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“Don’t shoot the messenger, I don’t make up the rules.”

“But if you could decide the rules, would you let women fight?” She angled her head, awaiting his answer.

He sighed. “This question is impossible to answer.”

Emara’s lips thinned. “Is it? I don’t think it is.”

“Of course, you don’t. You are not a hunter.”

Emara raised her chin, tucking her hands back into her cloak. “I think you are being a coward not to answer it, regardless of your position on it.”

After a few moments of nothing but horses’ hooves on rock, Torin spoke. “You’re right, I was being a coward not to answer your question.” She allowed shock to settle between them at the fact that Torin had admitted that she was right. It was astounding. “The reason I found it impossible to answer that question right away was because my mind went straight to you.” An intense silence filled the air around them before he spoke again. “And the thought of you fighting something so vile disturbs me. Having you endure long training hours, and then if you were subjected to battle conditions…” He sat up straight behind her, her body curving against his. “I don’t think any man would want to see a woman suffer things he could take the burden of. But then I realised that I would; I would let women fight because they have just as much to fight for as men, if not more.” The gravity of his words hit her heart unexpectedly. “And if all women are as feisty as you and my mother, then I would be happy to have you on the battlefield beside me.” She could hear the smile on his face and a lump formed in her throat. “I can’t lie, though, everything in my instincts, in the make-up of who I am, would be screaming at me for you not to fight. I am a protector, I can’t turn that off. But I would always let you fight, should that be your choice.”

Her voice was quiet when she said, “I wouldn’t expect you to turn off everything you are to allow me that grace.”

“Being a hunter is not everything I am.” Torin’s lips brushed over her ear, sending her heart leaping in her chest. “But more to your point, have I not already proved that I would let you fight when I handed you my sword in the tower’s gardens?”

He had. Good Gods, he had. And then with Taymir, and then with the lesser demons in the forest.

She let the silence soak in as she drifted her mind over what he had said, wondering if Viktir Blacksteel had ever done the same for Naya. Her guess would be that there would be no chance in the underworld that Viktir Blacksteel would be proud to fight beside a woman.

But Torin would be.

“I hope that answers your question,” he said finally, breaking through the quiet.

“It does,” she whispered back.

“I have a question for you,” he said, with a little more reluctance than she was used to. It sent a pang of worry into her stomach. “When you think of your magic, when you feel it, do you feel air being summoned, or do your fingers start to tingle with fire first?”

The question almost knocked her from the horse and the breath whooshed from her lungs.

It was the question she had locked down in the pits of her soul, not wanting to explore any of it.

So the simple answer was that she didn’t know.

She didn’t know if she was more dominant in fire or air. She hadn’t had enough time to explore it. Did that make her claims to the Air title a deception?

Her skin pimpled.

Through a vision gifted by a spirit witch, she had seen how poorly her mother had been treated for being a fire bearer and belonging to House Air. Emara had witnessed what her own grandmother had done to her mother for it. Her thoughts also turned to Callyn. Her best friend, born of the House of Water only to have been abandoned because of a prophecy.

Why were the witches so scared to step outside their own House and thrive with different elemental magic? Why were they doomed to dismissal or neglect should their fate choose a different element? Is that not what the Gods had paved for them?

Emara swallowed. “I am not sure what I feel first,” she choked out. “I cannot say for certain. Sometimes I feel air quickly build around me, and other times I feel fire stirring in my veins.”

Torin hummed behind her.

She plucked up enough courage to ask, “What would happen to me if I admitted that my Fire element is just as strong as the element of Air?”

Torin let out a large puff of breath, and she wondered how long he had been holding it in. “It depends. If you wanted to make a claim to the Fire crown, they would make you do a trial against the current Empress of Fire to test if you were stronger. And the trial is not pretty. The witches are ultimately entering into a tribunal that will result in one of them dying.”

A whimper escaped Emara’s lips. “And House Air would reject me for claiming another element as my dominant power?”

“Correct. Unless you have all five elemental powers, and they are all as strong as each other, in which case you could be the next supreme. You would be in the running to rise as the crown witch.”

Emara inhaled slowly, controlling her frigid breathing. “I haven’t shown any signs of bearing the element of Water yet. And my strengths in Spirit and Earth are questionable.”

“Give it time,” Torin said. “You have barely scratched the surface with what you can do. You are untrained, and you have shown signs of true power. You have no idea what could be unearthed at any moment. Magic is a funny thing. You know as well as I do that it surprises you at every turn. But if you are showing signs of every element, and they are all feeling strong in your arsenal, keep it to yourself until the right moment. No one else needs to know what weapons you hold. You don’t need any more targets on your back, not until we suss out all the other empresses’ ambitions and why they are being killed off.”