“You’ve improved,” was his clipped evaluation. His arms were crossed, a tunic hiding all that naked flesh.
“Callen had me working with weapons before the attack. Are we going back to that?”
He assessed me from head to foot. “Maybe,” he finally decided. “We have a week or less until we’re in First. Right now, the most helpful thing to do is continue to work with your natural strengths, not try to introduce new ones.”
“I’m pretty sure my only natural strengths are running away and dodging the occasional weapon.”
“If those were your only natural strengths, you wouldn’t have survived against those mercenaries in the garden,” he argued. “Tell me how you did it.”
Until now, he hadn’t asked for the story. I’d figured he’d gotten it out of Stefano and wanted to save me the pain of recounting it.
“Ibarelysurvived it. I don’t think there’s much there to work from.”
“Tell me anyway.”
From his implacable tone, he wasn’t going to let me evade this conversation.
Ignoring the tightness in my chest, I recalled the events: how South had hidden in the plants, how I’d run so our attackers would split up, how I’d planned to just survive until Stefano was able to help me.
“And then what?” he pressed.
“They started throwing their daggers, and I realized running alone wouldn’t work. I got one of them to skid out on some wet soil, but the daggers kept coming. I knew I was going to die if I didn’t do something, so I searched and found…”
No.Ididn’t find. The living flame in my chest found it. Guided me toward that vine, planted the idea of what I needed to do. Skies,I’d completely forgotten that detail. That wild, strange, completely unnatural detail.
Harthon waited patiently.
Forcing the conversation out of my head, I stammered, “The knowledge of the path—it’s like this ball of heat in my chest. It…pulses sometimes, like it has a mind of its own. As I was scanning the garden for something to help me, I looked at some squash plants, and it did that pulsing thing. I just knew I needed to go there.”
I sounded like a mad woman, describing this out loud. But Harthon was listening like I spoke nothing but fact.
“I saw the vine, pulled it taut, and took one of them straight out. I don’t really know how the vine held…” I trailed off, because really, howhadthat flimsy vine held?
“More happened after that,” Harthon said.
I nodded. “One man was still pursuing me, so I ran back to Stefano. South took him by surprise, and then we were one-on-one. He got me on the ground at one point. I was ready to die.” I swallowed. “But that heat…it jerked me. I don’t know, it might have been my mind imagining it. It could have been some survival instinct. Whatever it was, it got me to move, and then you were there.”
Part of me expected the kernel of heat to jump or jolt right then and there. Acknowledge that I was talking about it. It didn’t. And I was officially going mad, becauseof course it didn’t.It wasn’t a walking, talking person.
“Did you ask the—” he struggled to find a word— “heatto do those things for you? Did you summon it like you summon the knowledge of the path?”
Gnawing at my lip, I shook my head. “I just didn’t want to die, and it helped me to survive.”
Harthon ran his hand across his jaw. “It sounds likeitdidn’t want you to die, either.”
“Maybe,” I allowed, even though it was strange to personify thisfeelinginside me.
“If it helped you, then it’s a tool. Given it literally saved your life, it’s a valuable tool. But a tool is only as useful as the training its wielder has.”
“It isn’t something I can call on. It just happened.”
“Have you tried calling on it in any situations where you felt threatened?”
“Not yet.”
At that, his uncertainty morphed into resolute confidence. “I think it’s time we try.”
How, exactly? “We’re on a ship full of your men. The storm is gone. There isn’t anything here to threaten me, so we can’t test your theory.”
