Then why was I even doing this exercise? If he knew how my mind worked, then he knew that the thing I wanted more than anything in the world was to?—
“I know what you want. And if it were in my power to give it to you, I would.”
How was I supposed to respond to that? He said it more like a threat than an offer.
“Give… me… your… hands.”
I wanted to disobey out of spite. But as much as I distrusted him, if there was anyone who could teach me to control my power, it was the one who had originated it. If I had any chance at besting Maura—finding out what she was up to and breaking her unholy alliance with the fae king, then I needed to find the one thing that had always eluded me. Control.
The ice dagger disappeared, drawn back inside of me with the same power that had created it from nothing but my own will. I opened my hands and set my palms on his.
His hands were larger than mine, of course. But where Garrick’s hands were thick and powerful, the Dark God’s were elegant, each finger just a fraction longer than it should have been. Not quite enough to look out of proportion, but impossible to ignore. He was not human or fae. He was something else. Other. More.
He slid his palms up the back of my hands, past my wrists and my Lifebind, until his forearms cradled mine. Those long, confident fingers pressed lightly into my skin, a silent reminder to follow his command.
I was the one to lick my lips this time. They’d gone suddenly and inexplicably dry.
He squeezed my hands again, slightly harder.
I closed my eyes, just as Tomin had taught me. This was control, too, I told myself. Summoning the full torrent of my power was not so different from suppressing it. Except I’d been trying to do the latter for three hundred and seventy-seven years. Never once had I attempted to reach all the way to the bottom of those frosty depths.
Tomin had taught me to breathe. I tried to find something to anchor myself to in this physical space. The bed beneath my crossed legs was too soft. That left one option, unsavory as it was. I counted the places where the Dark God’s fingers pressed into the bare skin of my forearms.
Inhale. Block out the sound of the fire crackling in the hearth and the slight rattle of the window where Isanara had knocked the pane off-kilter with her impatient head-butting. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Exhale. Let go of the lingering scent of ash in the air and the feeling of rejection and longing it summoned. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
Focus on the power.
I visualized the ice within my chest. If I plunged that ice dagger between my breasts, there might truly be one in place of my heart. It no longer beat. Was the organ still there, dead and atrophied? Or had it frozen and then shattered, becoming one of the tiny shards that I wielded against the world?
“Your heart is immaterial to this exercise.”
So helpful.
“Your power does not take a physical form within you. You have blood and working organs just like a living being.”
Except that it was the power that kept the blood flowing and those organs working. And my power had always felt physical. Real. I swore at times I could feel the shards of ice moving through my bloodstream. I certainly felt the heaviness in my chest where I’d tried to encase any part of myself capable of feeling in ice.
“You are inseparable from your power.”
More cryptic and unhelpful answers.
“Do something worthy of commentary, and I will provide it.”
Cold slid down my spine. It spread through my body and climbed my cheeks the way that heat might in a normal person. A human. Someone living. It did not matter if the tiny crystals were only in my mind. I felt them.
“Anger has always been a reliable trigger for you.”
I hated that he said it with such authority. Before Balar Shan, I’d seen him exactly twice in four centuries of existence. But I’d felt him and invoked him more times than I could count. Had every instance been an invitation into my consciousness?
It was not fair. Everything had been taken from me. My mother died, leaving me with the shambles of a family. My father’s obsession with the fae, his quest to loot their riches for himself, had killed my sister Janessa. The diadem. The fae queen had worn it in the gorge. Had the fae not done enough, takenenough? Their hunger for power had brought down the curse from the gods. My mother might have lived, in a world where a healer with magic could have been called. Instead, the fae hoarded the remnants of their magic here in Balar Shan.
The frost was not just in my blood. It covered my skin. The whorls that appeared when I was close to losing control… the painted swirls of glowing, sparkling blue across my hands and forearms. I couldn’t see my chest. But the color around my eyes shifted. They’d taken over my face, this power that I’d never wanted.
Even my afterlife was not my own. Resurrected by the witches. I became an abomination. I was not good. I’d never been good. But when I awoke in the center of a pentagram, the choice had been taken from me forever.
The power swelled. Cold poured out of me. The Dark God held me tighter, his fingertips digging into my skin to the point of pain.
