“Stop doubting yourself. You’ll be amazing.”
“I’ll never beat you.” I stabilized my breathing, cupped my hand to fill it with water, and drank greedily from my palm.
He furrowed his brows as if it was the oddest thing he had ever seen me do. “I’ll always be the only man who can knock your knees out from under you.” He retrieved my sword and stabbed it into the ground in front of me. “This is a permanent part of you now. It never leaves your side.”
I climbed to my feet and tucked my sword back into its scabbard.
“We’re done. Bromly and Flint need my help this afternoon.”
“Fine.” I dusted petals off my dress. “Just try not to kill each other.”
Bromly sat against the stone arch of the cavern weaving new rope, silently counting the knots he created. He was soaking wet, as if he had taken a swim in the lake.
“Where’s Flint?” Darric inquired.
“Avoiding work,” Bromly answered between mouthed numbers.
Darric collected a pile of the new rope resting next to his brother and slung it over his shoulder. He leaned close to my ear. “Where we are going is technically outside the valley.” I was beginning to believe he purposefully brushed his lips against my skin when he whispered to me. “You have the skills. You’ll be able to defend yourself while we’re gone should anything happen.”
I was being left behind? Alone?
“You’re safer inside the cavern than outside the valley,” he said. “You think you aren’t skilled because you’ve only fought me. I wouldn’t leave you if I wasn’t confident you could gut someone. We’ll be back before nightfall.”
I leaned on the rock arch and watched the two disappear into the tree line. Apparently, it didn’t matter if I wanted to go; the decision was made without my input. The cat rubbed my leg, shifting the weight of my new sword. She playfully flipped onto her back and batted the tip of the scabbard.
The breeze moved the wildflowers, and Flint’s distinctive orange hair appeared by the river. He scooped several handfuls of water to his mouth, and like Bromly, he was soaking wet. After wiping his lips with his wrist, he plucked a stone from the bank and threw it across the river.
The cat gave a stern meow, protesting my decision to leave as I stepped out of the cavern.
“I’m not going far, and it’s only the nefarious bunny rabbit.”
She held to her argument by sitting on my feet. I giggled, stepping over her.
Flint spun around when I reached him, and a wide smile spread across his cheeks. “Hello, beautiful.” He searched behind me to find only the cat. “Where’s your guardian?”
“Guard—Darric?” I laughed at the notion. “He’s where you are supposed to be: repairing the Burge traveling vessel.”
Flint shook water off his hands. “I’ll go back eventually.”
“They could probably use your help now,” I prodded.
He shrugged, leering at me, and his smile suddenly faded, replaced by an astonished gape that contorted into a grimace of hatred. “Is that . . . ?” He balled his hands into fists. “Is that Darric’s Medial sword?”
I glanced to my side. Light shot into my eyes from sunshine catching the hilt, and I covered the pommel to stop the reflection. “Yes. It’s actually not . . . um . . .” I bit my tongue, seeing the red veins bulge in the whites of his eyes. “This sword isn’t his anymore.”
“He gave it to you?” Flint shrieked.
“He’s trying to have me fully trained before we leave for Burge.”
Flabbergasted, he dug his nails into his cheeks. “Don’t ya know where he got that thin’? What he’s done with it?”
I tapped my foot on the grass. “I know its history. And Darric’s. It doesn’t bother me.”
He fumed silently, throwing another stone from the bank.
“I’ve never apologized to you about all of this,” I said. “I know you desperately wanted Darric to teach you. I’m sorry he’s been instructing me and excluding you. I think about it. A lot.”
“Tryin’ to make yourself feel better?” He crouched, bobbing on his heels. “I can’t believe he taught ya. It’s so unlike him.”
“Well, he doesn’t make learning easy.” Growing uncomfortable, I crossed my arms over my chest. “The past weeks have been challenging.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he snapped.
I nodded, accepting my defeat, and turned to retreat to the cavern.
“Ya spend all your time with him. He’s consumin’ ya. Ya can see that, can’t ya?” Flint stood directly behind me. His height never failed to come as a surprise.
