“I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings, Blair,” Ariyon added, seemingly surprised by her reaction as well.
“Oh, screw you both!” she snapped, spinning on her heels and stomping off.
Ariyon turned to me then, leaning forward to plant a kiss on my lips. “Happy?”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say that was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me, but… I felt like I was walking against a strong river current, fighting to make my way upstream.
But I nodded, giving him a weak smile.
The secondI stepped into class, Mrs. Bardot clapped her hands. “Don’t get too comfortable! We are having a practical lesson today on the field.”
I stopped myself from placing my backpack on the desk beside Ayden, and we all made our way outside.
“I can’t believe my aunt is giving you the Order of the Flame. Did you get it yet?” Ayden eyed my bag as if I were hiding it in there.
I chuckled as Eden stepped up beside us. “No, not yet. What is it, anyway?” I asked Ayden.
“It’s a gold pin, but not just that. It’s like the most badass medal any citizen outside the Royal Guard can get,” he answered.
I nodded, not really caring too much about the medal.
“Guess all that ass-kissing paid off,” Blair snarled as she passed us.
Anger flared inside me, but I tamped it down.
“Ignore her.” Eden waved Blair off as the bully ran to catch up with some of her friends. “She’s just jealous.”
True, and certainly more so because of what Ariyon had said to her this morning.
Mrs. Bardot spent the next few minutes instructing us on how to toss fireballs at a moving target. The moving target in this case was a metal dummy covered in armor, which was charred black from all the hits it had taken. His nickname was Sir Burns-a-Lot, and he was on a pully system that allowed some of my fellow classmates to tug a thin metal chain that moved him alongthe track. He would go back and forth across the training field as we threw fireballs at his chest. Or attempted to.
Mrs. Bardot had assigned two students the task of putting out unwanted fires that may spring up from a fireball missing its target. They held spray canisters full of water at the ready.
Eden and Ayden were some of the first students to go and executed the task perfectly, hitting the target in the chest every time he passed. Blair was next and missed one, but it crashed into the rocks behind Sir Burns-a-Lot and didn’t start a fire. Then it was my turn, and to my surprise, when my name was called, quite a few students clapped for me.
I guess saving Ariyon and getting awarded this medal really had won the people over in my favor.
“Now, I know it’s been a while since you used your fire powers,” Mrs. Bardot commented. “So just do the best that you can.”
I nodded. She was right. Up until a few days ago, I was working with Ariyon’s power to heal people. It felt a lot more special than fire and all the powers from House of Ash and Shadow, but I was encouraged by Emmeric’s vision of me saving everyone. If I was a hero, it meant I did something really amazing to save everyone, and I needed my House of Ash powers for that.
Pulling off my gloves, I set them to the side and grinned when I saw that Ariyon had just shown up. Sitting on the grass with his brother, he gave me a wink.
As if I wasn’t already nervous enough, this added to my anxiety, but it was sweet he’d shown up to support me.
Rubbing my palms together, I felt for my power. It was thrumming under the surface of my skin. It was as if it had grown in Ariyon’s body and then transferred back to me stronger than ever before.
With a mere thought, a perfectly round orange-and-purple fireball formed in my hand.
“Yeah, go, Fallon!” Ariyon whooped, and I internally swooned. There was nothing quite like being cheered on by your boyfriend.
Sir Burns-a-Lot rolled across the tracks, and I tossed the fireball at him, but I was too slow, and it crashed onto the metal track about a foot beside him.
“Maybe the queen should take her medal back,” Blair snipped, and a few of her friends snickered.
Anger flared to life inside me, and two fireballs formed on my palms. I shot her a glare over my shoulder and then turned back to the test dummy as it raced past me again.
I reeled my palms back to throw—
