Page 27 of A Queen’s Betrayal (Legends of Worldbinders #1)
“We’ll stop here for a while.”
Arenna barely heard Kayson over the fog in her head. Pain splintered through her back and legs, aching from the journey. Since leaving last night, they hadn’t stopped for a full rest until the red sun sank beneath the darkened mountains.
Exhaustion was taking its toll. She assumed he wouldn’t mind if she dozed off, considering he expected her to sit in silence. Though the idea was tempting, she decided against it. The emissary couldn’t be trusted, even less so if she were asleep in his presence.
Arenna climbed off the saddle and found her footing. Kayson led the horse to a nearby tree, then offered her a drink from the little water left in his waterskin. She watched him, noting how he treated the animal with gentleness and kindness—so different from his usual demeanor.
“How close are we to Smeeds?” Arenna asked, pulling her cloak tightly around her. She cleared a small rock to sit on, stretching her sore legs.
“If we keep today’s pace, we should arrive by tomorrow night.”
Arenna let her head fall against the dead evergreen trunk. She was so tired, and if she could just close her eyes for a moment—
“Get up,” Kayson demanded, kicking one of her feet.
Jolting forward, annoyance pounded in her skull. She glared at him, hating the way he looked at her with such disgust. “I’m resting. Like you said we would.”
“Kalika will rest. You and I will work on your magic.” He kicked her boot again.
Arenna unsheathed her dagger and slammed it into the ground. The blade pierced the snow just centimeters to the right of Kayson’s boot.
His brows raised, eyes narrowing. “ You need to work on your aim.”
“Do not kick me again,” she hissed, staring up at him. “I will not miss next time.”
Kayson laughed, igniting a burning anger in her blood. “Right,” he drawled, stalking toward a blanket of evergreens.
Pride flared in her chest, pulling her in two directions—refuse and keep her dignity, or relent and gain strength in her power. Her jaw tightened. “Are you sure it’s safe?” she grumbled, standing. Ferals, vorgrith, or any other Rot-born creature could be nearby. “My power might draw them in.”
He moved deeper into the trees, not waiting for her to follow. Kayson smirked as he said, “Then you better hope they burn.”
Groaning, Arenna trudged after the emissary. She drew in a long breath through her nose, reminding herself she needed this training, or else she would not survive this power.
Kayson led her to a vast clearing, surrounded by tall rocks and a few trees. Moonlight bathed the forest floor in a shimmering white. The forest was peaceful, the snow untouched until now.
“When did your power first manifest?”
“That day in the colosseum.”
His eyes widened. “Not only is your power rare—and I mean so rare that there hasn’t been a Firewielder since the beginning of our world—but you mean to tell me it had been completely dormant until a few weeks ago?”
Arenna rubbed her arms. “That’s right.” She remembered a story her mother once told her about the last Princess of Draka, the last Firewielder. She led the Fae, Medryds, and Draka against the human rebellion, ultimately to her demise.
“There were never any signs? You never felt a hint of it?”
In the days when she remained more conscious than others after the tournament, she had asked herself those very same questions.
Jaksen seemed to have seen some signs, but had she?
She felt completely, boringly human—until heat pooled in her belly, so familiar that the realization could have brought her to her knees.
Everything made sense after that.
“I have felt it,” she murmured. Every time Jaksen was near, every time she was hurt beneath his fist or cut by his blade.
In the darkest of nights, when her mattress was not a safe haven, she felt it.
The pit in her stomach when her husband was near was not fear, but fire.
“I didn’t realize until now that’s what it was. ”
“Power is gifted to the wielder long before their eyes see this world,” Kayson said. “Your power likely was showing itself to you, but you were not ready for it to be revealed entirely.”
She looked up at him through the thick of her lashes, her stomach slightly hollow. It hurt to know that everything she had endured was not enough to draw out that power, but she decided it was best not to think about it like that.
“If you haven’t been able to control it until the other day in the cave, when does it present itself, then?”
“Only when I feel an overwhelming amount of emotion. When my sister died, and when Jaksen locked—” She could not finish the sentence.
“When you killed that feral,” Kayson added.
Arenna flinched at the reminder of what she had done, who she had been in that moment. “I was begging it to come out then. My palms were hot; I was hot. If you hadn’t stopped me—”
“It’s in the past,” Kayson muttered. “Focus on the now, on the things I’m teaching you.”
