Page 10
Story: Forged in Flame and Shadow (Fated to the Sun and Stars #2)
Leon
I pace in front of Ana’s room, wondering what’s taking her so long. I’d told her at breakfast she’d be training this morning. True, she hadn’t responded with anything more than a withering look before turning back to talk to Tira, but I know she got the message.
Alastor emerges from his own bedroom, stretching sleepily.
He’s a late riser when he has the option, and now he knows the Lyceum kitchens will still give him breakfast at whatever hour he asks for it, he’s making the most of his lie-ins.
He stops for a moment when he sees me, shaking his head in resignation as if I’m a lost cause.
Rather than asking him what his problem is, I ignore him, turning on my heel to pace back the other way. Alastor always eventually comes out and says what he’s thinking anyway.
“You look like a lost puppy.”
There it is .
“What?” I grunt.
“The way you hang out around her room, waiting for her to come out. It’s sad, really.”
I bare my teeth and let a wave of terrial magic roll through the earth, shaking the ground beneath his feet.
“Alright, alright,” Alastor says, throwing his hands up in surrender as he fights to keep his balance. “Not a puppy then. A ferocious, man-eating beast…who happens to be pining after a she-beast.”
“I’m waiting here to escort her to training. You know as well as I do how important it is for her to stay at it.”
“I didn’t say you don’t have a good reason to be outside her room,” Alastor says with a shrug. “I’m just saying there’s an unhealthy amount of pining going on.”
“I am not pin?—”
The door swings open.
“Morning, Your Highness,” Alastor says with a smirk. “Nice getup.”
I turn around to look at her, blinking.
“What are you wearing?”
Ana crosses her arms across her chest. “Pants, obviously. Phaia leant them to me. I can’t keep training in my dresses; the skirts just get in the way.”
I’ve seen her in fighting gear before, but that was in a dream, when we were training in her mind.
Seeing her in the tight leather clothes in real life is…
very different. My eyes rove over the curve of her hips, the slope of her thighs, and it’s impossible not to recall the way those thighs felt when they were wrapped around me.
“Can we go?” she says abruptly.
I step back, gesturing for her to lead the way.
I mentally curse Alastor as we walk through to the training classroom. His words keep running around my head, growing more annoying with every repetition…because I know they’re true. I am pining. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
That night she tried to escape, it wasn’t the sound of the horses or the women’s whispering that alerted me to what was happening. I woke in the night with the feeling that something was wrong—something was missing from the camp. It took just a few seconds to know it was Ana.
I’ve gotten so used to her presence, I sense when she’s there, and when she’s not, like I’m one of the objects in her orbit.
It feels increasingly wrong when we’re apart. I didn’t pick the room next to hers just to annoy her. I picked it because I couldn’t bear the thought of being any farther away.
I’ve been telling myself that’s simply because I can ensure her safety. That when she’s out of my sight she’s at risk, and she’s too important to let anything happen to her. But the truth is, I don’t want to be away from her.
I watch her now, the soft fall of her chestnut hair against her neck, the way her shoulders are always pushed back, spine straight, as if the world is a challenge she has to face head-on.
“How’s Tira doing?” I ask.
She whips her head around, fierce hazel eyes fixing on me.
“Being forced to leave her family was bad enough, but now she’s been ripped from her homeland too, so how do you think she’s doing?”
“I said she was free to return to Trova.”
“Don’t,” she snaps, holding up a hand. I know both women flatly refuse to leave the other behind, wherever they go. It’s not like I don’t understand that loyalty; I would do the same for any of my unit, but I wanted to remind her I’m not being totally unreasonable.
I’m just doing what I have to.
She hates me for that, which is fair enough. I knew that was the price I’d have to pay to get her to Filusia. But I didn’t expect…
Gods help me. I didn’t expect it to hurt so much. It’s agonizing, no longer being able to touch her. How she refuses to get within a few feet of me, like I’m some kind of abyss that will swallow her up if she did.
That’s the one thing that gives me hope. Whatever burned between us in Trova can’t be dead, because I can see that heat still alive in her eyes, even if it’s almost drowned out by rage. Sometimes I think if I can just remind her of what we had, we might find that connection again.
But I still have to find a way to make that happen.
We reach the training classroom, the mossy floor restored after Ana’s sun beams burned it up the other day. There’s no sign of Proctor Gallis yet.
“You don’t have to stay,” Ana says without looking at me.
I don’t move. “We might as well make good use of the time while you’re waiting,” I say.
I don’t think she anticipated I’d make such an offer when she’s been so frosty with me. My suggestion is unexpected enough that she turns to face me. “What do you mean?”
“We should practice some of your combat skills, seeing as you’re dressed for it.”
“And have you humiliate me again?” She’s looking at me with a wariness I don’t fully understand. “You proved your point before; I know you can beat me in a fight.”
“I might be faster and physically stronger, but there are ways to get around that,” I say. “Besides, it’s not like every opponent you fight will be as good as me.”
She opens her mouth like she’s about to argue, then closes it again, instead just rolling her eyes.
I know these opportunities to improve her skills are the one thing Ana finds hard to resist. She wants desperately to get stronger and more powerful.
She doesn’t want to be at anyone’s mercy ever again—especially mine.
