Fires of War (War and Deceit #4) - Erin O'Kane Page 0,38

training that involved anything like this before.

“No, the chief is going to teach you to fight, my job is to help you access your fae side.” He frowns like he can’t work out why he’s been picked to be the one to do this, but shakes his head and gestures to the trees ahead of us. “I thought you’d feel more at home here.”

I discovered that while I was part elf, I wasn’t a high elf like Vaeril and my friends, but wood elf. When I visited them in the forest before we had to escape to the mountains, I had never felt more at home anywhere else, and if I’m being honest, although we weren’t there long, I miss it. Speaker Hawthorn and a couple of the other elves there worked their way into my heart. And it wasn’t just the elves, but the forest too. The whole place felt welcoming, my body feeling alive while being surrounded by the magic of the trees.

Walking up to the copse, Eldrin stops just as he reaches the edge of the grove and gestures for me to go first. Looking up at the towering trees, I smile as I walk past him, reaching out and brushing my hand over one of the trunks. They’re much smaller and slimmer than the trees in the elves’ forest, and the leaves in the canopy are a brighter green, the sun filtering through and landing on the mossy ground in a dappled pattern. I can feel Eldrin’s gaze on me, but I’m busy concentrating on the sensation of the trees around me. As I move deeper, it becomes colder as the leaves above get thicker, blocking out the sun, but that doesn’t bother me. Closing my eyes, I stretch my awareness, taking a deep, calming breath.

The trees aren’t sentient here, it’s like they’re…slumbering. In the ancient forest where the wood elves live, the trees spoke to me, welcomed me. It’s very different here, the presence of magic is missing. However, there is an overall feeling of awareness, of them being connected, and with my senses extended like this, I am connected to them too. It’s peaceful here, and as I push my consciousness into the ground around me, I feel my worries disappear. Something catches my attention, and I know it’s Eldrin slowly making his way towards me.

“I was right.”

Opening my eyes, I turn to ask him what he’s talking about, only to find that I’m surrounded by greenery. Shoots and buds are sprouting from the ground in an almost perfect ring around me. My mouth drops open and I jump out of the circle, making sure not to crush any of the plants. “What happened?” I gasp, staring at the still growing shoots. This isn’t possible. I gape as I watch a wildflower bloom from nothing.

“You accessed your fae side,” he explains, and again, I feel his gaze on me, but I can’t pull my attention from the spectacle in front of me. “Being here seems to help you ground yourself and let your magic free, allowing you to link with that part of yourself.” That catches my attention.

My magic? Moving away from the still growing patch of flowers, I notice that the farther away I go, the more the growth seems to slow down, but I’m too focused on what he just said. My mind spins. I’ve been told more times than I can count by the magicians in Arhaven that I don’t have magic, that my gifts are something else. I must be misunderstanding what he’s saying. Looking up, I find Eldrin watching me with a thoughtful expression. “Explain elf magic to me.”

His eyebrows shoot up at my demand, and for a moment I think he’s going to bark at me, to tell me he’s not my slave, but to my surprise, he leans against a tree and pulls his dagger from the sheath at his waist. “It’s not magic like your magicians possess.” He snarls the word ‘magician,’ and I can practically feel his hatred for them from here as he carves a stick he found on the ground with his blade.

I’m suddenly grateful Eldrin was not there when Grayson found me during our escape to the mountains. The elf queen had just declared me a traitor, and we were running to the mountain tribes, and somehow, Grayson managed to track me down with our partially formed bond. It hadn’t been the smoothest of reunions, given he thought Vaeril abducted me and