Maris stepped forward, the black leather sticking to her damp skin. She felt clumsy, too aware of every slip of her boots on the gravel, every awkward shuffle of her feet.
Corin watched her like a hawk. “You stand like your asking to be knocked down,” he snapped, moving behind her to shove her shoulders into position. “Balance or you’ll be dead.”
Her face burned with humiliation, but she forced herself to try.
The first pass was a disaster. She tripped over her own feet, the dagger nearly flying out of her hands. Laughter sparked from the line of watching soldiers, and even Lady Astrielle smirked behind one red-painted nail.
Maris bit her lip, tasting blood, and tried again.
Between drills she often glanced to Kael but he had not moved.
He stood on the platform, eyes following her every move with that same frigid focus. But Maris saw something else there too, a faint, simmering worry, quickly masked.
Corin corrected her again, this time less gently, pressing the edge of the dagger against her arm until she flinched back in instinct.
“Better,” Corin said, merciless.
Maris’s knuckles burned, her boots scuffed with gravel dust, but she refused to fall.
I will not break, she thought savagely, lifting the dagger again.
She lunged. Clumsy, yes, but stronger than before.
Corin’s scarred mouth curved, almost impressed.
Kael’s gaze lingered, heavy as a winter night.
And somewhere beyond the cold walls, the storm that had haunted Achyron for centuries rumbled, as if the gods themselves watched and wondered.
-Kael-
Kael stood on the platform above the practice yard, arms folded, his cloak now hanging still despite the thin morning wind. The court might have thought him made of ice, unmoved by the girl below, but every cell of his being was caught in a taut, impossible snare. Maris.
He tried the name on his tongue in silence, tasting it the way a wolf might taste fresh blood. She moved clumsily in the ring Valea had marked for her, raw and untested,the leathers clinging to her too-slight frame with every awkward shift. Those pale green eyes, haloed with silver starbursts, glimmered every time she risked a look toward him. And every time, Kael felt something unwelcome, stirring inside the place where his heart should have been.
She was small, breakable, his mind mocked him, remembering the half-sob she’d uttered the night he brought her from Eryndor. Yet now somehow flames ignited beneath her glaze, refusing to break no matter how Valea, Corin, or Riven snapped at her.
He should have been pleased to see his most loyal warriors grind her down, to break her and rebuild her into something worthy of surviving his kingdom. That was why he had ordered it. That was what any King should do. But when Riven shoved her, when Corin let the practice blade bite too close to her skin, rage burned under his ribs. His nightbound instincts coiled in the dark of his bones, fangs itched in his gums, the monster in him screaming that no one should touch her like that.
Mine.
He chose the word originally to make a point to the court, that she was untouchable. But now he felt the word gaining new meaning — it was primal. Terrifying. And all too easy.
He could see Astrielle, her copper hair catching the sickly torchlight, watching Maris with a predatory glint. Astrielle wanted him, he knew it. Hell everyone knew it. She had been raised to be the pretty consort for a king, a picture of courtly grace and predatory power. He was well aware that Astrielle would gut Maris given half a chance.
That possessive twist in his gut surged again, hot and lethal.
He had claimed Maris in front of the court. That meant no one, not even Astrielle with all her knives and poisons, had the right to destroy her. No one but me, he thought grimly.
He watched as Maris stumbled through another drill, teeth gritted, hands scraped bloody, but refusing to collapse. The stubborn spark in her made him want to laugh, to snarl, to bend at her whim.
He had known humans to break within hours in his court but she had survived a night in the King’s hall, faced nightmare courtiers, and now fought on bleeding feet without crying for mercy.
You will be magnificent, he thought, a savage thrill twisting through him.If you survive.
Kael’s gaze flicked to Corin, whose scarred mouth had curved in a hint of grudging approval. Valea, for her part, watched Maris like a cat toying with a mouse. He knew their game, push her to the edge, see if she’d fly or fall.
That is the only way we survive the terrors of the continent, Kael reminded himself.