She nodded.
This side of Kayson was unfamiliar to her.
His will to help her and the calm demeanor with which he carried himself unnerved her more than settled her.
She was still convinced he was only doing this for some selfish, ulterior motive, and not because he felt it was the right thing to do.
Regardless of what he wanted out of all this, she needed to train—needed to learn how to control the flame before it killed her.
The time for questioning his actions would come later.
“Why can I heal myself?” Arenna asked, rubbing her thumb over her palm. “I’ve never been able to do that before.”
“All elementalists can heal themselves. A perk that comes with the power, I guess you could say.” Kayson smirked, kicking a small stone with the tip of his boot. “Maybe it didn’t unlock for you until your magic did.”
Arenna nodded again, curling her fingers into her hand to make a fist.
Kayson didn’t wait for her response before speaking again.
“Elemental magic is a gift. It belongs to the earth and to the Seven, and they granted you the ability to wield it. I will teach you how to wield it and how to summon it, but only you can strengthen your bond with it. The closer you become, the easier it will be to manifest and bend it as you require.”
Swallowing, Arenna nodded again. “How do you know so much about all this?”
“Because I can read.”
Her teeth scraped together, blood bubbling. “ Clearly ,” she spat. “Where in Varios have you been able to read about such things? Brookworth holds the only texts pertaining to magic.”
“You are a fool to believe only one place in an entire continent holds information.”
“Brookworth law mandates that the only existence of magical books belongs in their library,” she argued. “You should not be able to read anything on the matter unless you are within the castle walls. Am I to believe you learned all of this in the matter of a week?”
Kayson grinned. “A fool indeed, Serpent.”
Opening and closing her mouth, Arenna yet again bit her tongue.
Insufferable, arrogant bastard he might be, but Kayson was her only chance at training right now.
“If you help me train, can I keep it hidden?” He gave a tight nod.
Unfastening her cloak from her shoulders, she sighed. “Teach me everything, then.”
“I’ve taught you the basics to summon, but it will take weeks, months, maybe even years of practice. Close your eyes,” he instructed. “Imagine the same reservoir from before and your power within it.”
She was surrounded by a familiar darkness, but the reservoir appeared more quickly this time—and different. Mountains had formed, and trees sprouted. It started to feel familiar, as if she had been here before. And then it hit her.
Arenna and Faylen had revisited a small, secluded place like this right beside the ocean. They had been tricked into believing sprites lived at the bottom of the water near the outskirts of their home port, and to touch it, you had to offer flowers and bread as a sacrifice.
The sisters would steal bread from their small kitchen and flowers from their mother’s garden and run them down to the reservoir to swim. Arenna’s heart warmed at the memory, the flame within the reservoir burning brighter.
“What are you thinking about?” Kayson’s cool tone cut through her memories.
“My childhood,” she answered.
“Power feeds off memory, both good and bad. What your heart feels, your flame will portray. A happy memory is strong and leads to reliable flames. It’s more controlled, more deliberate.
” She felt a hand on her arm, turning her palms upwards.
“But emotions like fear and anger could very well be your destruction.”
She focused on the memory, on her sister. Though her heart was aching, she stayed composed, knowing this memory needed to remain happy.
“Do you see the reservoir?”
“Yes.”
“Remember every detail about it,” Kayson began.
“Remember the color of it, its mass, its condition. You need to know this image so well that you reach the point of not needing to visualize it. In battle, you don’t have time to stop and close your eyes.
But with practice, you’ll get to the point where you can pull it without a thought. ”
Arenna’s palms felt damp the longer Kayson held her hand. She hated the feel of his skin on hers.
“Open your eyes.” His golden eyes bore into hers; his hands entwined with her own.
She stiffened at their proximity, at the feel of his skin.
“Hold your palm open; aim for the snow.” Kayson dropped her hand, and she turned it downward. “Visualize the reservoir without seeing. Feel without touching; listen to the power rippling without hearing.”
She focused on a spot in the snow, a small black patch of dead grass poking through. Arenna saw her reservoir, felt her hands running through molten power, and imagined the grass before her on fire—burning to ash.
Arenna cracked open an eye hesitantly.