Page 51 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)

“I am sorry for before,” I said, forcing my fists to flatten and folding them in my lap. “I am sorry for how I acted and what I said. Not just at the Sacrifice Gate, but before, too. I treated you terribly when all you wanted to do was help me.”

Tomin kept his eyes on Isanara. “You are a witch.”

A witch does not apologize. Another axiom that Maura had drilled into me during those early decades with my coven. But there was no way Tomin could have known that. Which said plenty about what he thought of my kind.

“As if that is an excuse,” I sighed. “It has been my excuse for a very long time.” I could so easily attribute every ugly impulse within me to what I was—what I’d been forced to become.

Garrick was right when he said I had not chosen to be resurrected.

I’d expected to die alone in that frostbitten forest. Maybe I’d even deserved to.

But there I was, with a familiar and a friend.

Tomin nodded his head, as if deciding something, then lifted his chin to meet my eyes. “I accept your apology. But may I ask a question?”

He could ask, but that did not mean I had to answer.

But I would. There was only one query that I was bound to leave unanswered.

I nodded.

“Why did the exercise in the temple unnerve you so deeply?” He leaned forward as he spoke, an errant black curl falling over his forehead. The earnestness in his face, undisguised, made him look even younger than he was.

I’d always been the youngest sister. First in my family, and then in my coven. I’d never been tasked with guiding or caring for a younger sibling. But if I had, I would have wished for one like Tomin.

That had to be the reason that I answered him truthfully. That and the dimple.

“When the Dark God created the witches, he endowed us with certain gifts. Among them is the heightening of the senses. All of them.” My eyes drifted closed, needing to cut off one of those senses so that I could continue, so I could try and make him understand.

“I can hear your heartbeat, and Varian’s.

I can taste the dust from the pyrite that Isanara crunches between her teeth, feel the subtle moisture in the air that tells me we will have fresh snow tonight. ”

“Amazing,” he said softly, the rhythm of his heart speeding up slightly. I felt him lean forward into the space between us, the subtle movement of air whooshing over the exposed sections of my skin.

“Overwhelming,” I choked out. I noticed every place the syllables scraped over my throat. “Sometimes… sometimes it feels like a physical pain. A pounding in my head, a knife in my chest.” And then my power breaks free.

I did not tell him that.

I’d never admitted that weakness aloud. If Maura or my other coven sisters suspected, they’d never voiced their guesses aloud. And Garrick… somehow, his warmth calmed my rampant frost and ice. But not even he knew how I lost control.

“I think the meditation could help.”

I blinked, my attention refocusing on Tomin.

He’d retreated a bit, but there was an eagerness in the set of his shoulders and earnestness in his honey-gold eyes.

My stomach tightened, urging me back. Another attempt to control me, the dark voice in my mind insisted.

To protect me from myself. Another who found me less than.

No. Tomin wanted to help. That difference was everything.

I laid a hand on Isanara’s side below the line of wickedly sharp spikes. Her iridescent wing flared slightly but then settled again as one yellow-green eye flicked around to look at me. I doubted dragons could smile, but there was definitely approval in that glance.

I let her even breathing steady me. “Would you teach me?” I asked Tomin. “I promise not to run away or yell at you this time.”

The dimple in his cheek popped as Tomin leaned further forward and offered his hands, palms up. “Of course.”

Isanara chuffed when I removed my hand from her side, but she curled her head around and watched as I slid my hands into Tomin’s. I told myself I imagined the dip of her jaw in a facsimile of a nod.

Tomin took me through the same steps as he had in the temple before the Sacrifice Gate.

First, we focused on breathing, then on rooting myself in a place of safety.

This time, the image that came to my mind was drenched in darkness, a lone fire in the forest. On one side, the rhythmic breathing of a dragon, on the other, a set of glowing turquoise orbs.

At some point, Garrick disappeared through the trees, sent by Varian to gather enough firewood to last through the night. I tried to block them out as Tomin instructed, but Garrick was always there, at the edge of my consciousness.

A lone crow cawed overhead, its deep, melodious notes echoing through the trees. The sound was unusually deep and musical.

When Tomin finally released my hands, my power was quiet. Still there, but less demanding, even when the smells of our evening meal mingled with the sharp call of Varian’s voice and the crunch of Garrick’s footsteps in the snow as he returned to camp.

Hours later, just as I fell asleep with Isanara stretched on one side and Garrick sitting first watch on the other, it began to snow.