“Hold still.” He was already reaching for my leg, fingers deft as he wrapped the first sheath around my thigh. Professional. Efficient. Nothing about the touch lingered longer than necessary.
He secured the second blade to my other thigh, adjusting the straps until they sat perfectly balanced. When he stood, there was satisfaction in his expression, the kind an artist got when finishing a piece.
“Moonsilver is rare even in Nyxaria,” he said, brushing off his hands. “The blades will learn how you fight. Flow with you over time. Adapt to your movement, your rhythm.” His mouth curved into that familiar smirk. “They’ll be as vicious as you are within a month.”
I flexed my leg, testing the weight. The daggers sat against my thighs like they’d always been there. Like they belonged.
Like Navaire’s blades used to.
The ache in my chest grew, but I pushed it down. Buried it deep where it couldn’t touch me.
“Thank you,” I said, and meant it more than I wanted to.
“Don’t mention it. Literally. If Varyth asks where you got them, I was never here.”
“Obviously.”
He started walking again, expecting me to follow. I did.
“Now then,” he said, that playful edge returning to his voice as we moved deeper into the Twilight Market. “Properly armed and dangerous. We can go find some real trouble.”
I touched the hilt of one dagger, felt the faint hum resonating through the metal.
“Lead the way.”
15
The training yard had become my personal hell of smoke and uncontrolled destruction, where the black fire lived like a rabid animal I couldn’t cage or kill. A week of dawn sessions with Shaelith and Brynelle had left me bruised, exhausted, and no closer to understanding the inferno that wanted to devour everything I touched.
“Stop,” Shaelith barked as another wave of shadow fire erupted from my hands, turning three practice dummies to ash and leaving scorch marks across the stone. “You’re fighting it like it’s the enemy.”
“Itisthe enemy,” I snarled, shaking out my hands as the flames finally died. My skin was unmarked, the fire never hurt me, but everything else in a ten-foot radius looked like it had been through a war zone. “It does what it wants, when it wants, and I’m just along for the fucking ride.”
Brynelle winced from her position well outside my blast radius, those whiskey eyes filled with sympathy. “Magic isn’t meant to be controlled, Isara. It’s meant to be partnered with.”
I wiped sweat from my brow, the flames dying to embers along my skin. “It’s like trying to have a conversation with a hurricane.”
“Most powerful magic is,” Shaelith said, sheathing the blade she’d been using to deflect my more wayward strikes. “The trick is learning its language instead of imposing your own.”
A shadow fell across the training yard, and I didn’t need to look to know who it was. The air itself seemed to hold its breath when Varyth was near, magic recognising magic in a bone-deep way that made my teeth ache.
“Impressive,” he said, his voice carrying that familiar note of assessment. “Though you might want to work on not incinerating the furniture. We’re running low on practice dummies.”
I turned to face him, trying to ignore the way my pulse jumped at his presence. A week of careful avoidance had done nothing to dull the hard-edged awareness that flared whenever he was near. If anything, the distance had only made it worse, like a hunger that grew the longer it went unfed.
He looked as untouchable as ever, silver hair caught by the morning light, taking in the destruction I’d wrought with something that might have been pride. Or hunger. With Varyth, it was impossible to tell the difference.
“I’ll try to contain my devastating power to appropriate targets,” I snapped. “Wouldn’t want to accidentally level your pretty castle.”
His lips twitched. “How considerate.”
Shaelith cleared her throat.
Varyth ignored her. “Actually, I came to extend an invitation.”
“An invitation?” I raised an eyebrow.
“There’s a situation developing at the western border. Nothing dangerous,” he added quickly, probably catching theway my entire body went rigid. “A territorial dispute with one of the smaller courts. I’m riding out to handle the negotiations personally.”
