"New?"
He stepped onto the dock without looking back. Lyana jumped over the side of the boat and landed easily on the damp wooden planks, then followed him toward the nondescript building. The front door was ajar and the white glow of mage light seeped through the opening, giving no hint as to what waited inside.
"While you're making progress with the bowls, it's not happening fast enough."
A snort slipped out before she could stop it. You think I don’t know?
Every lesson was like torture. Those four bowls mocked her as they sat unmoving on the table. Malek's eyes judged her, his every disappointment written across his face. The sight of ripples passing over still water was the greatest thrill she'd had in days. It was hardly the stuff of legend, not nearly enough to heal the world.
Lyana tried to think back to that day in the sacred nest, with the power swirling all around her, a manifestation of Aethios's might, his hands guiding her as she pushed Malek away and fought him to save Xander's life. She'd been powerful then. Strong. Unstoppable. Wild, even. Recently, the only thing she felt was tamed.
"I know you're an impulsive person," Malek continued, either unaware or unmoved by her silent insolence, his voice as focused as ever. "You like to do. You like to act. I think maybe you need real stakes to awaken your magic, not always, but now, while you don’t yet know how to bend it to your will. I probably should've brought you here sooner, but I wanted to try the other way first. It's more, well, more humane, I guess you'd say. But we don't have that luxury any longer."
With a slight push, the door swung all the way open and Lyana followed him into the brightly lit corridor. As they stepped through the archway at the far end, for the first time in what felt like days a true smile fluttered over her lips. It was a training arena. What she'd thought was a building was truly a wall, surrounding a flat field of packed sand with the open skies above. Her muscles flared with the sweetest heat. She'd been stuck in the castle for days, and it would be such a relief to finally move.
"When new mages come into their power, we bring them here to train," explained as they approached the small group of men and women waiting in the center of the arena. Lyana recognized them from her days on the king's ship—Viktor, the wind mage, Nyomi, the water mage, Jacinta, the metal mage, and Isaak, the fire mage. "Teaching control isn't always the safest thing, so we like to do it away from the city centers, in a somewhat isolated location. You don't need to hold back here. In fact, I pray that you won't, because none of my mages will hold back with you." Malek flicked his gaze to the side. "Viktor, why don't you go first."
"Yes, my liege," the lanky man answered with a nod, stepping away from the group and unclasping the hands behind his back. Yellow sparked menacingly at his fingertips, but that wasn't what caught her attention. It was the look in his hazel eyes, laced with lightning despite his rigid stance. He was controlled but not broken, composed but not contained. He was exactly what she yearned to be.
They lined up to fight, and she turned toward Malek. "I have no weapon."
"You are the weapon, Lyana." His smile was as charged as the air after a storm, electric enough to make her feathers prickle. "Your magic is the only weapon you'll ever need."
With a gulp, she brought her spirit eyes to the surface, letting the world dissolve into a rainbow, as though a fine layer of colorful dust were sprinkled across every surface. Thrumming between the elements and alive in each human heart was the same golden spark now glittering along her fingertips. Still, without her daggers she felt naked. Distantly, she knew the metal was more a liability than a defense. Jacinta could easily send them shooting for her heart. But they were a comfort, a shield. They made her feel unstoppable, and even if the sensation were false, it was something her magic had yet to achieve.
"But with a sword—"
"No."
"A dagger—"
"No."
"A—"
"Viktor."
A gust of wind barreled across the field and slammed into her chest. She was on her back before she knew what happened, rolling across the sand. Digging her fingers into the ground, she searched for a handhold, some way to fight. The claw marks mocked her as the wind dragged her back. She pumped her wings, but the air slid through her feathers, the clipped ends making them useless. She couldn't fly. She couldn't stand. She could barely hang on. How in the world was she supposed to fight?
"Your magic, Lyana!"
Healing was the only magic she knew, the only magic she trusted. The wind pressed against her and swirled around her, glittering with yellow aero'kine magic and something else, buttery swirls marking the elements themselves, a color only her eyes could see. Lyana tried to see deeper, into the spirit connecting the elements together. She tried to hold it, to stop it, to turn it, but the sky had a spirit like hers, wild and free, not meant to be controlled.
Her feet hit the wooden boards at the end of the arena. The gusts didn’t stop. They pushed against her chest, pounding her again and again, until her body rose and her wings spread and she was pressed flush to the wall like a painting made of flesh.
Lyana waited for Malek to stop it.
As the wind crushed her, she waited for his voice, for his command.
It never came.
Tears leaked from her eyes. They burned. Her exposed skin stung as pellets of sand caught in the maelstrom struck her like a million tiny knives. She fought to lift even a single finger, her arms shaking from the exertion. A scream tore through her lips instead. It was useless. She couldn't focus her magic, and any minute Malek would realize it too. All she had to do was wait, was endure. All she—
Lyana paused.
Somewhere in the pain and the panic, a force unfurled like a new flower in spring, not made of magic but of thought, carrying warmth and awareness down her veins, to the very tips of her toes, so every nerve tingled with its might.
When have I ever waited for a man to rescue me?
What happened to the bold girl who'd saved Rafe from a dragon? To the daring dove who'd chosen a raven as her mate? To the confident woman who'd agreed to be taken into the mist? She'd gotten herself into every one of those messes, and she'd gotten herself out of them too. The weight of this world beneath the mist, with its people and its prophecies, had buried her spirit. It was time for Lyana to set herself free.
Stop.
Lyana released her magic, sending the word out like a command.
Stop.
Through the watery film covering her eyes, through the whipping gales and the swirling sands, she saw Viktor freeze.
Stop!
She pushed the thought across the arena like her own raging tempest, letting it slam into his chest in an explosion of golden magic. He stumbled back and back and back, until he too stood flat against the wall, wincing despite the steely focus in his gaze. Still, his magic came.
"You must stop more than his body, Lyana. You must stop his power."
Easy for you to say, she snapped, letting the feistiness wrap around her like a shield. Deep in her magic as she was, the thought spiraled out, as physical as an arrow, striking Malek in the chest. He flinched, but it was excitement, not anger, that lit his eyes.
"Spirits are simple to control," he said, the slightest challenge in his voice. "It's the elements that are the hardest to contain."