“Are you going to teach me or what?” I snapped.
His grin was almost feral as he began prowling around me.
“Sitting around in meditation clearly isn’t working,” he drawled. “With the avalanche, I presume you were able to accessthe power due to it being a near death experience. But what occurred in the Underground? What triggered your use of the darkness?”
I swallowed, a clear memory of Darius crushed beneath half a ton of fallen rock pressing against my consciousness. I cleared my throat and hesitated.Gryfonhad strolled all the way around me and now paused before me, brow raised and waiting for an explanation.
“It was Darius,” I said, doing my best to maintain my composure at the memory. “He was—there was a rock slide and he was crushed. We couldn’t get him out and I—I don’t really remember what I did but I just…I thought I was going to lose him. One minute I’m on my knees, screaming, and the next there’s a hole blown through the wall and you’re there and then…well, I don’t remember much after that.”
“Near death once again,” he responded with a nod, stroking his chin in thought. “Once yours and onceanother’s. Interesting.”
“I’m so glad my trauma has provided a thought-provoking exercise for you,” I snapped.
He only grinned back at me.
“Your trigger is desperation,” he decided. “You only call the dark as a last resort. We have to change that.”
“And how do you intend to—” I started.
I hadn’t even finished my sentence when a blade went spinning through the air, coming so close to me that it nicked my left ear as it passed. I hissed, raising a hand to my ear which came away with a trickle of blood. Stunned, I faced him once more with an open mouth and wide eyes.
He'd already drawn another dagger and was flipping it in the air, catching it by the hilt again and again. He raised a brow.
“You expect me to believe you would kill me?” I snapped, wiping the blood on my shirt. “You need me.”
“Not if you can’t call the dark,” he replied easily, flipping the dagger once more.
My gaze narrowed and I growled, actuallygrowled,at the overconfident man standing before me.
“This is ridiculous,” I said, throwing my hands up into the air.
“This is how I train,” he answered. “Take it or leave it. It makes no difference to me.”
With that, he sheathed the blade at his side and turned, making his way back across the sand toward camp. I watched him go for a moment, tempted to allow his departure. But I needed him.Primahad claimed he was the best one to teach me and, though I was seriously beginning to doubt her saintly judgment, I truly had no other options. I needed to call the dark. If I was ever going to face theGeist, if I ever found myself up against the gods who seemed set on my capture or execution, one couldn’t be sure, I needed to be able to access this magic they so feared.
“Fine,” I called out to him.
He hesitated before turning slowly to face me. That feral grin returned to his lips as he pulled his dagger slowly from its sheath once more.
“Good,” he replied evenly, eyes darkening as they narrowed upon me. “Now, run.”
The dagger flew.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dante
“The Vipers are even madder than the lunatic leading Avus. We are, in the surest sense of the word, doomed.”
— A Letter from Julian, Heir of House Lynx, to his lover, Caecilia of the House of Alosia
We camped in a cave not far from the arenas. I tried to argue against the position. It seemed far too close to an area the Geist were known to visit. But Ksenia and Roman ignored my concerns, claiming the Geist wouldn’t stray from their arenas even a foot or two off the path. They were aware of the threat the Zver and their riders posed and were content to force their conscripted soldiers from Sanctuary and the human cities to fight their battles for them. Even if theydidsee us,Kseniaclaimed, Phantom would keep them from doing any more than reporting it to one of their superior officers and, by then, we would be long gone anyway.
So we built a fire and roasted some desert mice that Phantom andKseniahad been able to hunt in the dying light of the afternoon sun. It wasn’t a pleasant taste, the meat. It was greasy and sour and there was far too little of it, but it was what we hadin this wasteland and so it would have to do. I didn't complain, though Roman was glaring at me as though that was precisely what he expected me to do. I simply ate my portion and laid down to rest.
In the morning, I emerged to the raucous sounds of a full arena and the quick packing of my companions.
“What is it?” I asked, blinking groggily in the morning haze asKseniacursed before ripping my sleeping roll right out from under me.
