I shook my head. “Teach me more about nullification.”
“Reyla.” He dragged his fingers through his hair, messing it up. “We can continue tomorrow night.”
“No,” I growled. “Now.”
He stalked away from me and turned back, and the pain in his eyes lashed through me. But his shoulders twitched, and his face muscles loosened. “Alright. Magic carries weight. You’ve already felt it, pulled it in to control shadows. But there's more to this than scooping up what's floating around you. To nullify another's spell, you'll need to find the wisps of power with a negative cast. They crackle like static, so I’ve read. You need to reach into the space they’ve filled with their power and say, ‘This belongs to me.’ It’s not enough to block the person’s spell. You have to reject its existence entirely. Without hesitation. Without mercy. Your will must be stronger than theirs or it could eviscerate you. So start there. Close your eyes and find that elusive power—if you can.”
He didn’t taunt me, but he didn’t hide the skepticism in his voice. I couldn’t blame him. While I was grateful that I’d been gifted with this skill, I sensed it might be a very long time before I could do more than recognize the charge, let alone harness it in time to break someone else’s spell before it killed me.
Lorant crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes following meas I sank onto the cold, uneven stone floor, bracing my back against the wall. Moonlight danced along the edges of his sharp features, making him look more like a statue than a man. “You understand what you're looking for?”
I nodded, pushing a breath out. “Power that feels wrong.”
“Not only wrong, but foreign. As though it doesn’t belong in the fabric of our world, though it must.”
“If night never gave way to darkness and darkness to light, it would be a stark world.” I felt the need to point that out.
He grunted. “As you've discovered, power feels fluid, like water rippling over stone. This will be sharp, jagged. A disruption.”
Crossing the short distance between us, he squatted in front of me, balancing his weight too gracefully for a man of his size.
His gaze locked onto mine. “You have to feel it. Not with your hands, not even with your senses. It’s deeper than that. Tap into the part of you that stirs when you pull shadows or light the air on fire. Do that, and you’ll start to recognize its texture.” He paused, his voice softening. “When you recognize it, grab onto it and find a way to control it before it can crush you.”
“Comforting.”
His lips jerked up on the corners. “Close your eyes. I'll be right here with you.”
With the world blocked off, I focused on the feel of the room. The faint hum of power in the air. The heat of my skin. The cool press of the stone floor seeping through my leathers and creeping up my spine.
“Can you see it, feel it?” Lorant’s voice wrapped around me.
“How do we know this kind of power is here?”
“It's everywhere. Maybe not as potent as the power you've used already. From what I've read, this will feel more like a whisper than a roar.”
I let my mind's eye send out feelers, searching. The power I'duse to work with shadows pulsed in the periphery of my vision, and I realized with a start that it was purple. All kinds of purple, actually, from the palest lavender to the darkest purple that was nearly blood red. And on the edges of the misty purple…There.Gold threaded through with silver. Wisps of it blasting around. In a sense, it was like the lightning I was only starting to command.
Come to me,I told it.
It ignored me. Not only that, but it also flung itself out the window, disappearing from view.
“Feel for it,” he said. “Imagine stepping into shallow water. Explore without splashing.”
“This feels like trying to catch a nyxin pup with one hand and no bait. It ran away.”
“You saw it, then.”
I almost opened my eyes because I wanted to see the pride on his face I could hear in his voice.
“Usebothhands,” he said. “And your wit.”
I saw nothing.
Frustration tried to coil inside me, but I shoved it down before it could begin. If Lorant could stare death in the face every night and still hold onto his sanity, I could sit on this floor and fumble for elusive power without giving in to doubt.
“Take it slowly. If I know you, you’re trying too hard to find it.” His boots scraped against the stone as he swiveled to sit beside me. “Try calling to it. Urge it come to you instead of giving chase.”
“Any tips on what words to use to call it to me?”
