I step forward. The staff meets it. The impact shudders through me, the pressure still present and still enormous, but I hold my ground, forcing movement through it rather than surrendering to it.
The creature recoils.
"Again."
We repeat it until the repetition becomes its own kind of knowledge. Each time the pressure comes I feel it a fraction sooner. Each time it tries to root me I find the exhale faster, force the step forward with a little less effort, hold my ground with a little less cost. The nausea stays beneath all of it and sharpens the edge of every movement, which I have begun to suspect is intentional.
I push too far on the next pass. The pressure turns inward and blood slips from my nose. I do not stop. I force the step anyway. For a moment I am back in the forest, copper on my tongue, Arven’s voice low and irritated, telling me I was tearing it through myself instead of using it.
Not Arven. Teorin.
The last I saw of him, the dead were closing in.He is alive,I tell myself. And if he is not, it is his own fault.
“Control it,” Aunt Petunis says. “Or it will control you.”
Eventually she raises a hand. "Enough."
The creature is restrained and dragged back, still moving wrong, still making that sound.
I lower the staff. My breath is uneven and I do not try to hide it.
Aunt Petunis studies me for a long moment. "I know of your intunar ability," she says.
I blink, surprised that she knows.
"I am not stupid, Asharin. And you are not subtle. It is painfully obvious when you fight.”
“Someone attempted to teach you how to use it in a very crude way,” she says. "Likely that protector of yours."
"We are not crude here," she says.
A man steps forward from the edge of the chamber, his presence quiet enough that I had not marked him before. "I am Brakorin," he says. "A master of the mind."
Aunt Petunis looks between us. "You will learn how to protect your mind from those that wish to control or manipulate it." She clears her throat. "More importantly, you will learn to use your intunar properly," she says.
“I cannot train you,” she says. “This is not a gift usually held by Alarnans."
"So I inherited it from my father?"
"Your father is dead, and my time is precious. Less questions."
I am not surprised by her answer, and as much as I want to know who he is the only thing taking up space in my mind these days is Colsar.
Will he be here in time to meet his children? Will I give birth to them here in Alarna?
"Pay attention," Aunt Petunis snaps, pulling me out of my thoughts.
"You will practice mental strength. You will learn how to be better than you currently are, because right now your weakness would embarrass even your mother." She lets that sink in. "You will go to the libraries each night and learn your histories from the Archivists." She sighs. "When we are done with that, we will work on presence and decision-making."
"What does that mean?" I ask.
She studies me. "Queenly behavior, Asharin," she says. "You are too tentative. Too quick to make yourself smaller than you are." She tilts her head slightly. "That ends here."
She looks at me. “Whatever version of you was so weak or so simple or so sad that you allowed yourself to fall into a trap that nearly killed you?—”
“I did not?—”
“Once again, I am not stupid, Queen Heir. You claim your brother almost killed you. He could not waltz into the palace and accomplish such a thing. You were likely stupid enough to be fooled into a trap. Because you were weak for love, or acceptance, or perhaps naive enough to think that no one would dare harm you.”
