leaning against the wall where he could watch her. “Or do you need to concentrate?”
She slid him a look. “If I did, you’d have already broken that concentration.”
“Sorry.” He should know better. Moranu knew it took all of his concentration to shapeshift into anything but his raven First Form.
Salena made a choking sound. “Did the determinedly unapologetic Rhyian actually apologize again—or am I dreaming?”
“Ha-ha,” he huffed. “I’ve apologized to people before.”
“You have changed,” she replied in a voice heavy with sarcasm.
He was glad it seemed that way, but he wondered if he really had. She embraces the darkness in you, the parts you would keep in shadow and hide from the light of day. Had his mother directed those words at him? It had been a relief to finally talk about what happened with Salena, but he knew the confession hadn’t absolved him. Probably nothing could.
“You can talk to me,” Salena said after a few moments. “This isn’t all that difficult.”
“Dispersing a storm is easy, really?” He pounced on the offered topic with enthusiasm, not only because it drew him out of his dark thoughts, but because he was fascinated. She fascinated him—as always and more than ever.
“Really,” she said, casting him a smile. She loved doing this, he realized, sheer joy in her proficiency lighting her up as nothing that evening so far had done. “Part of it is that I’m not actually dispersing the storm. I’m simply sending the greatest intensity to other parts of the storm, and it’s a large one covering a wide area, so there’s lots of room to absorb a small amount over just this area. As I move the moisture and cloud cover away, I’m warming the air, which is again pretty straightforward because I only need to invert the extreme cold.” She glanced at him again. “This is really boring, right?”
“Not even a little,” he replied sincerely, utterly enchanted by her. The wind had already dropped, and he felt certain the air around them had warmed. The sky might be brighter, too.
She smiled at that, the way she used to smile at him, full of love he hadn’t deserved. It warmed his lonely heart—and chilled him to the bone. They’d finally had it out between them, but he didn’t expect that she would love him again. She couldn’t. If she did… Sudden terror filled him that he’d only break that love into pieces again.
“Also,” she continued, oblivious to his angst, “I’m only creating a change of a couple of hours. It’s not like my work in Aerron, where I’m having to fight entrenched weather patterns to reverse the encroachment of the desert and bring life to the region again. There I’m having to work with all kinds of atmospheric energy to gradually move in moisture and create conditions where rain can form. There’s a lot of intricate manipulations involved that have to be handled with precision and delicacy, or it all goes out of whack—and the cascading backlash can be vicious. Compared to that, this is child’s play. Have your eyes glazed over yet?”
Only blinded by her. “You’re amazing,” he said, his voice full of unabashed wonder.
She looked up at the sky, maybe blushing, though it was difficult to tell. “You should maybe come visit me in Aerron sometime,” she offered hesitantly. “The changes are what’s amazing. They’re really something to see.”
“I would like that,” he said, an odd pain in his chest. Was that hope or fear? Either way, a world in which he simply visited Salena in Aerron like she was just another friend seemed impossible.
“I’ve learned a lot from that work,” she said reflectively. “Studying with Andi taught me so much, but there’s nothing like actually doing the thing, day in and day out, to make you learn it, to force you to grow in your abilities.”
He knew she was musing on her own changes, and didn’t intend a double edge to her words, but he felt the slice of them anyway. Salena had spent the last seven years becoming an adept sorceress who found making summer from winter for a few hours “child’s play,” and he’d spent them doing… what? Sulking, avoiding Moranu’s attention, and trying to forget what a colossal ass he was. No wonder everyone called him lazy and feckless.
“Is that why your father isn’t doing this?” he asked. “You’re better than he is now.”
She glanced at him, eyes wide. It was definitely brighter out. “Nooo… I am not better than Muku by a long shot.