Page 38

Without Your Eyes

“ C ome on! Faster, faster! I’ve seen dwarves run quicker than this!”

“Quela! I’m running as fast as I can!”

“Push harder!”

“I am!”

“Not enough.”

Netharu’el keeps pace beside me. He presses a hand between my shoulder blades, forcing me forward.

Faster. Harder. More, more, more.

My legs are already threatening to give out.

I’ve been running for a history, my breath ragged, sweat dripping, and my feet pounding against the grass.

Dizzy. Gasping. Heat surges through me, and my vision blurs.

To our right, Gorgoroth looms like an unmovable wall, sealing us from the world. The jungle hums, its life spilling into the air. Parrots shriek, crickets trill, tanagers call, and howler monkeys roar.

And we have an audience.

Apprentices rest at the gathering place, the sun catching in their hair, glinting off their weapons.

Even the three women from the mess hall are there. They laugh, point, mock me, shouting something every time we pass.

They don’t have to run. They get to fight. To train. To do something that matters. They get to?—

“Stay sharp, Iszaelda!”

Netharu’el surges ahead, glancing back and gesturing as if he believes I can push harder.

He stops, waiting for me to catch up. Then he starts running again, his hand pressing between my shoulder blades again. Firm. Relentless.

Sun elves are quicker than star elves. Lighter, built for speed, all long limbs and lean muscle.

Star elves, on the other hand, are stronger. Heavier. More muscle, more weight.

But Netharu’el doesn’t seem to be affected by?—

I stumble. The ground rushes up.

My face stops just inches from a stone and the foaming river.

Damp earth is clenched in my fist. Gravel and sharp pebbles dig into my knees, biting, clinging, burrowing into my skin even as I push myself up.

“You’re making a fool of yourself, my dear,” Netharu’el mutters, and the apprentices chuckle in the distance.

I push onto my elbows, the damp, metallic scent of earth thick in my nose. Grit clings to my tongue as I spit out dirt, dragging a hand across my forehead to clear away the worst of the filth.

“We don’t have all day,” Netharu’el continues, tone light, almost bored. “Haven’t you?—”

“I nearly split my skull on a rock. You could at least pretend to care.”

His lips twitch. “Oh, poor thing. Shall I escort the little sun elf to the infirmary?”

I push myself up on unsteady legs, locking eyes with him in a glare sharp enough to cut.

My body burns, overheated and wrung dry.

I brace my hands against my knees, my heart hammering like a war drum. “Should I punch the little star elf in the face?”

Netharu’el exhales, utterly unbothered. “Don’t you recall our conversation from yesterday?”

“Ah, you mean the attempted murder?” My breath comes short, ragged. “When you pinned me to the wall and strangled me?”

My gaze drops to his breeches, which are directly in my line of sight at this angle.

The leatherwork is too perfect, every stitch precise, almost unnatural.

The scent of warm hide and crushed grass coils around me, thick in my lungs between gasping breaths.

Sweat slicks my palms, damp and trembling against my knees.

He pats my head, carelessly, dismissively, as if I were a three-sun-cycle-old child.

“I expected you to be weak. But not this weak.” His tone is almost amused. “Getting you to catch up with the others will be a challenge. You’re?—”

I shove his hand away. “I was one of the fastest where I’m from!”

He scoffs.

“There’s nothing wrong with my speed,” I continue, voice rising. “You’re the one with?—”

“Where are you from?”

“Valeanrae. The grandest forest in?—”

“Aarilion. I know.” His fingers lock around my wrist, yanking me to my feet. “And there, you lived in a barbaric little village that?—”

“Barbaric?”

I stumble but grab his forearm, gripping hard, refusing to let go, even as he tries to pull away.

“I’d bet you even lived in the trees. Am I wrong?” He lifts a brow, circling me, trying to shake off my grip.

“Of course we did.” The words snap like a whip. “True elves have a deep bond with nature. Not like you.”

He halts mid-step. “Oh?”

“A bond that thrives best when we’re not confined to metal boxes.”

“By all means.” With a sharp twist, he breaks free, and I stumble.

“But surely, you don’t think your ‘sturdy little village’ compares to one of the greatest academies in Sarador?

You may have been swift as an arrow in little Valeanrae, but here?

” A smirk. “Among Academy warriors? You’re slower than a dwarf’s hammer. ”

I duck as a cockatoo swoops past. “Luckily, I have other talents.”

“And what exactly might those be?”

“I’m fiery good at archery.”

“Are you, now?”

“And sword fighting.”

We circle each other slowly, eyes locked in a challenge neither of us is willing to break.

“With a longsword?”

“Crown blade. One-handed.”

