Page 27

Maude returned to the group shortly after the sun had disappeared behind the horizon to prepare for their departure.

Gunnar saved her some of the meat he had cooked and she gratefully accepted the wrapped bundle, finding a spot in front of the fire and settling down to eat.

A few blissful minutes of silence was all she could experience before Herrick walked up behind her and shattered her unearned peace.

“Before night falls completely, how about you show me what your fire is capable of, minn eldr ?”

“I’m not sure you want that right now, beastie. I’m in a foul mood.”

“When aren’t you?” he chuckled.

Maude shot a sharp glance over her shoulder to Herrick, who had moved to lean against one of the horses, balancing a small sphere of water in his hand with a wicked gleam in his eye.

Before she could respond, he shot the small projectile toward her face.

Reacting on impulse, she dove out of the way and rolled into a crouched position.

Herrick stopped the water before it put out the fire and redirected it to his hand.

“That’s boring,” he teased, that wicked gleam intensifying and stirring something buried in Maude’s core being.

“It’s not a good idea,” Maude said through gritted teeth, her annoyance and fear fighting for control over the rising flame inside of her .

The power threatening to overwhelm her forced Maude to rise to her full height, the effort of keeping her fire within the confines of her skin becoming painful.

Herrick’s friends stood in a loose circle around them, their interest in what their friend was doing halting their activity until they stood like statues in Maude’s periphery.

She glanced at Eydis, who had not seen Maude lose her temper before, and found the young woman eyeing her curiously. When she caught Maude’s eye, Eydis winked and gave Maude a broad smile of encouragement before tipping her head toward Herrick.

Unsure of what to do with Eydis’s seemingly positive reaction, Maude brought her eyes back to Herrick to find his focus still on her. She had a feeling he was seeing more than the false front she kept up, his eyes stripping her down to the very base of her soul.

“Burn for me, minn eldr ,” Herrick whispered, bringing his attention back to her face.

Maude ground her teeth and focused on pushing her emotions aside and pulling the fire from within her to her hands.

Feeling the warm crackle of the flames around her palms filled her with satisfaction that she was able to draw on her galder easier than usual despite her heightened emotions.

Herrick had taken up a defensive position in front of her.

They circled each other, only stepping when the other did.

Maude, on impulse, launched a tendril of fire from her palm like a whip with the intention of wrapping it around his ankles, but Herrick responded with a wall of water that forced the flame back.

Before she could get a hold of her fire again, Herrick whipped a waterspout out from the oasis and moved it toward Maude with the intention of trapping her fire .

She quickly dove forward into a roll and swiped out a leg from underneath Herrick, causing him to fall toward the ground where she had laid a net of flames that would not burn him but contain him.

As he fell into her trap, the fire constricted around his hands and rendered him powerless. Pleased that her plan had worked, Maude went to stand and heard Herrick shout, “Child’s play, you can do better.”

Herrick released himself from the net created by Maude’s flame after he doused himself with water, rendering his white shirt completely translucent. Keeping her eyes firmly above his neck, Maude asked, “How did you do that? I had your hands tied.”

Her eyes betrayed her as she glanced down, her words trailing off.

“Something wrong?” He asked, noticing her effort to avoid looking at his sculpted abdomen.

“Answer the question,” Maude snapped, her need for answers overpowering the thoughts of what those muscles would feel like under her fingertips.

“I don’t always need my hands to manipulate the water around me.

I’ve had extensive training on controlling my galder with minimal or no movements in case I was ever bound,” he said with a cheeky smile on his face because she had completely ignored his comment, revealing that she had, in fact, been distracted.

Ignoring the wave of incompetence Maude felt at his skill, she ground her teeth and focused on her internal fire again.

When she had been growing up and begun her training, Maude had been told that her use of galder was natural to her.

Having taken that comment to heart, she had been lazy through most of her sessions and had been behind on her lessons when she had escaped from her life.

