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But would that really help me have faith in myself again? Would it take the guilt with it, or would it simply be a bandage that would eventually disintegrate over my wound?

A swirl of past words stitched together around me.

“Don’t give up,” Ms. Pincette said.

“You are braver than your fear,” Fabian said.

“Face what’s holding you back,” Jagaros said.

Don’t give up. You are braver than your fear. Face what’s holding you back. Don’t give up. You are braver than your fear. Face what’s holding you back.

The blade of my mother’s knife curved like a half-moon, reflecting the mottled violet sky above us. It was in my hands, and my hands belonged to me. Because of my Object Summoning power, I didn’t have to let anyone else take them from me ever again.

Blowing out a breath, I looked up at Coen. He was staring at me with a crumpled, devastated expression—as if this moment on the isle could be washed away with the waves, swept into nothingness, if he didn’t remember it hard enough.

“Don’t ever make me stab you in the heart again, okay?” I said with a tilt of my head. “Once was horrible. Two was just overkill.” Literally.

Coen hoisted up a small, crooked grin. “Trust me, via, my heart belongs to you. From now on, I promise you get to decide what to do with it.”

The brand on the back of my neck seemed to tingle. Dy via nenete fayer. The heart does not falter. But mine still wished that we could entangle ours in a way nobody could ever rip apart. To go to the temple and be told that we could be vigates.

That’s what I wanted with his heart. Maybe one day.

Leaning forward, I planted a soft kiss against his lips, then stood and brushed sand off my knees. Gave a final look at Garvis’s grave and sent out a goodbye that I’d always carry with me.

“You ready?” Coen asked, standing with me.

I tightened my hold on the knife’s handle and nodded.

“Yes. I’m ready to go train with Jagaros again.”

CHAPTER

35

RAYNA

“Okay, I want you to go up against three now.”

“Three?” I exclaimed.

Jagaros nodded down at me. He was standing on the lip of a circular trench nestled between limestone bluffs: the Uninhabitable Zone’s training ring, where several dozen faerie warriors had been gathering every day to practice hand-to-hand combat, magic-to-magic combat, or a mix of both.

I’d just finished facing off against two of his best warriors. A male who could turn any solid into a jelly-like substance—his favorite target being bones—and a female who could suck all the air from someone’s lungs just by inhaling.

To my utter shock, I’d just managed to apprehend them both.

“You’ve been improving drastically these last few weeks, but you can always improve more. Vitka?” Jagaros nodded at a faerie who stood on the sidelines, bow strapped to his back. He rubbed his hands together and jogged down a narrow set of steps until he was facing me in the training ring along with the other two.

Alright. I’d probably have my ass handed to me, but this was exactly what I’d wanted. Mondays through Fridays were for my Wild Whispering classes, Saturdays were for lessons with Fabian, and Sundays like today were for the Uninhabitable Zone. For learning as much as I could from the ancient faeries I’d once believed to be extinct.

I still couldn’t quite believe I was staring at three lethal ones now. They’d hardly spoken to me the first day Coen had brought me here after visiting Garvis’s grave, but I could sense the glimmering interest in their eyes, and I was just as curious about them. Perhaps if my mother hadn’t been Sorronian, if she’d come from Jagaros’s island kingdom, I would have been born here.

What a drastically different life that would have been.

“Remember,” Jagaros said, beginning to stalk along the perimeter of the training ring. I couldn’t unsee the tiger in him, even in his brother’s form. “Try not to slip into the defensive. Remain the predator. And go.”

I hardly had time to blast my Mind Manipulating power outward, commanding all three of my opponents to hold their powers back. Still, I wasn’t used to three at once, and my hands went completely limp and floppy as the bones in my fingers turned to mush.