I gazed up at him as a drip of water fell off the tip of his nose. “It’s complicated.”
His wet hands grasped my shoulders. “Aya, I’ve done everythin’ I know, an’ ya just aren’t gettin’ it. Do ya want more than flowers? I don’t know what else to—” He paused, and the redness in his eyes lessened. “Please, jus’ give me a chance.”
“For what?” I asked innocently.
Distressed, he rocked on his heels and lowered his head. His wet lips urgently came towards mine.
My hands flew to his chest, and I pushed him back, arching my head to the side to escape his mouth. My resistance didn’t deter him. He placed a huge spiderlike hand on the back of my neck, attempting to force me to his lips.
“Flint! Stop!” I cried and drew my sword from the scabbard. The blade cut the space between us, and I leaped backwards to avoid slicing him in two.
The metal trembled in my grip. The tip of my sword hovered a fraction away from his larynx.
Flint’s arms hung suspended in the air, his fingers curled as if they still gripped me. Shock and disbelief wreaked havoc over his face. “You’re fuckin’ Darric, aren’t ya?”
I regretted ever having sympathy for him. In fact, I regretted every interaction with him since the day we met.
I slammed my sword back into the scabbard to prevent myself from committing my first murder. “Are you delusional?”
“No one spends that much time alone with anyone in the woods until all hours of the night an’ not end up givin’ ’em a green gown.”
His words cut into my heart’s open wound, taunting the senseless, unreciprocated desire I had for my instructor. You should have listened to the cat. “Darric was right. You are a cynic.”
“That betrayin’ bastard! He said that about me?” Flint snarled. “Don’t ya get it? Darric don’t do anythin’ for anyone without gettin’ somethin’ in return. So, what is it? What are ya givin’ to him if it’s not your little honeypot?”
“How can you think this way about him? He cares. He’s protected you. Provided for you.”
“Darric’s not my blood. He holds me back,” he gritted through his teeth. “I would be jus’ as great a fighter. Probably better, an’ he knows it.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. “I’m going back to the Hovel.”
“Why? ’Cause Darric tells ya to keep your ass there?”
“Please, go help your brothers.”
He snatched my arm. “Ya aren’t goin’ anywhere!”
Flooded with anger, I balled my fist and slammed it into his jaw. He stumbled backwards, palming his mouth.
“Don’t ever touch me like that!” I roared, storming into his personal space. He fell onto the grass. “If you ever try to kiss me again without my consent, my sword won’t stop shy of your throat!”
“Aya!” The aggressive jolt of Darric’s voice relaxed my chest. I never thought hearing the stentorian version would bring serenity. My hands fell out of their fists when his soothing touch caressed my lower back.
Bromly helped a wavering and dazed Flint to his feet.
“That damn bitch has a right hook like’a cannon,” Flint mused, stunned.
Flint’s insolence riled me once more. Darric banded his arms around my waist to stop me from continuing my assault. Like his brothers, he was dripping wet, and the water quickly soaked into my clothes. I tugged at his bracers,
trying to break free, but he held me like a vise.
“Calm down,” Darric said, so softly only I could hear him.
“Your brother is a pervert!” I snarled.
“You’re surprised?” he whispered and lessened his grip.
I pushed out of his arms and trudged back to the Hovel with the cat at my heels.
“It was a beautiful punch.” Darric laughed at the memory. “Regardless, as much as we’ve worked on control, you should have restrained yourself more efficiently. Though I wish I’d been there to see you pull a Medial sword on Flint’s throat.”
“He deserved it.”
A week had passed before I’d been willing to discuss what happened with Flint.
We strolled to the wisteria forest as the sun fell behind the mountains. The exertion of my lessons had become so exhausting I appreciated tonight’s languid pace.
“I’m not attempting to justify what he did,” Darric said, “but I am trying to understand how the act of someone leaning in for a kiss would impel you to assault them.”
