“Ever? I don’t believe you. You’re telling me there’s no one you’ve ever had an interest in? Even now?”
One of these days I swear my face will stop exploding in flames, but clearly today is not that day. I glance at my hands as my skin ripens to the color of a sunburn and try to focus on releasing the final strands of my hair to ripple in the icy breeze. All the while I’m praying he doesn’t notice that my heartbeat just turned into a blacksmith’s hammer.
“Sure it’s not him?” He tips his head toward the still-sleeping Colin.
“What? No.” Fresh heaps of coals pour from head to toe.
“And yet she blushes,” Eogan murmurs.
“I don’t. I’m serious. I swear . . .”
“Or someone from the past still haunting the present perhaps? Young love cut short?”
I open my mouth. But nothing comes out. Except possibly steam from the heat I’m exuding. I cringe. I’ve never been in love. Ever. The only crush I had at the age of eleven was, in fact, cut short. By the boy’s father. Most owners don’t want their sons or servants distracted by a slave girl. Especially when they have their own lustful interests in mind.
I clear my throat and straighten my shoulders as the chasm of shame in me shudders and enlarges the crevice in my heart.
I stand.
“Nymia—”
I hear him behind me. But I pick up my pace because I don’t want to break open in front of him. Maybe he knows this because he doesn’t follow. Or maybe he just doesn’t care.
When I return, half frozen with an armful of firewood, the sun is above the trees. Colin has returned from a quick run and Eogan is serving up breakfast. In my spot is a tiny leather belt with two simple metallic knife sheaths attached, from which two handles protrude. The blades Eogan had been sharpening.
I pick up the belt to discover it’s the size of my lower calf and the flat sheaths have some kind of lock to keep the blades secure. When I push the lock, it acts as a spring, pushing the knife handles up the tiniest bit for a quick grip.
“For inside your boot,” he says when I look up. He smirks. “Thought it better than that knife you’ve been tying beneath those dresses.”
I nod and notice Colin holding a set too.
“Thank you,” I whisper, before taking my food to sit alone. I don’t speak further to either of them. Because I can feel myself losing. The more time I spend with them, the more exposed and tender I feel. As if I’m under the blade of one of those knives, my skin’s becoming thinner, and I can’t keep it covered enough to avoid seeing how bare I am. I find myself admitting to things, experiencing things, feeling things I cannot allow. But I don’t know how to make it stop.
Mercifully, the rest of the day takes place in a hazy blur so I don’t have to admit to anything more than being nauseous. Eogan says it’s our bodies still adjusting to the high altitude. He has us drink ridiculous amounts of water before our first lesson, which is similar to the ones we’ve been practicing for the past week. Colin shifts rocks while I try to steal them with the wind, except I accidentally keep dusting us in snow every few minutes.
After lunch, Colin begs Eogan for us to start attacking the Bron ships, to which our trainer scoffs and just alters the lesson—having Colin fling the rocks at him while I try to whip them away before they connect. Not that Eogan’s block would allow the boulders to hit him anyway, but it still feels good to shield something rather than attack.
An hour into the routine, a wolf howls, and it’s definitely louder. Closer. My skin bristles the length of my back, and I brace for the bolcrane’s scream to follow. But it doesn’t. I turn to ask Eogan, but he cuts me off with a brisk, “Don’t worry about it. And don’t mention it to Colin. Poor guy has enough on his mind with having his skills foiled by a girl.”
I give him an arrogant smirk and go back to foiling.
Late afternoon is spent with Colin griping about us “seein’ the Bron ships but not doing anything,” while we work on perfecting the new defensive technique, and Eogan teaches me to create icicles out of frozen air. I notice that more and more, his touch isn’t just capable of calming my blood, but with it he’s been honing my abilities enough that I can specify between wind and rain and lightning. But even though I’m halfway decent at icicle-making, by the time night falls, I’m also uncomfortably aware of how small scale it is compared to what Colin and I are looking at on the southern horizon. I’m defending one person. But those ships will take out an entire civilization. I eat and fall into bed beneath a smoky moon. If I can’t get this down faster, Faelen is going to fall.