by Skye Horn
“She’s going to be the death of me,” Adrian muttered in response. “Morrigan expects her to be a soldier, but she’s nothing more than a spoiled brat.”
“Harsh words, friend.” Caden chuckled, running his hands through his hair with a shake of his head. “You grabbed her pretty hard. If she hadn’t said something, I would have. What if someone had grabbed Emilie like that?”
A low growl reverberated from Adrian’s chest at the mention of his sister, and Caden raised his hands into the air in calm surrender.
“I’m just saying… she’s on edge enough. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to lighten up a little.”
“Let’s go,” Adrian said, and without another glance at his friend, stalked up the rest of the trail.
When Thea reached the top of the cliffside the wind nearly slammed her back into the ground. She struggled to keep her wings straight until she finally got her feet back on the snowy path and noticed the onslaught of wide eyes watching her. The boys were as young as Mica, possibly younger, and all held swords. Apparently they had either earned their weapons already or she was being singled out.
Most of them wore clothing made for someone twice their size and didn’t say a word as Thea approached, but one of the taller ones with the slightest bit of peach fuzz on his chin stepped toward her. The wind whipped around his face violently, and his chapped lips pulled up into a sneer that immediately made Thea tense.
“Look, the king sent a girl to entertain us,” he said, voice thick with amusement. A few of the boys surrounding him chuckled in response as he placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. Thea, however, didn’t break eye contact or even let her facial expression react. Instead, she just cocked her head to the side, sizing the young man up.
“She’s not very pretty dressed like that,” said a boy no older than ten as he scrunched his nose at Thea. She sighed, realizing this was the torture they’d forced her into, training alongside a bunch of ill-mannered children.
A few others gained their confidence, taking Thea’s silence as compliance with their verbal abuse, but she only crossed her arms. It was apparent the large boy who’d spoken first was the one in charge. In fact, he was the only one she would say didn’t count as a child. The others appeared to look up to him, though, and as soon as a few had started their insults, the rest had followed.
Thea considered her options. She could put up with the children bad-mouthing her; she could react with her emotions; or she could prove them wrong.
She liked the last idea best, so with a swift step forward that startled the cackling boy, she pulled the sword from his hip in a single movement. The wind whipped strands of her hair free from its braid and chilled her exposed face, but she didn’t flinch. Instead, she planted her feet and pushed the tip of her sword against the boy’s ribs just hard enough to make him step back.
“How dare you—” he started to say, but in another movement she had the sword at his neck and was staring him straight in the eye.
“How dare you,” she repeated in a low growl. “I don’t need children getting in my way.”
A low chuckle sounded from behind her, and she knew Adrian and Caden had reached the top of the hill.
She shoved the sword, hilt first, at the young man without another word, and turned on her heels. There was a sharp intake of breath behind her and a rush of wind as the boy lifted his sword to strike Thea from behind.
But she’d expected such a foolish reaction from him.
Thea’s toes curled within her too-big shoes and she felt the magic pulse down into the earth beneath her. She knew what lay beneath the snow — roots of tress that had been dead for too long. It didn’t matter, though; they still bent to her magic as she called them forth to the surface. Her eyes remained on Adrian as the roots reached from the ground to wrap around the boy’s ankles, pulling him back away from her so quickly that he dropped his sword. It just barely caught the edge of Thea’s feathers as it fell, but a long string of curses rang over the wind behind Thea.
A dark ache pulsed inside of her as she thought of the young soldier attacking her from behind. Not only was her back turned, but she was unarmed. There was no honor in that. She wanted to hurt the soldier, just as she’d wanted to hurt Kieran and Amara when she’d let darkness in before. This felt different, though, as if it might lash out at any moment against anyone.
Adrian’s eyes look troubled, but he didn’t look away from Thea as she moved toward him.
“When you said babysit, I didn’t think that was your actual job. These are mere children.” She crossed her arms, inhaling sharply as a metallic tang floated across her taste buds. Her control strained beneath the surface of her skin, but she hoped it didn’t show on her face.
“Maybe you should let him go,” Adrian said with such caution that it surprised Thea. He was looking past her now, and Thea followed his gaze. The boy who had attacked her was sprawled out on the ground, fighting off tree roots as his friends hacked them away with their swords. More than once his comrades missed and had him yelping in pain.
“Perhaps you should teach your soldiers how to treat a woman.” Thea shrugged, eyes watching calmly as the roots twisted toward the soldier’s neck.
He wasn’t a soldier. Just a boy with an attitude problem that needed fixing. But that didn’t mean he didn’t deserve this.
Her thoughts were dark, but she didn’t care. She walked over and picked up the sword he’d attempted to attack her with, slipping it into her empty weapons baldric.
“Get… it… off…” the boy panted. Thea watched the panic in his eyes for a moment longer before releasing the magic she held. The roots immediately fell away as the boy gasped for breath, but Thea knelt in front of him with a smirk.
“I think I’ll keep the sword,” she said, patting him on the knee and then walking toward Adrian and Caden as she added, “It doesn’t seem like you’ve earned it after all.”
