Forcing my mind to revisit the events from the Ortensian court two days ago was difficult. Many times I had to take breaks, and the sight of cheerful Anya lessened the burden settling in my heart.
From the serious look on his face and the way he kept analysing me, as though it were too much for me to handle, it was obvious he, like everyone else, assumed I was weak.
They could believe what they wanted. They didn’t know half of what I had survived. I was strong in my own way. Maybe I didn’t know that before because people had twisted the notion of strength into unlimited power and indestructibility. But I had been beaten, destroyed, and humiliated, yet I was still standing. I was still fighting.
Strength was the persistence to keep fighting for what was right, and I grew stronger every damn day.
‘Why would she kill them? It was her court,’ Isaac asked, trying to understand my mother’s motives.
Monsters couldn’t be understood. I learnt my lesson a long time ago. ‘The Queen of Ortensia is a blood witch, too.’
‘What?’ He froze, his ice-blue eyes widening. ‘How do you know that?’
Admitting to her wrongdoings wasn’t the hard part. Admitting I hadn’t realised some of her sins until it was too late, that was the thing that wrecked me.
My cheeks flushed, and he never looked away. ‘She admitted to draining my powers. That’s why I can’t access shadows. She only left me with a crumb.’
Amuscle jumped in his cheek, a flash of hurt in his eyes so fleeting I nearly missed it. He sighed, then seemed to pull himself together. ‘A crumb? Does that mean you feel it now?’
‘Yes. But it’s minuscule—’
A radiant grin spread across his face, brightening his features. ‘Doesn’t matter, I can work with that.’
The joy was infectious, though recent events had muted it. The softness in his gaze didn’t go unnoticed. For someone so used to harshness it must have required real effort.
He caught me staring and smirked. Heat flared in my cheeks, and I quickly looked away. ‘I don’t think you realise how small it is. It’s downright shameful.’
A hand covered in swirling shadows reached out and hovered close enough for me to reach it. ‘Show me.’
‘As in… you want me to…?' I gestured to his outstretched hand and felt the flush spread down my neck.
Blood pooled under the skin of my chest as I tried hard not to hyperventilate. He couldn’t really mean that, could he?
‘Connect?’ he asked slowly, as if realising I might get spooked. ‘Yeah. How did you think this whole training was going to continue otherwise?’
Right. It wasn’t his fault; he couldn’t have known I had only been trained once in my life, and it had been recent, with my mate.
It felt so weird to call him that. He wasn’t my anything. Not anymore.
Isaac noted my apprehension and looked confused. ‘I won’t wander around if that’s what you’re afraid of. You can draw it out.’
Bless his soul, he assumed I could control it. ‘It doesn’t listen to me.’
His eyes sharpened and he fought off a smirk, but his mouth settled into an odd, stubborn pout instead.
‘Is something funny?’ I asked through clenched teeth.
Lowering his hand to rest palm up on my knee, he wouldn’t relent. ‘Not at all. Just tell me what exactly worries you about connecting to me. It’s not like I’m going to drain you.’
The inky black of his shadows spread around my leg like fog, visible enough to touch, yet too insubstantial to feel against my skin. It was beautiful.
The snake around my neck peeked out of my sweater to look at them too. Nosy thing. Perhaps that should be his name.
‘Obviously.’ I straightened, unable to tear my eyes away from his darkness. ‘If you were going to kill me, you’ve had plenty of opportunities already.’
‘You wouldn’t even know it was coming,’ he said casually, like it wasn’t a threat.
My jaw nearly dropped. ‘Is that supposed to console me?’
