Page 14 of Of Ash and Iron (Flame Cursed Fae #3)

Chapter 14

Maddy

I know he's furious. I can see him trying to control it, the tension radiating from his body in heat waves. But it's not his anger I need.

I need to know how to protect myself. How to be strong enough that no one will dare try to brand me again, to mark me as less than I am.

I need them to fear me.

Swallowing back the dangerous thought, I look from Kain to the vicious wolf pawing at the ground of the healing room. His fierce, terrifying val-tivar —not just a companion but an extension of everything powerful and untamed within him. Ready at his side, lending him strength, speed, or bloodlust, whenever he needs it.

"How do you control him?"

Kain lets out a long breath. His shoulders drop and his jaw stops pulsing. "Skoll."

"What?"

"His name is Skoll."

I snap my eyes from the wolf to Kain. He just told me his val-tivar 's name. "I thought you weren't supposed to share that?"

"Princess, you defy everything that is normal. Why bother sticking to the rules?" His gaze is intense, and I'm not sure he's talking about the wolf's name.

A conversation we had in the glade echoes in my mind, sharp and clear.

"Why do I always have to be different? It would be nice, for once, to be normal."

"Normal is shit. The whole concept of normal is horseshit. There's no such thing. It's a word for routine. Something I doubt you'll ever keep."

"You don't think me or my val-tivar are normal, so normal rules don't apply," I say.

"All the teachings say you have to focus to use magic. That's what everyone else does. They control magic with concentration and a staff. But you've never had magic through a staff. And I've rarely seen you concentrate." Kain touches his fingers to his jaw, tilting his head. "Your memory magic," he says quietly.

I tense. I don't want to talk to him about the gallery. "What about it?"

"Do you have to concentrate to use it?"

"No," I whisper. "It just… works. And when my ice magic works, it's because I need it. It's not controlled by concentration. It's controlled by…" I search for the word.

"Instinct. You're not like any other fae I've met in a long time. Your power is driven by gods-given natural instinct."

I blink at him, his words resonating with something deep inside me.

"Madivia," he says.

He's never called me that.

"You are the one blocking your power. You can be whoever the fuck you want to be. You owe nobody anything. That magnificent fucking bear is a part of you, and you are keeping her in the dark. Let her out."

A spark of indignation ignites in the midst of my shame and confusion. "I want her here!"

"Then let her be who she is. Be who you are." He steps back. "Stop trying to do the same pointless shit over and over and actually do what works."

The words strike home like arrows.

Do what works. That's the same as "do what you can, ignore what you can't."

I can't make my ice magic work through concentrating.

But I can summon an eight-foot bear or cause a snowstorm when I'm in danger.

What's the difference?

The answer comes with crystal clarity—exactly as Kain said. When I'm in danger, I let go of control. Fear and raw instinct take charge, instead of my trying to force magic into shapes it wasn't meant to take.

"Thyrvi says she comes when I 'feel strong.' Those were her words, not mine."

To my surprise, Kain smiles. Not a smirk, an actual smile that transforms his entire face. "Your bear is a creature of heart. Spirit. She's born of you, and you've spent your life crushing down most of what makes you who you are, hiding it away."

Is he right? Is Thyrvi everything I've tried not to be? Or rather—is she everything I truly am, everything I was meant to be, before they convinced me those parts of myself were wrong?

She's impulsive, violent, and blunt. All things my family tried to train out of me my whole life.

She's strong, righteous, and fierce. All things a voiceless princess could never be allowed to show.

She's carefree, playful, and ambitious. All things a person destined to die any day would never dare to embrace, because tomorrow might never come.

Tears fill my eyes as understanding crashes over me.

Thyrvi isn't just my val-tivar —she's my true nature, given form. And she can't be who she needs to be because she's everything I've tried to suppress.

"Just let go," Kain says, his voice gentler now. "Let go of this idea you've been fed all your life that you need to be just like everyone else. Let go of the voices telling you to do exactly what they are doing, then punishing you when it doesn't work."

The tears spill over. In all my life, no one has seen me like this—seen past the broken princess to the storm raging beneath. His words cut straight to my core, and the raw truth of them almost hurts.

"How?" The word comes out small, afraid.

"Just be you. Unashamedly you."

But how do you remove years of being told the same things by people who don't understand you? How do you fight when all the evidence is against you? How do you be the only one in a room who can't do what everyone else is doing, and not be ashamed?

"I don't know how to do that." My voice breaks, and silent tears stream down my cheeks.

Soft embers drift through his eyes, and I don't want to have this conversation anymore. This is more intimate than anything we've shared—he's seeing straight into my soul.

I didn't give him permission for this, did I? To see me so completely, to understand parts of me I barely understand myself?

Either way, it's too late. I want to fall into those eyes and be surrounded by blessed silence. No more thoughts, no more shame, no more frustration. No more fear or pain.

"You are the best of you, and the best of her," Kain says softly. "Curious, clever, kind, fierce, loyal, and strong. Embrace her." He pauses, eyes burning into mine. "Love her."

Is that how he sees me?

The pain in my arm jolts. They branded me like cattle, tried to mark me as less than them. But there are evils in this world, and I have the power to fight them, if I can access it. I was chosen by the gods, just like the other rooks here.

Kain is right. I don't think like them, look like them, work like them. I've been told repeatedly that I'm different my whole life, not just since coming to Featherblade. And I've known it's true my whole life—I'm the broken princess, the magic-less ice-fae, the girl who built worlds in her mind because the real one was too confined.

But what if I was never broken at all? What if every "failure" was just my trying to force myself into a mold I was never meant to fit? They said I couldn't concentrate—but I built an entire gallery in my mind, cataloguing memories with precision. They said I had no magic—but I can freeze springs and summon snowstorms when I need them. They said I was weak—but I have a bear of pure power as part of my soul.

Every time I couldn't do what came naturally to others, I accepted their judgment. I had to—what choice did a dying princess have but to believe what she was told? It was easier to think I was broken than to consider that maybe I was meant to be something entirely different.

But now… now I know I'm something different.

Thoughts crash through me with the force of an avalanche, hope coming in waves of exhilarating clarity.

What if different is good ?

What if that's what Yggdrasil needs—for some of us to be different?

I'm sorry, Thyrvi.

I say the words, not out into the air like I have when I've tried to call her before, but internally. I say them as deeply as I can, trying somehow to project them into my very core, into the place where I believe my soul resides.

We're going to do better. We're going to do what works. We're going to make each other stronger.

The best of me, and the best of her. Just like Kain said.

Excitement thrills through me at the thought, and my breath shudders.

The glass slips from my hand, rolling across the pallet as a colossal white bear shimmers into existence in the small room.

I hold my breath.

Thyrvi looks straight at me. "You are not in danger," she says.

"No," I breathe.

She cocks her huge head at me. "Something is… different."

She's right. I feel it too.

A massive smile takes my face.

She's here to stay. I know she is, as surely as I know my own name.

And I feel something else different, too. There's power coursing through my veins, filling my chest, whirling in untapped pockets throughout my restless body.

I hold my hand out and recall the intricate designs on the ice palace ballroom ceiling. Ice appears over my palm, carving itself as it forms sparkling spirals—not forced or constrained, but flowing naturally as breath.

I laugh. A true, joyous laugh.

"Well, princess," Kain says quietly. He looks between the ice over my palm and Thyrvi as she sniffs a table covered in herbs. "I think you just embraced your val-tivar. "

But it's more than that.

She's here to stay, and so is every part of me she represents. With Thyrvi here, for the first time in my life, I'm whole.

I am unashamedly me.