Interesting, came a voice that sent Thea stumbling toward the edge of the cliff. If it weren’t for Adrian’s quick reflexes, she might have tumbled right off with the wind. He grabbed her arm, staring at her in confusion as she rubbed her temple.
“Stay out of my head,” she said aloud without meaning to, but Ainé’s voice didn’t disappear. It only grew louder.
It appears I miscalculated, she said, sounding intrigued. I thought by breaking your soul bond that Kieran would be freed of that wretched curse my sister cast. It appears there was more I did not know.
“What do you mean?” Thea asked, although she knew the answer. She could feel it inside her too.
“Who are you talking to?” Caden asked, coming up to Thea and Adrian with a look of confusion.
“Thea—” Adrian said, but Thea held up her hand to silence him, earning a glare.
You’ll see, Ainé said, and Thea could hear her amusement. She wanted to scream. She wanted to launch herself off the cliff and fly straight for Ivandor. But she knew exactly what Ainé was talking about.
Something inside of her was growing. She felt it. This wasn’t normal, and she needed to figure out what it was before it was too late.
“No one,” Thea lied, shaking her head and ignoring the strange looks she was receiving from the two men. She didn’t feel like telling them about the voice in her head that made her rage. She couldn’t handle anyone else looking at her like she was crazy, but she knew Morrigan would understand, and that was the only person she intended to tell. That was the only way Thea knew she could get to the bottom of what was happening to her.
She took a deep breath, trying to clear away the darkness that threatened to cloud her vision, and fought off the nagging feelings inside as she looked at Adrian and Caden.
“Let’s just get this over with.”
Chapter 6
By the time the sun was directly above them, Thea’s back ached from forcing her wings to stay put under the vicious winds. Adrian had said that she wasn’t allowed to use magic for this part of the training, but that just meant she was g
etting beat up worse than the rest of the trainees by the elements because of her wings. This was especially difficult because the only training Adrian had planned for them for the day was running along the edge of the cliff without getting blown over hour after hour.
By the time they were done, Thea’s legs felt like noodles and she thought she might vomit.
“You did a good job today,” Caden said as Thea placed her hands on her knees, breathing deeply. She was thankful to see many other trainees doing the same. Caden had sat with his back against a large stone that blocked most of the wind for the entire training session, while Adrian had run the drills with them. This had impressed Thea, at least until the cramping in her side had taken all of her attention.
“I hoped I’d look good next to a bunch of kids,” she breathed. “Do they always start training this young?”
Despite how hard she fought the images in her head, Thea imagined Kieran’s training. They’d never discussed his life during the fifteen years they’d been apart. In fact, they had had little chance to talk about anything, really. They’d just fallen into the hands of fate. Now though, with the soul bond gone, Thea thought about those things. Her feelings for Kieran were still there, of course, but they were different now. It was as if she could look at their relationship through a new lens and see everything they’d missed.
If the mission had gone according to plan, maybe they could have gone on a date or done something that didn’t include sword fighting and plotting. But that hadn’t been their situation, and it still wasn’t their situation. How could a relationship like that ever succeed? Especially now that Ainé had him under her spell? Thea couldn’t answer that question. She buried it as deep as possible to keep from falling apart. Kieran would need to be an off-limit subject, even in her own mind.
“Did you hear me?” Caden asked, waving a hand in front of Thea’s face.
She sighed, shaking her torturous thoughts away. “No, sorry.”
“Ready to go?” Adrian asked, approaching them before Caden could repeat what he’d said. “You can grab something to eat before I escort you to Morrigan.”
“Gee, thanks,” Thea groaned, straightening up as her stomach growled.
She was starving. Every bit of her energy had been spent running, and her wings throbbed from their fight against the wind as they walked back toward the path. She wouldn’t be flying back this time.
Caden fell into an easy step on one side of Thea while Adrian took up the other. She wondered if this was their way of “guarding” her and kept her chin a little higher. Caden was unarmed, much like Declan had often been. However, the muscles of his exposed forearms made Thea believe he was not unskilled with a weapon. She shivered a little as the wind teased her sweat-dampened skin, hating the icy chill of winter. She missed Gimmerwich’s warm summer breeze, but it appeared that, like Ivandor and Grimwalde, Blackmire was trapped in an unnatural winter that chilled her to the bone.
“You’ll have to give me the sword back,” Adrian said, eyeing the poor excuse for a sword she’d strapped at her hip. Thea’s response was reactive rather than smart.
“Take it if you can,” she responded coolly. Adrian’s gaze narrowed darkly at the challenge.
Thea wouldn’t be able to beat him if they actually fought, but she couldn’t help the stubborn challenge. She needed some sort of weapon. Adrian was in better shape than her based on the fact that his face was not flushed red and his breathing was not quick. She felt embarrassed by how hard this training had been for her. Her rushed physical training with Kieran and Haven was nothing compared to what Adrian was planning to put her through; she was sure of it. Plus, whom was she kidding? Without using magic, Thea was just as weak as the rest of the children she trained with. She relied on magic to get her through a fight. Perhaps training with Adrian would be good for her if she survived it, though she’d never admit that to him out loud.
