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CHAPTER 6 - MORGAN

“How long has he been at this?”

I watched, fascinated as Draven sparred with his own shadow. Moving almost too fast for me to follow as he relentlessly drove himself on.

I’d come from visiting Kaye. Unsurprisingly, nothing had changed with my brother. I’d sat beside his bedside for an hour, speaking to him, reminding him of memories we’d shared, telling him the latest news—about Medra, about the exmoors; even about my visit to the temple, though I’d left out what it had been about. When I ran out of things to say, I’d picked up the book I’d been reading to him and continued to the next chapter. When I’d run out of breath, I’d finally left. I would return the next day. And the next.

Until it wasn’t an option any longer.

On the bench along the wall, Gawain looked up at me. “Hours.”

“Since you and he began? Or since he started... this?”

“Since he started fighting himself instead of me,” Gawain replied matter-of-factly. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I think he’s doing a better job testing his own mettle than I ever could.”

I stared. “Have you seen him do this before?”

Gawain laughed. “Have I seen my friend fight his own demons of darkness for hours on end? Literally rather than metaphorically speaking, you mean?”

I clenched my jaw but said nothing as Gawain glanced up at me and tried to look reassuring.

“Not since we were more than children. After a particularly horrible fight with his father.” He studied Draven. “Perhaps not even then. Not like this.”

“What is he doing exactly?” Though part of me already knew.

“Well, you know Draven,” Gawain said, raising a hand to run it through his sweat-soaked hair. “He isn’t a man who fears for himself. He fears for others. The ones he loves.”

My throat felt choked up.

The room around us had dimmed from my mate’s shadows. Now the torches finally gave up their last breaths, sputtering and dying.

I sensed rather than saw Gawain rise to his feet.

“Perhaps I’ll see you at dinner,” he said, touching his hand gently to my arm. “Hopefully both of you.”

I opened my mouth to ask how he could leave his friend. Then as he left the room, I understood.

He hadn’t left Draven alone.

He had left him with me.

I stepped onto the sparring floor, my palms already open.

Across the room, Draven was enmeshed in darkness, a shadowy form, his features shapeless.

I ran towards him, hands raised.

Flame upon flame shot forward, piercing through the darkness, hitting the walls, coming closer and closer to Draven’s shape.

The shadows shifted as if in surprise. Then they began to dissolve.

I caught the look on Draven’s face as he turned towards me, face illuminated by the flames. Weary numbness, a driven intensity, quickly replaced by sheer shock.

I felt a little surge of triumph.

“You singed me,” he said accusingly.

I laughed. “I could have done worse if I’d been trying.”