My skin became hot. Sweat pooled in my armpits and between my breasts. I trembled with the effort. When the heat increased so much that I grew fearful of losing control, I let it out in a rushing torrent.
All the yellow grass between me and the bush caught fire and burned before fading to black. The shrub remained untouched.
I cursed under my breath.
“Control, Miss Otrera,” said the monk. “You have power, but you need to learn control. If this had been a battlefield, you would have burned your own line of soldiers and left the enemy untouched.”
“I have no interest in going into battle,” I spit out, frustrated by my failure. “I just need to kill one miserable king!”
Arcus growled disapproval from behind me.
“And as for control,” I continued, “that’s what I’m here to learn, and you are supposed to teach it to me.”
I poked my finger into the monk’s chest on the word you and heard the sizzle of fabric. I jumped back and put a hand to my mouth. He waved a finger and his robe was instantly doused.
“As I said, Miss Otrera,” he said calmly, if a bit frigidly. “Control.”
Tears gathered behind my eyes, my sense of failure compounded by losing my temper. I turned away, blinking hard.
“Now,” he said, “I have an idea of your process. You let the fire build inside you and then let it out in a raging flood. Cold is very similar in this regard. It can get away from you and cause much havoc if not focused on a target.”
“But… I was focused on the target.”
“Your eyes were. But was your mind? Once you learn to focus your mind, your fire will follow. Observe.”
He raised his arm and brought it forward and back, lightning-fast. A tongue of ice cracked the air like a silver-blue whip. I jumped back reflexively as the ice flew past and clattered to the ground. He raised his hand again. A spiral of frigid air pulled dust and debris from the ground, creating a sort of funnel that swept from his hand, left and right, wherever he moved it.
“It takes great focus to control your power,” he said. “At first, it will seem impossible. But you must learn to center your mind in stillness. Then you will learn to find that stillness at other times, even when there are distractions. Even in battle.”
I glared into his stormy blue eyes. “It’s easy for you. Frostbloods are full of ice. I’m full of fire and heat. I can’t just turn it off.”
“Do not confuse frost with lack of feeling,” he warned. “Frostbloods are fully capable of feeling in every way. The danger is that those emotions, while powerful and deep, may be covered with a layer of ice that prevents the natural expression of them. It is a painful state that I would not wish on you or anyone, Miss Otrera.”
I was surprised by his vehement tone.
“But this is not about feelings,” he continued more softly. “This is about training your mind. If you can’t master your mind, you will never master your gift.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll try again.”
I took a shuddering breath and sat down.
“When you find the place of stillness,” he reminded me, “it will feel like time has ceased to exist. First let the thoughts come. But always go back to the word I gave you. It will help you find the core of your mind.”
Thoughts did come, fast and furious. Memories, images, worries. It seemed that as I willed my mind to calm, it became a raging torrent of jabbering nonsense, intent on irritating me into a state of fury. Finally, exhausted by the effort of pushing back, I let them wash over me. When there was a space, I came back to the word.
After a long while, there was a shift. I stopped being aware of anything.
I just was.
As I floated in that still space, something crowded the edge of my consciousness, no more than a breath of sensation. It was an awareness of cold. I poked at it with my mind, and it seemed to chuckle at my efforts.
No, it wasn’t the cold that was chuckling.
It was—
I struggled to pull my mind out of the depths. It was like swimming in goose down. When I managed to open my eyes, I pivoted to look behind me toward the abbey, toward that awareness of cold. Arcus sat cross-legged on the ground a short distance away.
His eyes were closed, but a smirk tilted one edge of his mouth.
The world tilted. I slammed a palm against the ground to steady myself.
Brother Thistle spoke. “Arcus, is it too much to ask that you remain quiet?”
“I’m sorry,” said Arcus, not sounding the least bit sorry. “But she was shivering so hard, I could feel it from here.”
“I’ve been sitting on this frozen tundra half the morning,” I bit out, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes to clear my blurry vision.
“I thought Firebloods made their own heat.”
“I was concentrating on other things, and that makes it harder. And I was distracted by—” I gasped. “I felt it. I felt your cold!”