“Well?” Thea asked, stopping so quickly that Caden nearly ran right into her. “Are you going to force me to give up the only form of protection I have in an enemy kingdom?”
Caden tensed as Adrian squared his shoulders and stared down at Thea. He towered over her, and in her too-big clothing she felt even smaller. However, she did not back down. She met his gaze steadily.
“Just let her keep it,” Caden said, apparently sensing the fight brewing between them. Thea didn’t want to fight, because she knew she’d lose. So why was she taunting him?
Because you need protection, she reminded herself, placing her hand on the hilt of the sword. She didn’t want to rely on her magic, she realized, because if she relied on magic, then Ainé could more easily gain access to her mind the way she had Kieran’s. Until she figured out how to stop that, Thea had no intention of being unprotected in this castle.
Adrian cast a look toward the prince and growled, “Is that an order?”
The tension grew and Thea stepped between them, saying, “Do you intend to harm me? This sword is for my own protection from those who do.”
“I stand guard outside your door,” Adrian said, voice dropping low since the other trainees were coming around the bend of the path.
“You will not always be there,” Thea said, trying to sound reasonable despite the panic she felt over the fact that having him standing guard did make her feel safer. When had she started trusting him? And more importantly, how could she go back to not trusting him? She hated herself. “What if one of your guards decides—”
“They wouldn’t dare,” Caden blurted. His response surprised Thea, but she didn’t let it show on her face. These two had already seen too much of her for her liking.
“Neither of you can guarantee that. All I’m asking is for the chance to protect myself, but if you’re so afraid of me that you can’t even see that, then take this awful excuse for a weapon.” Thea threw the sword at Adrian’s feet in one swift movement and then spun around and continued down the path. She felt her control bursting at the seams and knew Adrian would not back down about this, so she would. She’d let him win because if she didn’t, who knew what might explode from within her?
When she was far enough away from them, she dared to look down at her shaking hand. Blistering burns seared her palms where she’d suppressed the magic that had more control of her now than it ever had before. The fresh wounds stung, bringing tears to her eyes, but she didn’t stop to let anyone see her cry. She hurried back to the castle, threatening to drown beneath not only the physical pain but also the realization that there would be no one to help her get through Blackmire alive. She was truly alone.
By the time Adrian and Caden had reached the castle gates, Thea had healed her hands from burns to soft pink scars. Even that small amount of magic had left her arms shaking, so she kept them crossed as she waited for the two infuriating men to arrive. Adrian carried the sword Thea had thrown at his feet, looking sour, but Caden looked relieved when his eyes landed on hers. She leaned against the stone wall of the castle, frowning at them both.
“Here I thought you’d be on your way home,” Caden said with a kind smile, but Thea’s heart clenched at the word home. Seeming to see his mistake, Caden paled. “Sorry…”
Thea shrugged, pushing herself off the wall, not meeting either of their eyes. “Let’s go eat before I pass out.”
“Wait,” Adrian said, putting a hand on Thea’s shoulder to stop her from leaving again. This time his hand was gentle, but Thea still flinched under the touch enough that he pulled away quickly.
“What?” she asked, turning to look at him with guarded caution. “Ready to make me feel even more like a prisoner?”
“Thea—” Caden said, eyebrows furrowing.
Adrian tensed, but sighed, holding out the sword to Thea. “No, I’m here to say you earned this today. You did everything I told you without a single question, and unlike most trainees on their first day, you didn’t fall over.”
His words were forced, but Caden was watching him carefully. Thea imagined Caden was the on
e forcing him to give her the sword, but she wasn’t about to turn it down.
“However, if you become a threat,” Adrian warned as Thea placed her hand on the hilt of the sword, “I will personally take you down.”
He released the sword into Thea’s hand as she contemplated his words. She wondered what he was so afraid of. Sure, she’d stopped Malachi, but that had been with the Goddess’ help. Now, she was on her own and if she was being honest, she didn’t stand a chance against her uncle, let alone Ainé or Morrigan.
“I’m here because I have nowhere else to go,” Thea said quietly, slipping the sword back into its scabbard on her hip. The weight of it brought back a small sense of security. “I have my own agenda.”
“That’s what worries me,” Adrian said, but his tone said the conversation was over. He gave her one more pointed look before heading into the castle without a backward glance. Caden and Thea stood in awkward silence.
“Thanks for that,” Thea told him quietly but meaning the words. “I know he wouldn’t have done that on his own.”
“Don’t take it personally,” Caden said with a kind smile that reminded Thea painfully of Ethel. She’d always been quick to see the best in people. Was that how Caden was too? Did he see the good in Adrian? Or maybe even in herself?
She wasn’t sure if she counted as being “good” anymore. Her selfishness had been the reason for so many heartaches. No matter how often she blamed the Goddesses, perhaps it was time she took responsibility for the death and loss she’d brought to Faerie.
“I’m sorry for whatever you’re going through,” Caden said, surprising Thea out of her thoughts. She didn’t know what to say to that. Apparently her pain was obvious, but how could she even begin to tell him the grief she suffered? And if she told him, would he realize he should stay away? She was cursed to lose every person she cared about, after all. “Adrian knows of grief. He is only trying to protect himself by pushing you away.”