“No. There are so very few who know the truth of what happened that night. I’ve pieced things together over time. Most don’t want to look at it, don’t want to see, don’t want to aggravate Valnea. I don’t really care. I’d wanted the truth, so I dug deeper than most. I know what happened.”
“How I failed?”
“You made a mistake, a bad one, so what? You learn from it and move on, but you’re not moving on. You’re stuck in that night, in that place. And you’re denying yourself and my granddaughter something you both want in the name of what? Duty?” She stuck out her tongue.
“Ever stop to think maybe you would have failed even if you’d been on duty?” she asked. No… no I hadn’t. “Maybe it was an unwinnable event, they happen. We have to accept it, learn from it.”
“I have learned. Learned not to forsake my duty.”
“No…” She sighed heavily. “You haven’t learned a damned thing. Or rather, you’ve learned the wrong damned thing.”
“Oh, and what’s that?”
She eyed me. “I’m so very tempted to tell you, and I would, if I thought you’d believe me or it would do any good. But you won’t believe me, not yet, not now. You’ll have to figure it out yourself for it to have any meaning.”
I growled at her again.
She waved it off and left. “Back to your post, little guard dragon, since that’s what you’ve made yourself. You could be so much more…”
And she was gone.
What had she meant?
What was thewrong thingI’d learned?
I shook it off. Olinara had always been an infuriatingwoman. I’d keep doing what was right, protecting Izzy. That was my duty, no matter what my heart or my body might want.
No matter how much it hurt to see her with others.
No matter how good it had been to see her in bliss and know some tiny part of that was for me.
I sighed heavily, taking up my position outside her room once more.
I could never let Izzy down the way I had with Talmarion and Mynrial. I swore I’d never let that happen again.
Even as some part of me wondered what Olinara had been talking about. Maybe there was a way I could do my dutyandbe with Izzy?
No…
It was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
IZZY
I rosefeeling refreshed and a little more hopeful that this final day of training might be enough to save Myel tonight.
I started the day with enchantments. This, thankfully, wasn’t hard to learn. I didn’t know why some magic felt far more natural to me than others, but simply putting someone to sleep, that didn’t take long to master. Like Lhorine had said, it was like a binding, but far less invasive and intense. I had a good grasp on that after about an hour and a half, then moved on to transmutation.
This required a change of instructors since my grandmother was better with transmutation than Lhorine. I had to hope Olinara had some miracle way of describing transmutation that made it make sense, like she had with my nymph form.
“Now… I can’t use earth magic,” Olinara began. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t move earth.” She focused on her hand and I watched as her fist turned from flesh to diamond.
It didn’t look comfortable. Granma Oli winced andgrimaced as she finished. Then she dropped to one knee and punched the floor so hard stone bits went flying.
Holy crap-buckets!
Olinara rose and hissed as she returned her hand to normal.