I gave him a sideways glare. “Do you want to kiss Flint?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Not particularly.”
“He was trying to prevent me from resisting, and my reaction will be the same if he ever forces unwanted affection on me again.”
His eyes grayed with the fading of his smile. “Is that so?” A growl rose from his chest. “Now I’m thankful you punched him before I could. I wouldn’t have let him remain conscious.”
“Please don’t steal his bow again,” I teased, giggling at the protective reaction. “The two of you don’t need more reasons to be combative with each other. Promise me you won’t wreak any sort of vengeance. I handled it, and that’s what you trained me for, right?”
He ground his teeth. Despite it fueling another wave of animosity between the brothers, I loved seeing my instructor so perturbed that someone had attempted to kiss me.
Tonight the lessons in the dark began. The aphotic sessions were the final instructions in basics. Darric explained that further development of my skills could only be acquired through actual combat experience. To keep my wits sharp, he promised to attack me on a regular basis. I was less enthusiastic about that prospect.
With my heart aching, my training nearing completion, and the journey south in two weeks, I began to wonder what would happen once we all returned to the Hovel. Learning to wield a sword had become part of my life. I couldn’t imagine living without it. I was a heinous cook; the time the three had spent outside the valley repairing the Burge vessel had proven it. And I refused to hunt.
After our visit to Burge, Darric would start traveling again and regularly leave me at the Hovel with his brothers. I would join in their concern every time we watched him fade into the distance, uncertain if we would see him again. I would miss him terribly.
I shoved the horrid thought out of my mind. I did not want to think of a life at the Hovel that didn’t include him.
The wisteria forest appeared entirely different at night. Without the sunlight piercing the canopy, the colorless blooms became a black mass moving like ominous clouds with the wind. The falling petals reminded me of fluttering beetles rather than beautiful flowers. Even the lovely twisted trees bent into eerie, shadowed abnormalities. I memorized the scenery, growing apprehensive. In a matter of moments, I would be fighting a dual-wielding Darric Ursygh.
Dual wielding. What an incredible discovery. I was as ambidextrous as Darric. With Luken’s dagger secured in my left hand, I became lethal. The skill came naturally, as though I had been doing it the entire six weeks. Knowing I held one of my instructor’s weaknesses in my off hand gave me an unbridled confidence that he warned would lead to trouble.
Darric was truly deadly once his sword split in two. Over the last months, I had begun to see him differently, but the first time I fought him with both his blades violently swinging around me, the memory of the man who had killed four intruders outside the Hovel barreled back into existence. My handsome stranger melted away, and the seasoned assassin, formally a member of the Onyx Guard, besieged me. I surrendered to him in utter terror. Cowering flat on the ground, I’d questioned every decision that brought me here.
“Aya, you can be afraid. There is nothing wrong with it. Let your fear inspire fight, not defeat. Use it to find your own form of bravery,” he had soothed as I trembled.
Now the ominous blackness took over every surface inside the forest. Relying on senses other than sight would be critical.
Darric wore his dark cloak, making it impossible to see his face or even the figure of a man. He began our session by traversing around me as a furiously fast black penumbra. Knowing it was him calmed the terror that knocked at my skull, but to anyone else, the shadowed circling act he accomplished would be horrifying.
Growing up, I’d heard tales of the Onyx Guard wearing black uniforms and black cloaks crafted from a material so dark it absorbed almost all light, reducing the structures of their bodies to mere silhouettes. They rode black horses and traveled through the world during the deepest hours of night. Darric had lost none of the skills associated with Medial Alexandria’s highly trained regiment.
At one point, he disappeared entirely. My hand trembled around the hilt of my sword as I listened for any sign of him. Detecting the only unnatural sound tainting the night—metal cutting the air—I spun to find the flash of his sword as he dropped from a tree branch. I blocked him and jumped backwards, making a defensive swing. He avoided it, gripped his hilt, and pulled. The tenebrous forest illuminated from the shimmering white glow that traveled up the center of his blade as the metal split. I was momentarily blinded until the light vanished and darkness recaptured the woods.
