She let the blade drop to her side. “I don’t know what to believe,” she replied and tried to ignore the way her stomach squirmed when she said it. “Anyway, it seems far more likely that I just have a good teacher.”
But even the compliment wasn’t enough to deter Allaster, who appeared to be taking the sword’s revelation as some sign of a personal failing. “I’m not the only one who thinks it,” he insisted. “May’s said more than once that you were fated to come here. I said it was just good old-fashioned politics.”
May had implied the same to Kasira on occasion, suggesting it was her destiny to join the Library, but Kasira had no love for fate or what it insinuated. Was it fate that she had been cast into a life on the streets? Fate that she had watched Loraya die so brutally? Fate that had seen her locked in a space nearly too small to stand in for what had felt like a lifetime?
No. She had no use for empty platitudes like fate.
“It took me weeks to teleport successfully for the first time,” Allaster said wistfully. “I was aiming for the main library and ended up in the Eyrie with a K class creature that would have killed me if Mora hadn’t found me so quickly.”
“Ididteleport myself a hundred feet up in the air.”
“On your first try.” He shook his head ruefully. “I don’t know why the magic responds to you the way it does, but … Well, I owe you an apology, Eirlana.”
There it was again—that name. It had meant nothing to her at first; now she couldn’t bear the sound of it. Why did it make her feel so hollow?
“You’ve proven yourself time and time again, and the Library has made itself quite clear,” Allaster continued, his voice soft in a way shehad never heard it before. And though the only light came from the ring of windows far above them, it caught in his eyes with a strange radiance, like the silver glow of a balestone.
A distant thought pulled at her, a warning, but she ignored it as he said, “Fate or luck or simple chance, I’m sorry I doubted you.”
Had the space between them always been so narrow, or had he moved? Why did she care where he stood anyway? Her hand curled tighter around the hilt of the sword, and she offered him an effortless smile that took all the acting aptitude she had. “Finally realized how incredible I am, have you?”
His head tilted, one corner of his lips quirking up. “Let’s see what that blade can really do.”
Several hours later, the arena walls were scarred and gouged and partially crumbling, but Kasira could control the strength of the energy arcs the sword released and aim them with relative precision. They soon discovered the relic didn’t have an endless supply of magic. She could only discharge the arc of energy a few times before the edge refused to glow, and she had to wait for it to recharge.
“That blade is physically impossible.” Allaster grunted as he took the force of it on the limb of his bow. They had been using the time in between recharges to spar. “You shouldn’t be able to swing it that fast.”
“Getting slow in your old age?” she teased.
In a blur of movement, Allaster swung behind her and seized the wrist of her empty hand, pinning it behind her back. Just like that, he had her trapped against his chest, his other arm about her throat in a careful caress.
His breath was warm against her neck as he murmured, “You were saying?”
Dismissing the sword, she hooked her leg behind his knee and threw her weight back, plunging them to the ground in a heap of sweat and limbs.
He groaned, dropping his head to the floor. “That was unnecessary.”
Rolling to her feet, she dusted off her uniform. “I win.”
She offered Allaster a hand and he took it, pulling himself up until they were chest to chest, close enough that she could see the faintfreckles across the bridge of his nose, feel the cool touch of his rings against her skin. She had the sudden, inane desire to run her thumb along the curve of his parted lips.
Instead she turned his hand, pressing a finger to one ring. She expected him to snatch his hand away. When he didn’t, letting it rest in her palm, their nearness took on a new weight. She looked up into his eyes, still heated from the fight, and lost the words gathering on her tongue. She’d known she had garnered Allaster’s trust, known he no longer saw her as an interloper.
But the way he was looking at her now—it was more than that.
She ought to pull away or else turn it to her advantage. Ought to use every little piece of him he gave her. But in that moment, she didn’t trust herself to speak.
“You asked about the rings …” Allaster began, almost as if he were summoning the words from the very depths of him. “They’re more than decoration. They’re a part of something much larger. I—”
“Allaster?” May’s voice rang through the arena, and the two of them shot apart. The First Mage stood in the entrance, a half smile on her lips that faded when she said, “Ambassador Vera is here.”
The heat in Kasira’s veins cooled into dismay. She had just passed an update to Vera through the new book. What was she doing here in person?
Kasira teleported with Allaster into the portal room, where the Kalthos door was lit. All traces of their earlier moment had faded, and she watched his expression transform into steel before he opened the door.
Ambassador Vera entered with two palace guards at her back, but it was the black-clad figure trailing them that immobilized Kasira like a pinned beast.
A fiendish grin spread across Commander Dessen’s lips. “Hello, Kasira.”