Most of what she knew now came from ten years of trial and error, while a small part manifested from that natural talent .

It was growing clear to Maude that her talents were not nearly good enough to go head-to-head with Herrick.

But never being one to give up so easily, she swore to herself that she would take him down in this first training session.

They circled each other and quickly fell into a rhythm as they exchanged blow after blow of fire and water at each other.

Without realizing it, they had fallen into a dance that they each knew as easy as breathing.

Being evenly matched with her opposing galder , Maude felt herself growing tired very quickly.

She had managed to land a few blows on Herrick that had resulted in burning holes through his shirt and pants, but nothing more than that.

She hadn’t managed to do more than hold off most of his attacks, but even then, she had been held at his mercy a few times before they reset and started anew.

Throughout their fight, Herrick peppered in some instructions for Maude on how to focus her emotion as a funnel and not a burst of galder .

“Your galder is a part of you; it's not a well of power for you to pull from that does not come directly from your own energy,” Herrick said as he reached a hand down to help Maude up from where he had knocked her down with a blast of icy water.

“Our galder comes from our blood and energy.

Use too much of it at once, and you weaken physically the same way as if you just ran a whole league without stopping, and the same way we struggle for energy when we are grieving or how we burst with energy when we are furious. Your galder will feed off of that."

He paused to make sure Maude could stand on her own after that last hit, but she batted him away.

"Your galder is as strong as you are, physically and emotionally. When you reach your limit, your burnout will effectively take you out of the fight against your will. So, when you use too much of your emotion at once, you weaken yourself dramatically. You cannot pull from the nature around you like the Elven do when you burn yourself out.”

“I know that,” Maude gritted.

“But you don’t because you're still exhausting yourself like you have this bottomless pit of power to channel from,” he replied, his tone professional and calculating.

“I can see you tire yourself out every time we come to blows with each other.

It's like you're charging ahead to attack with no regard for your limits.”

Maude brushed the sand off her leggings and turned her back on Herrick, not allowing him to see the frustration on her face.

“I know what I’m doing,” Maude said roughly before facing him again, hands loose at her side for their next round.

Understanding flooded Herrick’s features before a sly smile appeared on his mouth. With every defeat, Maude felt her temper grow wafer-thin, and she could see that Herrick was about to make it so much worse before he spoke again.

“Is that really the best you can do? For someone who walks around with a sharp tongue and deadly promises on her breath, you really can’t back it up with your galder , can you?”

“Herrick,” Gunnar warned as he eyed Maude.

“With how often you’ve threatened me these last few days, I expected more from you,” Herrick continued, ignoring Gunnar.

Flames crackled between Maude’s fingers, the corners of her eyes darkening as her focus zeroed in on the beautifully aggravating man in front of her.

“Herrick, I don't think—” Hakon started to say, but Herrick’s next words cut him off, solidifying her reaction.

“No wonder you’ve been running all these years, coward. ”

The world around Maude went silent, the darkness creeping in the corners of her vision blinding her to everything except her rage.

Her galder was rising in a tidal wave of power and beginning to ripple out of her as she tried to contain it.

Despite using every method of restraint she knew, Maude felt her control on her galder slip away from her with every heartbeat until she could sense the crest of her anger explode out of her.

She snapped. Waves of fire erupted from her in a huge blast. The trees in the oasis bent under the power of her emotion, taking control of her galder . She saw Herrick’s friends duck and hit the sand so they would not be blasted into ashes from her fire.

Herrick had been ready, though, and as soon as he saw the blast leave her body, he created a wall of ice around her. The fire surrounding her body melted through the frozen water quickly, so he refroze it repeatedly until her rage had finally bottomed out and her fire was extinguished.

Maude fell to her knees in the sand and bent over on all fours, breathing heavily as her body cooled from the explosion that had been her fury. Limbs trembling, she focused on bringing the dry air into her lungs and calming her racing heart.