he kept leaving me behind, and I was not sure how much longer I could tolerate the monotony.
The evening I decided the perpetual nightly boredom would come to an end, he was teaching me about rhythm.
“Swinging a weapon isn’t a haphazard action,” he instructed. “There is a rhythm to attacks, blocks, and parries. Finding the flow of a battle is critical for success. Once you discover it, you can control it. Knowing how long it will take you to make each move is essential. Each action must be carefully calculated against your opponent. Use their weaknesses. Everyone has a weakness. Your goal is to find it and use it to exploit your adversary.”
I sidestepped Darric’s swing, and his waster grazed my lower back. It was hard to imagine him with a weakness.
“A sword just flayed your back open,” he reprimanded. “You are going to die when we begin using swords if you don’t start moving more efficiently.”
“Do you have a weakness?” I purposefully stepped out of our practice battle.
“Everyone does.” He snatched my arm and touched my ribcage with the edge of his waster. “What did I tell you about protecting your body? You’re dead again.” He groaned, frustrated.
I rolled my eyes, recalling the many days of verbal abuse I’d endured under Darric’s instruction. Days when he repeated himself multiple times and I still made the same errors. “What’s my weakness? What have you been using against me?”
“Do you mean now or in the past?” He laughed.
I wrinkled my nose, waiting for an answer.
“All right,” he finally said, “you fight with your emotions. You don’t trust your senses. You have Fae power yet never use it when you fight. You lack focus and can be easily distracted. The lustful attraction you have towards—”
“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” I interr
upted. “I wasn’t expecting a snide list.”
“There’s more.” He gave me a smug grin.
“So, what’s yours?”
He scratched the back of his head, ruffling his hair. “There is no reason to tell you. You never want an enemy to know where your skills are lacking.”
I stubbornly crossed my arms over my chest, awkwardly holding my waster to the side.
He chuckled at my obstinate stance. “I have two. The first: daggers. When an opponent fights with a dagger in their off hand, I rarely escape without injury. I tend to focus too much on their sword and miss the dagger, as it becomes easy to conceal. Bracers are an exceptional solution to that problem.” He held up his shielded wrists.
“Will you teach me to dual wield?” I gazed at the dark brown leather covering his forearms. The three knives he kept tucked into each bracer were almost undetectable.
“I intend to teach you to fight as I do. Yes, you will learn to dual wield.”
Excitement surged through me. “Then when the time comes, I want to use my dagger as my off hand.”
Smirking, he lightly shook his head. “Absolutely.” He scanned the horizon, checking the position of the sun. Orange and pink hues pierced the blooming tree canopy.
“What’s the second?” I pried.
“You’ll figure it out someday. It’s time to go.”
I gnawed at my bottom lip. “I don’t want to go back to the Hovel.” I hated to admit how much I enjoyed Darric’s company. I didn’t see him as my instructor anymore. Perhaps I never did. He was a friend who had rescued me from the depths of hell to show me how to continue in this new existence. The first person in my entire life who knew me as I knew myself. I loved that small miracle.
“It’s not really optional.” He plucked the waster from my grip and placed the two wooden swords inside his hiding tree.
“Yes, it is,” I argued. “Every night, you leave me at the cavern and disappear. What are you doing all night anyway?” He hadn’t brought a new stag kill to the Hovel in weeks.
He shrugged, pulling his cloak around his shoulders.
“Let me stay with you,” I pleaded.
“I can’t.” He lifted his hood over his head.
“Why not? Sure, the woods are dangerous at night, but as long as I’m with you, nothing will happen to me.”
He tugged my cloak out of the branches. “You are disturbingly confident of your safety with me.”
“I am,” I asserted, then rolled my eyes. “We can keep training.”
“No training. You are not ready for night fighting.” His gaze drifted into the tree canopy. “Though the concept of allowing you to stay with me is tempting, we have to go back, for Flint’s sake.”
“What does Flint have to do with it?”
“If we stay out all night without showing our faces at the Hovel, it’s going to look a bit . . .” He smiled, running his tongue over his teeth.
I laughed, throwing my hands over my mouth.
He chuckled at my reaction and handed me my cloak. “Are you prepared to further infuriate my brother?”
I tied the wool around my shoulders. “Flint is not stuck enduring hours of boredom after you leave.”
He ran his finger down the side of my cheek. “Just tonight.”
“We’ll see about that. I’ll roam the valley alone if that’s what it takes to convince you.”
He pulled my hood over my head and tugged it down to shade my eyes. “Stubborn Fae.”
“Insolent instructor.”
Night took the valley as we left the forest and headed in the direction of the Hovel. I stopped walking when the cavern came into view, protesting my return.
“Doubting my word?” Darric asked, noting my sudden stop.
“You said yourself your word can be shot to hell if you need to protect your interest.”
He slid his hand down my arm and wove our fingers together. “True, but that’s wildly unlikely when it comes to you.” He retreated into the tree line, and we crept into the brush by the entrance of the cavern.
