“I should practice heating the metal myself,” I said speculatively.
“No,” Arcus replied, glaring. “Not until you have much more control. I’d hate to think what you could do in a room with this much fuel.”
“Your confidence in me is inspiring,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Speaking of your unshakable confidence,” he said, eyes narrowed as he inspected the sword’s bevel, “had you any idea what your powers could do before Brother Thistle began teaching you? As you didn’t grow up with other Firebloods, it’s curious to me how much you actually know about your fire and your people.”
“Most of what I know is from my grandmother. She was well traveled, knew history, and brought me books, some of them written by Fireblood scholars. You won’t find those in Frostblood libraries.”
“On the contrary, there are some here in the abbey. But by and large you’re right. And I suppose you’ve answered my next question: how you learned to read.”
“Yes, my mother and grandmother. But Grandmother was the one who really challenged me to learn new words, memorize famous passages of prose and verse, expand my thinking.”
He lowered the hammer and gazed at me long enough that I shifted uncomfortably. “Stop staring at me like that,” I complained.
“Like what?” he asked, nodding to the hearth. “More heat.”
I held the blade above the coals again. A stray spark landed on his arm. It hissed into oblivion instantly, but Arcus jumped back a foot. He sucked in a shaky breath and took the tongs from me, returning the sword to the anvil as if nothing had happened.
“You can go now,” he said coolly.
“Oh, can I? Why, thank you, my lord,” I said sarcastically. “And for the record, I already know how you feel about fire, so you don’t have to be mad that I’ve witnessed one of your weaknesses. We all have them, you know.”
He turned to look at me, his face completely expressionless. I tensed, waiting for a scathing response, but he mumbled something and looked away.
I left the smithy and headed toward the kitchen to help Brother Peele with dinner preparations, still puzzling over his parting remark. I must have misheard him. It almost sounded like he’d said, I fear you are becoming one of mine.
As Brother Thistle trained my mind, I became better at sensing the location of my Frostblood opponents. Arcus sometimes tested that ability by making me wear a blindfold. He was whisper-quiet as he advanced and moved around me, but I always knew where he was, my sword coming up to touch his. The problem was, I couldn’t tell which position his sword was in, so I didn’t know how to block. During one lesson, he finally let me use my fire to defend myself, confident, as always, in his ability to fight off every attack with his frost.
After our lesson, if the weather was good, we would find a spot under one of the fruit trees and unpack a snack of fresh bread, cheese, and crispy apples, compliments of Brother Peele. In between bites, I would ask Arcus questions that he somehow managed not to answer. His childhood remained a mystery, aside from his brief retellings of his nursemaid’s stories, some of them surprisingly similar to Grandmother’s. He was also willing to share combat techniques in great detail, but if I asked who had taught him or if he’d ever used the moves, and against whom, he would suddenly remember he had promised to help Sister Clove muck the stables or that Brother Thistle had requested his young eyes to decipher a bit of cramped script in some ancient book in the library. There was no surer way to rid myself of Arcus’s company than by asking him personal questions.
I felt like something had changed between us, but I never knew if it was me alone who felt the difference. Once we’d exhausted discussions over my lessons, we strayed onto other topics. I started to reveal myself more, to tell him things I hadn’t thought I would ever share, especially not with a Frostblood. Stories from my childhood, how I’d felt when I learned my grandmother had died, my guilt that she’d died alone on her travels, my secret envy of my mother’s even temperament, my deep longing to fit in somewhere.
He never offered sympathy, which I would have rejected anyway, but he did listen attentively and ask questions, drawing things out of me that sometimes surprised me. Then I told him about the day the soldiers came, and my voice broke and I forgot whom I was telling, so lost in the fear and horror of that day. When I wiped my eyes and looked up, he was staring at me with such a profound look of rage that I jerked back in shock.
“Now I know why you hate us so much.”
I blinked in confusion. “I don’t hate you.”
“Well, perhaps you should.”
My mind raced with possible responses, but none of them seemed right, either revealing too much of how I felt or seeming insufficient in the wake of his strong emotion.
“I feel safe here,” I finally said.