cyclone.
Lukas draws back, both of us breathing heavily as he holds tight to me, his eyes wild.
“I love you, Elloren. Is that what you want to hear?”
Stunned, I can’t speak.
“Is that it?” he demands, his voice rough. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” I rasp as his hands hold tight to my arms, ferocity in his fire. I swallow, overcome.
“I love you,” he says again, lashing the words out with a vehemence that takes my breath away. “But you’re the Black Witch. And if you’re going to survive Vogel, we cannot coddle you. And I want you to survive him! But it’s going to be nearly impossible to survive him! Do you understand?”
I swallow again and nod stiffly, barely able to take a breath. So shocked by his fierce declaration.
Lukas steps back and pulls in his fire, but I can still feel it, whipping out at the edges.
He collects himself, hands on his hips, his breathing forced into a more even cadence. When he looks back at me, his face is once again remote, his fire held back. He glances at the weapons I threw down.
“Again, Elloren,” he demands.
* * *
Twelve nights later, I’m sitting around the ledge fire with Lukas, Valasca, and Chi Nam, every muscle hurting, but I’m getting used to the constant ache as they all push me harder and harder. Every day and night.
I’m changing. I can feel it. The weapons strapped all over my body are starting to feel like an extension of myself. Like extra limbs. And I’m starting to intimately know every inch of these weapons, every rune on their hilts and what they can do, the finger arrangements of their combinations beginning to feel as natural as the finger positions on the frets of a violin.
Lukas and Valasca have sparred with me in the middle of the night, dragging me, disoriented, out of sleep more than once as they yelled and shoved me and tried to intimidate me and throw me off balance before pulling me into mock battles in which I’ve been mock slain every single time.
But I’m feeling leaner. More honed. And I’ve begun going off on my own in the few spare moments they allow me to experiment with some of my throws and runic combinations. I’m starting to effectively wield more than one weapon at a time, following the Wand’s gift of guidance, to level them at my targets, even when driven to complete mental and physical and emotional exhaustion.
I may not be a warrior yet, but I feel like a true soldier apprentice. I’ve also settled more fully into my Elfhollen glamour, getting used to the gray as I fall into my new, manufactured identity.
No longer Elloren Gardner but Ny’laea Shizoryn.
I’m drilled in this new identity until I’m fluent in my fictional history and answer to the name Ny’laea, speaking almost exclusively now in the Elfhollen language and outfitted in gray Elfhollen garb that’s internally warded with Noi military runes.
Ever since Lukas’s blazing declaration of love, I feel different around all of them, their aloof severity no longer a source of chafing pain, no matter how hard they drive me. Lukas has remained closed off to me, but I fully understand, both rationally and emotionally, why he’s being harsh, and I accept it.
But every now and then, I catch him giving me a stray ardent look and sense the heated arc of his power reaching toward me before he carefully reins it all back in.
* * *
On my thirty-sixth day here, the sun blazes fiercely down on the world, pouring heat into the motionless desert air. The shade cast over me offers only a slim respite from the unforgiving heat.
I tighten my grip on the rune blades in my hands, the charged runes prickling under my fingers as they draw on my affinity auras.
Rivulets of sweat drip down my scorching neck as I face off with both Lukas and Valasca on the crimson sands of the desert plain, the air like a kiln, my gray Elfhollen garb oppressively hot. Chi Nam calmly watches from the sidelines as she leans into her rune staff. A great arc of red stone rises behind her and swoops over Lukas, Valasca, and me before descending to the sands.
Lukas and Valasca attack from opposite sides.
They draw their weapons in a blur, and I sense, immediately, the affinities they’re powering up—
Lukas is drawing fire into his blade. I can both see it and sense it if I look at his weapon, my fire affinity