His throat constricted as he swallowed. “Yes.” Cullen’s voice had gone deep and thick.
Eira placed her hands lightly on his. Without warning, his fingers pressed slightly into hers. Her whole body felt like it was under pressure. Being squeezed. Their stare remained locked, intense.
He leaned forward slightly. Eira didn’t move away. All she wanted was to collapse the space between them. Was he testing her? Challenging her will?
Eira closed her eyes, both to focus and to avoid the intense stare he was still giving her. Reaching out with her powers, Eira enveloped him in magic. She held him in a way that she’d never tried to hold anyone before. Every beat of his heart thrummed against her, as though it was her own.
They stayed, as still as statues, long past the points of aching muscles and magical fatigue. She continued working to manipulate his channel. But even after Eira had exhausted herself, she lingered. And so did he.
Skin to skin. Slightly quivering. Neither moving away.
They repeated the process the next day. This time Cullen levitated a quill as it was easier to keep afloat than his shoe, making it so he could do their tests for longer. Unfortunately, because it was less exertion for him, Eira had to focus even harder to sense his magic.
Doing it with her eyes closed and touching him was definitely the easiest route, so Eira started there. Somehow, the buzzing tension that had been there the previous day was gone, asif it had never happened in the first place. Her first success came after the first hour. There was a thrumming across her awareness—a distinct hum of magic rippling through the void she’d created in her mind.
“Raise the quill higher,” Eira requested. She didn’t open her eyes but could feel the moment he obliged. There was a change in the vibration, but not felt with her senses. There wasn’t a shift in the air that made her hair blow in a particular direction. The temperature didn’t drop.
It was a spiritual more than a bodily sensation. A tingling that pulsedunderneathher skin. It was almost like a conversation—no, like listening to music. There were rhythms to Cullen’s magic that she could tune in to.
“Lower again.” The pulsing slowed back to its original pace. Eira’s lips curled into a smile.
“You have something,” Cullen said.
“I have your channel in my sight.” She spoke slowly and deliberately, not wanting to take too much of her focus away from his magic. It was slippery. Any second her attention could shift and she’d lose it entirely.
“What does it look like?” he asked eagerly.
Sheshhed him. “We’ll talk later, I’m focusing now.”
What she needed to do was find a way to magnify those ripples. But that meant changing them. Every magic she’d ever performed had always had a tangible element, something she physically manipulated. Well, except for the echoes. But those had come to her unbidden, completely naturally. Was there something she could glean from them? Some kind of innate ability she could harness?
Eira’s mind whirred as she tried to probe Cullen’s magic slowly, gently. She tried to envelop it, as she would do to objects she was trying to listen to for echoes. But that wasn’t successful.A channel wasn’t an object she could steep in magic. It was a well with an unknown source.
She bit her lip.
“You’re doing great,” he encouraged softly.
Eira relaxed with a slight smile. She really wasn’t. But his faith was heartwarming. Perhaps it’d be enough to actually accomplish something.
With any luck, they’d go into the first individual game with her having the ability to strengthen their magic on command.
19
Eira hadn’t been very lucky over the past few days, and it looked like that dearth of luck continued. She couldn’t manage to impact Cullen’s channel at all. The best she could do was lock onto it easier than she had before. But that hardly seemed like enough.
Alyss had made headway on weapons—though no further information could be gleaned from Qwint’s runes. Noelle was following Alyss’s model and practicing crafting weapons from flames. A wonder to behold, though Eira doubted how practical they were. Even Cullen said the sustained use of his power was an exercise for his magic.
Everyone had something to show for their work…but her.
“It’s going to be all right,” Cullen said, jarring her from her deprecating thoughts. They stood lined up before the arena. The music had already started and the roar of the crowd could be heard from within.
“Is it?” she asked genuinely, staring at her empty palms. Her fingers still tingled from touching him.Purely for learning magic, it had been nothing more. Something she’d insist to anyone, but mostly herself. “We still have no idea what the game is and I have nothing to offer for our days of practice.”
“You’re going to get it. You just need more time.”
“We don’t have more time. What if there will be something I could’ve helped you with and now I can’t?” Even if they weren’t lovers, she wanted to be useful to him—to all of her team.
“There’s three more games after this one.” Which would take place over the next week and a half. Not much time at all.