I shook my head, trying to find anything through the black. I caught the slightest hint of movement and, with no time left to spare, lifted my blades, smashing against his swords. Disoriented, I blinked furiously, attempting to focus through the blotches clogging my sight and concentrate on listening.
The whistling slice of metal came from the left. I swung but found nothing.
Darric snatched my wrist and twisted my arm, pinning it to my back. The force knocked my sword from my grasp, and his blade met my throat.
“Damn it!” I struggled.
He tightened his iron grip, and my knees quivered. “Trying to use your eyes always gets the better of you.” The cold edge of his sword pressed harder against my skin. A low chuckle rumbled in his throat as he slid tresses of my hair off my shoulder, and I felt his wicked grin drag along my neck. “Blinding you was no accident. You should have shut your eyes to prevent it.”
“You enjoy this too much.” I tilted my head back to take the pressure of his blade off my throat, but he followed the movement, touching the sword back to my skin.
“You make it exceedingly entertaining. I have quite the effect on you.” He let out a long, heavy breath that tumbled down the back of my dress. “I aim to use it to my advantage since you’ve decided to wield a dagger in your off hand. I’m going to make you pay for that decision.”
I twisted my arm back in the right direction and ducked under his sword. If he intended to gloat when he killed me, I could at least not fall to pieces every time he touched me. Ignoring his magnetism was challenging, even when I sincerely disliked him.
He abruptly dropped his swords and caught my waist, spinning me into his chest. His hand traveled up my spine, pressing us together, and he smiled tenderly as I molded to the contours of his body. “I love it when I can feel your heart drilling a hole through you,” he teased.
I reached a hand around the back of his neck and tugged the hood off his head. “You wanted me to hate you, and yet you make it impossible.”
He pried Luken’s dagger from my hand and tossed it out of reach, then wove his fingers into my hair. “I’ve recently learned I have to disarm you to do this.” His nose touched mine, and my heart fluttered from the heat of his mouth fanning over my lips.
Before
he could act, a noise that shouldn’t have been in the forest captured our attention. Darric’s perfect smile vanished as his eyes flashed to the wisteria trees, and he carefully moved me behind him.
I jerked my head to see the source of terror that had ruined the moment I craved and gasped at the mass of dark fur circling us, an obvious limp to its front paw. The bear’s eyes flashed between cautious brown and deadly crimson, and when he snarled, the immense canines that had threatened to take my life weeks ago shone wet and black.
I burrowed into Darric’s side so I wouldn’t collapse in shock.
The bear’s huffing breaths scattered black petals across the grass. Blocking our exit, he met my eyes, and the communication stabbed into my brain. I grimaced and dug my nails into my scalp, trying to bury the agony.
“If you would be so kind, Divine Fae, tell your mate to sheathe his weapon.” The menacingly arcane voice permeated my bones.
Darric held his sword at the ready, the two halves mysteriously re-fused and back in his hand.
“Darric,” I whispered frantically, “put away your sword.”
Refusing, he gripped tighter on the hilt.
“You have to trust me,” I pleaded, rubbing his arm to reassure him. After a moment, his shoulders vibrated in defeat, and he slid his sword back into the scabbard, quickly scanning the area to locate the placement of my fallen weapons.
“He’s angry with you for that request.” My head throbbed with each syllable the bear uttered. “Curious. He is savagely protective of you and sincerely believes you are mistaken in your trust.”
“Am I mistaken?” The last time I met this majestic beast, I’d wanted nothing more than Darric at my side. Now I wanted him as far away as possible. If anything happened to him because of this creature, I would never forgive myself.
Confused, Darric’s head spun towards me.
The short-faced bear’s ears twitched as he inquisitively examined my instructor. “His brain has always intrigued me. Full of human emotion I have no interest in understanding. A twisted mess of sadistic and masochistic traits lying under superb Fae qualities, which he uses despite the pernicious consequences.”
Dreams of the Fae: Transcendence Page 38