The Courts of Fate and Fear by Elizabeth S. Trafalgar

Author:Elizabeth S. Trafalgar [Trafalgar, Elizabeth S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: V&A Press
Published: 2022-04-05T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Rohn vanished for days, and the longer he was out of sight, the more worried Ven, Asa, and Ell became. Meals were quiet affairs, and without Rohn there, our training sessions were strained.

“How long do we let him lie in bed before we intervene?” Ell asked one morning as she was sharpening blades.

“Give him two more days,” Ven responded. “And then we do something. Just because he wants to torture himself for the good of the kingdom, doesn’t mean we have to let him.”

A week and a half after Asa’s cousin was murdered, Rohn finally came down to breakfast. He looked like he hadn’t slept in all that time, and was more haggard than I had ever seen him—he was unshaven, his hair looked like a bird had nested in it, and his shirt sported several wine stains. But he looked grimly determined.

“Things are going well with Calista, I take it?” Asa needled.

“Yes, they are,” Rohn replied gruffly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I was glad, because every time I thought about him marrying Calista, I felt sick to my stomach.

In a small silver lining, Rohn made more effort after our tour of the city to seek me out when the others were busy, giving me lessons in the magic of feelings during stolen minutes whenever he had a break from official duties. I still wasn’t sure I was sensing his emotions, but from what he said, I sometimes managed to make my way into his mind. It was hard spending time alone with him, thinking about our kiss, when I knew he was continuing to court Calista.

But it would have been harder to push him away. And that made my gut twist into uncomfortable, anxious knots.

When we all trained in the morning, magic was incorporated into the drills for my benefit—although the others seemed to enjoy the deviation from their normal routine immensely. Ven was an enthusiastic teacher of battle magic, and I learned spells to blast opponents out of my way, to explode objects to create deadly waves of debris, and how to summon walls of air to shield myself from the blows of a sword. One morning, he even brought a brace of rabbits and demonstrated a killing spell on one, snapping its spine with nothing more than a thought. Ell showed me how to kill the other by pulling the air out of its lungs. Watching the light go out of their eyes, I declined to practice myself, but tucked the knowledge away and hoped I would never have to use it.

I had never been so enthusiastic about practicing magic before, and the hard work I put in paid off. Rohn was right when he said that fear had been a terrible teacher—I learned more in the span of a month than I had in all the years of my childhood from my father’s harsh tutors. Freed from the idea that failure meant punishment, I found joy in wielding magic. And when I failed, I learned to find the lesson in it instead of the shame.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.