“What it sounds like.”
“Helpful,” Ella sneers at my side. She continues braiding her vivid hair back from her face. It hasn’t been dyed in a few weeks, as evidenced by the dirty-blond hair showing at the root. “He means that a human body runs on a pulse of electrical signals. Very small, ridiculously fast. Difficult to detect and almost impossible to control. They’re most concentrated in the brain, and easiest to harness there.”
My eyes widen as I look at Tyton. He just keeps walking, white hair over one eye, hands shoved into his pockets. Unassuming. As if what Ella just said isn’t terrifying. “You can control someone’s brain?” Cold fear rips me like a knife to the gut.
“Not the way you’re thinking.”
“How do you know—”
“Because you’re very easy to predict, Mare. I’m not a mind reader, but I know six months at the mercy of a whisper would make anyone suspicious.” With an annoyed sigh, he raises a hand. A spark brighter than the sun and more blinding weaves through his fingers. One touch from it could turn a man inside out with its force. “Ella’s trying to say I can look at a person and drop them like a sack of hammers. Affect the electricity in their body. Give them a seizure if I’m feeling merciful. Kill them outright if not.”
I look back at Ella and Rafe, blinking between them. “Have either of you learned that?”
Both scoff. “Neither of us has anywhere near the control required,” Ella says.
“Tyton can kill someone discreetly, without anyone else knowing,” Rafe explains. “We could be having dinner in the mess hall and the premier drops on the other side of the room. Seizure. He dies. Tyton doesn’t blink and keeps on eating. Of course,” he adds, clapping Tyton on the back, “not that we think you would ever do that.”
Tyton barely reacts. “Comforting.”
What a monstrous—and useful—way to use our ability.
In the sparring circles, someone yells in frustration. The sound draws my attention, and I turn to see a pair of newbloods grappling. Kilorn oversees the spar and waves at us.
“Going to give the rings a try today?” he says, gesturing at the circles of dirt marking the sparring grounds. “Haven’t seen the lightning girl spark up in a long while.”
I feel a surprisingly eager tug. Sparring with Ella or Rafe is exciting, but matching lightning to lightning isn’t exactly helpful. There’s no reason to practice fighting something we won’t encounter for a long time.
Ella answers before I can, stepping forward. “We spar on Storm Hill. And we’re already late.”
Kilorn just raises an eyebrow. He wants my answer, not hers.
“Actually, I wouldn’t mind. We should be practicing against what Maven has in his arsenal.” I try to keep my tone diplomatic. I like Ella; I like Rafe. I even like what I know of Tyton, which is very little. But I have a voice too. And I think we can only go so far fighting each other. “I’d like to spar here today.”
Ella opens her mouth to argue, but it’s Tyton who speaks first. “Fine,” he says. “Who?”
The closest thing to Maven we have.
“You know, I’m a lot better at this than he is.”
Cal stretches an arm over his head, the bicep straining against thin cotton. He grins as I watch, enjoying the attention. I just glower and cross my arms over my chest. He hasn’t agreed to my request, but he hasn’t said no either. And the fact that Cal cut short his own training routine to come to the sparring circles says enough.
“Good. That will make fighting him easier.” I’m careful with my words. Fight, not kill. Ever since Cal mentioned his search for someone who can “fix” his brother, I have to tread lightly. As much as I want to kill Maven for what he did to me, I can’t voice those thoughts. “If I train against you, he won’t be difficult at all.”
He scuffs the dirt beneath his feet. Testing the terrain. “We already fought.”
“Under the influence of a whisper. Someone else pulled the strings. That’s not the same.”
At the edge of the circle, a bit of a crowd gathers to watch. When Cal and I step onto the same sparring ground, word travels quickly. I think Kilorn might even be taking bets, weaving through the dozen or so newbloods with a shifty grin. One of them is Reese, the healer I struck when I was first rescued. He lies in wait like the skin healers used to when I trained with Silvers. Ready to fix whatever we break.
My fingers drum against my arms, each one ticking. In my bones, I call to lightning. It rises at my command, and I feel the clouds gather overhead. “Are you going to keep wasting my time so you can strategize, or can we get started?”
He just winks and continues his stretches. “Almost done.”
“Fine.” Stooping, I brush the finely ground dirt over my hands, wiping away any sweat. Cal taught me that. He grins and does the same. Then, to the surprise and delight of more than a few people, he pulls his shirt clean off and tosses it to the side.
Better food and hard training have made us both more muscular, but where I am lean and agile, smoothly curved, he is all hard angles and cut lines of definition. I’ve seen him undressed many times and still it gives me pause, sending a flush from my cheeks all the way down to my toes. I swallow forcibly. At the edge of my vision, both Ella and Rafe look him over with interest.
“Trying to distract me?” I pretend to shrug it off, ignoring the heat all over my face.
He cocks his head to side, a picture of innocence. He even claps his hand to his chest, forcing a false gasp as if to say Who, me? “You’ll just fry the shirt anyway. I’m saving supplies. But,” he adds, beginning to circle, “a good soldier uses every advantage at his disposal.”
Above me, the sky continues to darken. Now I can definitely hear Kilorn taking bets. “Oh, you think you have the advantage? That’s cute.” I match his movements, circling in the opposite direction. My feet move of their own accord. I trust them. The adrenaline feels familiar, born of the Stilts, the training arena, every battle I’ve ever been in. It takes hold in my nerves.
I hear Cal’s voice in my head, even as he tenses, settling into an all-too-familiar stance. Burner. Ten yards. My hands fall to my sides, fingers swirling as purple-white sparks jump in and out of my skin. Across the circle, he flicks his wrists—and searing heat blazes across my palms.
I yelp, jumping back to see my sparks are red flame. He took them from me. With a burst of energy, I thrust them back into lightning. They ripple, wanting to become fire, but I hold my concentration, keeping the sparks from bursting out of control.
“First blow to Calore!” Kilorn yells at the edge of the circle. A mix of groans and cheers runs through the still-growing crowd. He claps and thumps his feet. It reminds me of the arena, the Stilts, when he yelled for Silver champions. “Let’s go, Mare, pick it up!”
A good lesson, I realize. Cal didn’t have to open our spar by revealing something I wasn’t prepared for. He could have held it back. Waited to use that unseen advantage. Instead, he played that piece first. He’s going easy on me.
First mistake.
Ten yards away, Cal beckons, indicating for me to continue. A taunt as much as anything. He’s best on the defense. He wants me to come to him. Fine.
At the edge of the circle, Ella mutters a warning to the crowd. “I’d step back if I were you.”