I move through warming up, surprised when she pushes away from the wall and joins me. Where my intent is to get through them as fast as possible so we can move on to the actual lesson, Myla’s movements are calculated. Precise. It’s less a person going through motions that they’ve done hundreds of times before and more like she’sembodyingthem. Feeling what it is to be in each stance before moving on to the next.
As her muscles flex beneath her black leathers, I find myself utterly transfixed by her strength. By the way she moves. Her presence has always pulled from me feelings of not quitejealousybut a wish thatIcould be looked upon with the same reverence that I was sure others gave her. Because to look at Myla is to recognize that beauty and power can be combined in a way that is more alluring than any siren song.
Refocusing myself, I get through the rest of the warm-ups with my gaze on the ground, and then Myla instructs me to grab my dagger.
The bone hilt is cool in my hand, and I remember what she had said about this weapon. How her father had been given it as a gift from the mage queen who put up the Spell. That it had then been lost with her brother, a male who had been dragged into the sea by one of my kind. It makes sense why she loathes the sirens as strongly as she does.
My mother’s tales of her experience during that time always focus on what others had done to her and what she lost as a result. But I know that she sifts through details like one lets sand trickle between their fingers. What actually happened to start The War of Five Kingdoms might only ever be known to those who were there, but as my mother prepares to infiltrate the Mortal Kingdom using her control over King Dolian and the magic at Rhea’s fingertips, I can’t help but wonder if we are about to learn the truths of war all over again.
“Your mind is elsewhere.” Myla’s voice cleaves through my thoughts.
“Sorry. It was a long night.” I pull my guard up in front of my body, my dagger held in my right hand.
“Have you had much experience fighting someone larger than you?” she asks as she looks over my form.
“I don’t have much experience fighting anyone at all.” Lore had been the true test of that, and I had almost failed. If not for the element of surprise on my side, I would have. Lore would have had her way with me, and I would have been—
“Aria.”
I blink and give Myla my attention again. She arches a dark brow, but I ignore her unasked question. She doesn’tcarewhy my mind keeps wandering off other than the fact that it interrupts our lessons.
“For opponents bigger than you, you’re going to have to leverage their size against them. I’m not sure how the dynamic will work beneath the water, but you have to force them to get closer to you, and then you need to be quick and precise with your own attacks.” She tells me how to angle my stance and then fakes an attack at me, her movements slow as she talks through them.
I don’t want to move through these lessons in slow hypotheticals anymore. I need real world application, and Myla is the perfect teacher for that because she won’t think like a siren. The benefit to her teaching me is that her moves are unexpected. They might not translate perfectly under the water, but I will takeanyadvantage that I can.
“I want you to attack me for real,” I blurt out in the middle of Myla speaking.
She snaps her mouth closed and draws back the arm fake-swinging a dagger in my direction. “Why?”
It’s my turn to send her an arch look. “I would have thought you’d be jumping for joy at the opportunity to attack me. The magic won’t hold you at fault for injuring me if I’m the one who asked for it, right?” I turn around so that she is at my back, my heart pounding against my chest. “Attack me.”
Myla chuckles, the noise skating over my skin. “I don’t think you want that.”
“I do,” I rasp, lifting my dagger out in front of me. “I need to learn how to handle the element of surprise, or this will never work.”
Silence ticks by for a few heartbeats before she drawls, “This being?”
I open my mouth to answer, but all that comes out is awhooshof breath when my back is pulled into Myla’s front, her dagger pointed at my throat.Fuck.
“Is this what you wanted?” she taunts, breath stirring the strands of hair by my ear. The arm not holding the blade is banded around my front, reaching over one shoulder and stretching across and down my body so her fingers press into the tunic near my hip.
I’m not fully restrained, not even without the use of my arms, but the panic of being confined still surges within me. With my chest heaving, I stand there motionless. Frozen. The heat at my back is not that of the fae trying to teach me but the siren trying toownme.
“You have to fight back, Aria,” she says, but her voice is distorted. Muffled as the past clashes with the present in my head.
Come on, Aria, you and I both know that this is what you want.That was what Lore had said to me the last time I had let her into my room. The last time I had given her access to my body without so much as a word of protest.
A sound caught between a whimper and a growl erupts from me as I bring the dagger up, attempting to slash at Myla’s arm. But she quickly abandons her hold on me to catch my wrist, pressing her thumb into the tendon there and forcing my hand open. The metal echoes loudly as the dagger falls to the ground, and in my panic, I send my elbow back to collide with Myla’s torso. Just as I had done with Lore.
Except I meet nothing but air.
Myla sidesteps, avoiding my hit, while keeping the tip of her blade hovering over my neck. Unable to spin to either side to escape her grasp completely, I try the second move I can think of and lift my leg, driving my heel into her shin. Myla laughs as she sends a kick of her own to my calf, forcing the leg to bend and sending my knee crashing into the stone below.
The anger that rises within me is potent—bitter. Growing my talons from my fingertips, I twist into the dagger and slash at her knee, forcing Myla to either let the blade cut me or take the hit to her leg. She chooses the latter, cursing as the dagger disappears and she jumps back. Even with the extra move, she still manages to get a surface-level scrape, just enough to cut through the fabric of her pants. I breathe through gritted teeth as I grab the dagger again and stand. Myla takes one look at me and readies herself, but I’m already lunging in her direction. There is no encouragement, no feedback, nothing at all as Myla blocks each swipe of my blade.
My song builds at the base of my throat, a scream of frustration tainted with it. Myla’s eyes widen, and perhaps it’s the fear that I’ll use my magic on her again that quickens her movements because between one breath and the next, I’m no longer attacking her. Faster than I can comprehend, my back is against the wall and the hand holding the dagger is pinned above my head. I yelp at the pain that tugs on the gashes in my arm, Myla immediately stepping back.
“Did I hurt you?” she asks, and gods, I must be hallucinating because I swear I hearconcernin her voice.
