“I can’t,” I tell her helplessly. Maybe Anrai’s right. Without my water magic, I am no use to anyone.
“You can. Power is attracted to strong emotions. For once in your life, let yourselffeel.Don’t push it down, don’t dampen its veracity. Don’t pretend to be less than you are.Feel.Open yourself and feed your magic with it and in return, it will sustain you.”
Feel.
My entire life has conditioned me that emotion is wrong. That feeling too deeply will cause pain; that they are safer packaged away in a neat corner of my mind, never to be analyzed and certainly never to be languished in. I focus on Anrai’s face. On the handsome sharpness of its lines and those soft lips twisted into an arrogant sneer, and instead of forcing my emotions down, I let them out.
Anrai turns to me, his pale gaze unreadable. Every ugly and tender thing that has been scratching to get out leaps forth, and suddenly, myotheris there. It sings beneath my skin and crashes against my lungs, renewed and luscious. Just as Aggie says, it satiates me in return. I feel strong and new, and my mind is clear and sharp as I release all of it at the target of my emotions.
All the water from the bucket leaps up and splashes directly into Anrai’s face.
For a moment, everyone is completely silent. Rivulets of water stream from his sodden hair as he stares at me, his face terrifying in its dispassionate affect. He studies me as he would a stranger, no more important than a beetle crossing his footpath.
I stare back, every emotion I liberated still swirling freely. And I let him see it; all the pleasure and pain and confusion andlifehe has wrought, because it’s taken an entire lifetime and a journey across the continent for me to realize that emotions have power. They are not to be feared or shied away from, trampled or constrained. They are to be embraced and fed, nurtured and wielded, until they are shining and beautiful.
Max lets out a guffaw of laughter and then clamps her hand over her mouth, her eyes darting between the two of us. But I don’t take my eyes off Anrai. Because with the claiming of my power, I have also realized something else—I used to think hatred was the adverse reaction to caring, something equally strong, but it isn’t. It is no emotion at all that is affection’s opposite. More heartrending than hatred, indifference is what hollows you out and leaves you cold.
Anrai doesn’t bother to wipe his face. Water streams behind him as he turns from me and mounts his horse. With a face as impassible as the walls of Yen Girene, he gallops away.
* * *
Shaw
I slice my dagger through the training bag, then whirl, landing a kick so hard the metal fastening it to the ceiling reverberates with a loud echo. Already moving, I unsheathe my daggers. They land with a satisfyingthump, thump, thump,each sprouting from the center of the target like morose blooms.
I throw myself back at the bag and though my unwrapped knuckles sing with the force of my strikes, it does nothing to quell the burning hole inside me. It flames, aching with the need for blood; or something else I don’t dare name. I strike again and the bag comes loose from its chain. It falls to the floor listlessly.
For an absurd moment, I consider kicking it once more as punishment for its inadequacy when the far door to the training room opens. Calloway saunters in, glaring at me insidiously with red rimmed eyes. “There are people trying to sleep!” he barks, closing the door behind him. He squints at the bright windows as if they’ve personally offended him.
“It’s midday,” I reply, turning my back to collect my knives. “Should we all tip toe around because you drank too much?”
“Too much is debatable,” he scuffles across the floor as if lifting his feet would require too much concentration, “I drank the perfect amount. It would just seem that my head isn’t as fun as the rest of me.”
I let another knife fly, but before it even leaves my fingers, I know it will miss. Knife throwing is like walking the edge of a fine blade. It isn’t something that can be achieved by rudimentary strength, requiring instead an exact amount of finesse and a precise amount of pressure. Normally, my anger hones my concentration into something deadly, but today it has been blunted into something powerful but useless.
Calloway straightens, the vestiges of his overindulgence disappearing suddenly. He eyes me shrewdly. “A sparring match to take the edge off this headache? Perhaps I need to sweat it out.”
I see it for what it is—an offer to temper my aggression. It’s one of Cal’s many talents, the ability to sense what someone needs without ever having to be told. When Denver first brought him to the manor, all knees and elbows and a mop of copper hair, I was sullen and angry. I rarely spoke, least of all to him. I’d never been around other children before and barely knew how to behave like one myself. But Cal, persistent and kind and seemingly immune to my nastiness, came to this very gym every day. He knew nothing of fighting at the time, but he came anyway.
Every morning at dawn, I would wake up and go through the training exercises that had been drilled into me by my father. It became a compulsive ritual, as if completing them would somehow make up for every other way I failed him. Some days, Cal would sit and watch in silence. Other times, he’d tell stories of his childhood. Of his parents’ fields and his sisters’ smiles. Even when I told him to leave, he sat, steadfast and cheerful, as if he somehow knew I needed his presence, though I didn’t know it myself.
Finally, after months of snarling and glaring, I gave in and asked if he wanted to learn.
I nod gratefully at my friend.
“No knives, though. I may still be seeing double, and I wouldn’t want to be held responsible for marring that beautiful face,” he says with a cheeky grin.
I roll my eyes and wrap my knuckles in strips of fabric. I wait for him to do the same and then we move to the mat in the center of the room. “Your count,” he says lazily, but I am already leaping for him.
He blocks my first blow and responds with a sharp right hook. His fist connects to my jaw with acrackand my teeth sing as I duck beneath his next jab, sweeping my legs out to unbalance him. He leaps deftly to the side and throws another punch, this one connecting with my ribs.
My breath shoots out of me as I abandon all pretense of a sophisticated sparring match and tackle him to the ground. Cal has never been able to precisely match me in skill, but in the years since I began training him, he’s become a formidable opponent, even in the depths of a hangover. And thank the gods for that, because the abyss roars its approval at the connection of flesh on flesh. My blood rushes through me in a heated whirlwind and for a moment, my mind is blissfully devoid of everything but the most primal parts of myself. Strike, deflect, move.
We scrabble until our breaths come in ragged puffs. Blood streams from my nose and Cal’s right eye has begun to swell, but when he smiles, I smile back. Nothing has been solved, but I no longer feel as though jagged pieces of myself are breaking through my skin.
Cal collapses on the mat, resting his hands on his chest as his breathing evens. I lay next to him, staring up at the exposed wood beams. For a moment, it feels like we’re both fifteen again.
“You gonna tell me what, exactly, that punching bag did to you?” his voice is teasing, but when I roll my head toward him, his eyes are serious.
