Snake Heart (Chains of Honor #2) -Lindsay Buroker Page 0,61

board,” Yanko said.

A part of him wanted to scowl silently and uncooperatively from his spot on the bunk, but he couldn’t help but think of the conversation she’d had with Gramon outside of his door that morning. He had no interest in becoming a pirate and shuddered at the idea of never being able to clear his name and return to the mountains and the people that he loved—he even missed his poor hounds and hoped they were well, along with all of his family members. But... if she would teach him, wouldn’t he be a fool to pass up that chance? Her power had made her legendary during the war.

“If I feed him, will he call me something more appealing?” Pey Lu asked.

“No.”

“Hm.” She glanced at a crumb-filled metal plate on the desk. The surly Kendorian had brought by some rock-hard biscuits and chewy dried fish earlier. Even Kei hadn’t been enthused by the biscuits.

“Is that, uhm?” He waved to the robe, wanting to ask if it was for him, but not wanting to presume.

“You might as well keep it. If I wore it on deck, there would be mocking whispers behind my back, and then I’d have to make examples of people. I get tired of doing that.”

“Pirates aren’t supposed to wear dresses, eh?”

“That’s exactly what they call Nurian robes. Especially the Turgonians. They have no respect for wizards, even when their back hair is being seared off by one.”

“I know. I’ve learned.” Yanko eyed the folded robe, remembering the extra stamina it had given him. He could still sense the power about it, woven through the threads. It was worth enduring some taunting to have such an item, and once he returned home, he would not be teased over it. In Nuria, silks and robes were common attire, and nobody would dare mock someone in warrior mage dress. Still, he didn’t know if he should accept a gift from her.

“Tell me about your relationship with magic,” she said. “From what I’ve seen, you hesitate at times. Thinking too much, as one of my old mentors called it.”

“Don’t you have to think? It’s not like you can just will things to happen. You have to know how they can happen and then follow the steps to make them happen.” It occurred to him that he was explaining the basics to someone much more powerful than he was. He shrugged and spread a hand, inviting a superior explanation.

“Yes, that’s true,” she said, “but once you’ve done something a thousand times, it should become automatic.”

“Well, most of the somethings I’ve been doing lately I haven’t done a thousand times. I’m still figuring out the best way to... create a hole in a floor or ceiling, for instance.”

“By triggering a trap, apparently,” she said dryly.

He cleared his throat. “That was one way, yes, but I meant the hole in the brig ceiling.”

“And in the side of my ship?”

“Actually that was done by, uhm, something else. Tools.”

“Tools on a flugnugstica?” Pey Lu asked.

Yanko recognized the Turgonian word for their underwater boats, even if he hadn’t been able to remember it—or pronounce it—himself. He didn’t want to admit that his comrades had escaped in one, so he only shrugged.

“What magic comes quickly to you? Automatically?” she asked.

“Earth magic. Speaking to animals. I don’t have to think about that. I just do it.”

Her gaze shifted to Kei, who was staring mulishly back at her, wanting his perch returned.

“Did you collapse the ceiling in the waterfall cave?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Ah. I’d thought that might have been the Kyattese practitioner.” The Kyattese practitioner that she had killed?

Yanko grimaced. “She was a weather mage. Whatever their equivalent to that is. It didn’t matter. All it did was delay the soul construct. I had no idea how to kill it. My first attack just bounced off.”

“They’re very durable. Extreme heat destroys most things. You can throw fire?”

“I... can light candles.” His voice lowered to a mutter. “So long as there’s not a time limit.”

“Hm.”

He plucked at the scratchy blanket on the bunk, avoiding her gaze. Like all Nurians, she would wonder why he hadn’t been training to hurl fireballs around since he was a toddler. As if there were so many reasons to do so when one lived in a valley surrounded by forests. Flammable forests.

“Well, if you can light a candle, you can create a fireball. It’s just bigger. With air feeding fuel into it at the same time as you combust whatever hydrogen is in the air