His gaze sharpens. “Who trained you?”

I tilt my head, pressing a strained, deliberate smile onto my lips. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Satisfaction flickers through me at the way his brow creases, at the way the answer irritates him.

Netharu’el drags a finger over his lower lip, thoughtful. “Female sun elves aren’t permitted to wield weapons.” His tone is casual, but the edge is there. “Another mystery to me is why Merediath and Kathraanis allowed you to become an apprentice. How they could?—”

“I’m self-taught.”

The grass is sun-warmed beneath my feet, pulsing with heat and feeding me energy. My breathing has steadied, but my body is still slick with sweat and humming with power.

“Self-taught?”

“That’s right.”

“Then we have a lot of work to do.”

“When do we start? Now?”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “Of course not, my dear.” His voice is calm, almost amused. “We won’t start for a while.”

“Why not?”

“First, you must master or at least learn to control the basics.”

“Which are?”

I duck as another cockatoo soars overhead, its cream-colored wings catching the sunlight like polished ivory.

Netharu’el halts, his gaze settling on my hands. “Your endurance. Your balance. Your focus. Your reflexes…” He watches me, measuring. “Your awareness.”

“My awareness?”

His fingers slip into his back pocket, pulling free a thick strip of black cloth. He holds it out. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

His smirk is subtle, unreadable. “Just do it. For once.”

I close my eyes, and Netharu’el ties the cloth over them, his fingers grazing my skin. The touch is brief and impersonal, but it sends a shiver down my spine that pools at the nape of my neck.

And then darkness. Black as Aronia berries.

Instinctively, I reach for him, my fingers finding his arm, bare, firm muscle beneath smooth skin.

“Let go,” he hisses, voice tight.

I release him.

“Run.”

I blink beneath the blindfold. “Run? Now?” A laugh escapes me. “For all the fires, are you insane?”

“Run.”

I wave my hands around blindly and accidentally brush what I think is his waist. “I’m going to fall. Do you realize that?”

“I was under the impression that sun elves had exceptional balance. Or was I mistaken?”

“And I was under the impression that star elves had some grasp of reality. Apparently not. Yes, we have an incredible balance. But not without our sight.”

“Let’s go. We’ll start slow.”

With his warm hand firm against my back, I start jogging again.

It feels wrong, as if I’m about to crash into something at any moment.

I know we’re in an open field. The chances of slamming into a tree are slim. And yet…

There are groves. Stones. Uneven ground. It’s not just an empty space.

Netharu’el steers me and keeps me moving in the right direction.

He won’t let me collide with anything. Probably.

“Faster.”

I let out a sharp breath, picking up speed, but only a little. Not fast enough to throw myself off balance. Not fast enough to lose control.

Every step defies instinct. It’s like those trust exercises where you’re supposed to fall backward and pray that someone catches you. I would rather?—

“Now I want you to listen.”

I roll my eyes. “To yet another speech about how mighty and unyielding you, star elves, are? ‘Oh, look at me, I’m a star elf. Oh, we’re immortal. Oh, we can?—’”

“To your surroundings.”

I pause. “Why?”

“Open your ears. Register what’s around you.”

I snort. “You sound like a fiery shaman or a?—”

“Listen.”

I exhale through my nose, reluctantly forcing myself to let go and relax.

At first, all I hear is him, his light steps against the earth, the steady, controlled rhythm of his breath. The faint, almost imperceptible thrum of his heartbeat. The quiet parting of his lips. The way they press together again.

I stretch my awareness further.

The rush of the river, churning over rocks.

Birds screeching in the forest groves, macaws, cockatoos, tanagers, toucans.

The apprentices whispering. The wind threading through Gorgoroth, bending the trees.

And above it all, gliding unseen in the sky, a gryphon riding the air currents. Far, far away.

“What do you hear?” Netharu’el asks, his voice laced with barely restrained eagerness.

“Everything.”

“Everything?” He smiles. I can hear the slow pull of his lips. “Can you hear the caterpillar crawling along a tree a day’s ride from here?”

“No.” I keep running, each step firm against the earth. His hand remains at my back, warm and steady, grounding me, urging me forward when instinct tells me to stop.

“Can you hear the horned frog burying its eggs deep in Gorgoroth’s eastern reaches?”

“Maybe, if we stood still.”

“Don’t even try, my dear.” His nails press lightly between my shoulder blades, a silent reprimand. “Now use your sense of smell.”

I draw in a breath. Netharu’el’s scent floods my senses, clean linen, frost-laced snow on a polar winter’s night, metal and steel, fire. And beneath that, something wilder, philodendron, leather, ripe banana, and a whisper of something I can’t quite place…

“What do you smell?”

“Uh…”