Even if it’s just about being in a better position to defy me in the long term, I can use that desire to my advantage.
“Fine,” she says. “Show me.”
I start by running through some of the ways she can break the hold of a stronger opponent.
I’ve seen Damia and Phaia use them enough times against the males of our species, and while it might make more sense for the two of them to show Ana how to perform them firsthand, that would defeat the other point of this exercise.
“No, you have to establish leverage before I get my arms around you,” I say as Ana strains against my grip. We’re closer than we’ve been for weeks, her face inches from mine, and I can smell the jasmine scent of her hair.
“Just give me a minute,” she snaps. I loosen my hold, and she ducks out from under my arms, smoothing her hair back. There’s a very distracting light flush on her cheeks. I try to focus on the task at hand, throwing out more directions.
“You won’t have a minute in combat. You either execute the move successfully or your opponent crushes the life out of you.”
“Yes, but I’m still learning,” she says. “We’re not actually on a battlefield right now, and I can take a break if I want.”
“If you don’t take the training as seriously as a real fight, you won’t get anywhere,” I say.
It’s true. It’s the kind of tough conditions that made great fighters of Alastor and Damia and the others.
The ones who really commit—who treat the training like it isn’t just a trial run—are the ones who rise above.
Still, Ana doesn’t appreciate my advice.
“You never switch it off, do you?” she says.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
She shakes her head at me like Alastor did an hour ago and loosens her stance.
“Whatever. Let’s go again.”
I lunge at her, and this time she remembers enough of my instructions to angle her body to one side, hooking her foot behind mine. Still, I don’t budge.
“Better, but you’re still not there. Remember your arms this time. If you’re going to throw me off balance, you need to use everything you have.”
I can feel the tension in her before we’ve even started sparring again.
Where is it coming from? She’s not tired like the other day, and she usually takes instruction better than this.
I search her face for some clue as to what’s going on, but mostly there’s her usual mask with a few glimpses of that wariness again.
The next time she remembers all the right movements, shoving one hand up under my chin as I reach for her, hooking one foot behind mine, and kicking my leg out from under me.
I let myself tumble to the ground, but when she forgets the next part of the move, I don’t hold back punishment, reaching up to pull her down with me.
I roll over, pinning her face down to the ground, with one of her arms behind her back.
“Fuck,” she says, kicking a foot against the mossy floor.
I lean down to murmur in her ear. “You forgot to punch down after you dropped me,” I say. My body brushes against hers, and she wriggles beneath me. I exhale, trying to stay focused.
“I know,” she snaps.
I let go of her arm and she flips over, but I still haven’t moved.
She’s lying beneath me, only inches separating our chests.
My knee rests on the ground, and one of her legs is pressed against mine.
Sparks are dancing from her body to mine, and I think about how badly I want to slip my hands beneath her top and feel the soft skin there.
To slide my fingers up her stomach and across her breasts, making her breath hitch with pleasure instead of anger.
How easy it would be right now to wrap my hand around her hip and pull her against me, until she can feel exactly how much I want her.
“Think about how much you’d really like to hit me right now, and maybe that will help you remember next time,” I say, attempting to distract myself.
Her eyes darken. “Are you trying to joke with me?” she asks. “What happened to taking training seriously?”
My eyes drop to her mouth.
“Being serious doesn’t mean it can’t still be fun,” I mutter.
I know it’s the wrong thing to say the moment it comes out, but being this close to her has obviously fried my brain. She yanks herself up off the ground, forcing me to stand too, and pins me with a furious glare.
“Stop it. Stop trying to make things like they were before you lied to me. Before you poisoned me and stole my power. This isn’t fun for me. Gods, it makes me sick just looking at you. I should’ve believed them when they told me what you were. Enough people warned me, and I should have listened.”
My defenses rise up, responding to the venom in her tone.
“What are you talking about?” I demand. “What am I?”
“A liar. A killer . Someone who will do anything to get what he wants.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” I say.
“Is it?” she asks, her expression cynical. “Was it more complicated at Mistwell?”
A chill sweeps over me at the name. I take a step back, and she must notice my reaction because she keeps talking, pushing the point.
“Or is it like they say, and you slaughtered everyone in that town because you’re not capable of mercy?”
Her words conjure up the memory like it was yesterday—the bodies scattered for miles, the blank, unseeing eyes while red tokens fluttered in the wind.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I growl. I’m done with this conversation. Maybe it’s my fault this blew up as spectacularly as it did, but that doesn’t mean I have to stick around to let the debris slice through me.
“No?” she says. “Then what really happened? What’s your excuse for massacring all those people?”
I realize now she’s not just angry, she’s fishing.
She wants to know the truth, and she’s trying to provoke me into talking about it.
I feel like I’m back in Lavail, trying to explain myself to my grandfather.
It’s been eighty years of trying to wipe away the images of my biggest mistake, and to have them dredged up and flung at me now so unexpectedly—by her of all people—is like being plunged into icy water.
Footsteps sound outside: the familiar gait of Proctor Gallis.
“We’re done,” I say. I can hear the coldness in my voice. It matches my insides, and even her burning gaze can’t thaw it as I sweep out of the training room.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
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- Page 10 (Reading here)
- Page 11
- Page 12
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- Page 29
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- Page 70