“You eavesdrop!” I accused, shoving his shoulder.
He shushed me with a wicked smile. “I can’t protect my brothers a mile away from the Hovel. Most nights I’m a lot closer to the cavern than I let them believe.”
A metallic clang made me jump, and a bucket rolled out of the cavern. “Where the fuck are they?” Flint snarled.
“You might not like everything you hear,” Darric murmured into my ear. I tucked myself under the shelter of his arm.
“She’s fine, Flint,” Bromly grumbled. “She’s safe with him.”
“A little too safe.” Flint spat on the ground and kicked dirt over the sticky glob. “Why has he changed? Why does he suddenly wanna keep her alive?”
“That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? Darric accepting her and allowing her to come with us to Burge? It all worked out for you.” Bromly chortled. “Obviously, he’s found a use for her. From what he says, she’s gifted with weapons. Maybe he thinks she’ll be a good defense during the trip south this year.”
“He’s gonna betray me,” Flint growled.
“I’m surprised he agreed to your insane demands, especially since he seemed so . . .” Bromly paused and grunted. “You need to make peace with the outcome, even if it isn’t what you want,” he warned.
“What did you agree to?” I whispered under Darric’s chin. He let out a long breath and didn’t answer.
“I’m not acceptin’ that,” Flint snapped.
Bromly shook his head. “You’re not helping yourself. Lying to her. Bashing Darric to make him out as an evil cad. Aya is too smart for that.”
“Yeah, she sees right through it.” Flint plopped onto the seating log and stared aimlessly into the fire. “He was suppose’ta leave. He always leaves. But he chose to stay.”
“You need to stop thinking ill of him, because it makes you think ill of her. Jealousy is no way to win someone’s affections.” Bromly handed Flint a paring knife, encouraging him to go back to work.
Flint thumbed the wooden handle. “Alone in the woods with her after dark, I bet he’s winnin’ every affection she’s got under that dress.”
Enraged, I leaped to my feet. Darric urgently grabbed my waist and jerked me to the ground. He lay on top of me and covered my mouth with his hand, forcing me to stay still. The rustle we created in the brush silenced Bromly and Flint’s conversation, and they both eyed the woods.
“If you don’t want me to leave you here, then be quiet,” Darric scolded in a whisper.
“How dare he?” I mumbled furiously against his fingers and dug my nails into his hand to pull it from my mouth.
“I figured you’d be used to Flint sexualizing you by now.”
I pressed my palm to my forehead. “How long do you listen to this?
“Sometimes hours. I especially love it when you talk to your cat.” His mellifluous voice rang through a sly half smile.
Embarrassed, I wiggled beneath him, trying to free myself.
Delighting in my struggle, he lowered his mouth to my neck. “Heard enough?”
His lips brushed my ear, and I leaned into him ever so slightly, hoping to feel more of his mouth against my skin. “I don’t need any more reasons to dislike Flint,” I breathed.
Satisfied, he rolled away and wrapped his hand around mine to lead us from the cavern.
Darric kept me close as we strolled through the woods to an unknown location. I pressed my body into him, and it seemed to lessen the tension in his shoulders. “Why does Flint keep talking about you betraying him?”
He groaned and kept his eyes locked on the wooded path. “I made him a promise, one I knew I was never going to be able to keep. It was a mistake, and it isn’t likely he will forgive me if I renege. The complication is, it’s no longer a matter of if but when.”
“Darric!” Angered by his confession, my heart broke for Flint. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“When I made the pact with
him, I wasn’t thinking straight. My judgment was . . .” He scanned my face before looking away. “. . . clouded. I was concerned with more pressing matters. I didn’t realize something that minuscule would become so significant.”
“What did you promise him?”
He shook his head, clenching his jaw.
I dug my heels into the ground, grinding us to a halt, and spun in front of him. “I don’t understand you two. Blood or not, you’re family.”
He cupped my cheek and traced his thumb along the side of my mouth. “You ran from your family, did you not?”
I pushed away his fingers. “That’s not the same thing.”
“Right.” He reintertwined our hands and continued walking. “The heinous fiancé. Worlds of difference,” he said scathingly, and the silence that followed was deafening.
The azure glow of the moon illuminated the flowers scattered across the valley. Various shades of purple and cobalt, nestled in a carpet of black strands, covered the ground.
“Where are we going?” I asked, ending the quiet between us.
He shrugged. “You asked what I do at night. I wander.”
“Doesn’t that get lonely?”
He didn’t answer.
My gaze shifted upwards when the last clouds dissipated to reveal the stars. My jaw fell; the sky had changed. Millions of stars glittered across the charcoal slate, twinkling over mysterious milky bands of amaranth and indigo.
Darric followed my bewildered gaze.
“It didn’t look like that before,” I said in awe, my feet slowing.
“It’s the solstice. Summer is here. It’s more apparent this far from the cities.”
I stopped to absorb as much of the sky as possible.
Dreams of the Fae: Transcendence Page 35