“Suits me,” I mumbled around a mouthful of my food. While I felt like troll dung, at least I had managed to sleep through the night without crying.
“It does not,” Ciaran assured me, turning so his eyes could flicker over the state of me in judgment again.
“Oh, fuck you,” I snarled, giving him the finger before lifting the waterskin to chug the rest of the water.
“When you are done, I am taking you with me to the sparring field to start training the new recruits.”
I nearly choked on the water before lowering the skin to gape at him. “You must be out of your mind!”
“It would certainly be a better outlet than the one you went with last night,” he defended. “Besides, I seem to be the only one concerned by the fact that our greatest asset against the Sylvan still cannot summon her armour.”
“Ugh! Iknewyou wouldn’t be able to leave that alone for very long,” I muttered. I pressed my fingers against my eyes to try and alleviate the aching behind them.
“If you continue to be untrained then it will not matter how useful your power is. You will inevitably become a liability to us, little doe,” Ciaran maintained sternly.
“And you plan on remedying that situation rightnow?” Idemanded in exasperation before I forced myself to take a deep breath. “Look, I do not disagree with you about the training. I need it. But I am not at my best right now.”
“You certainly are not. Which is why it is even more important for you to accompany me,” Ciaran maintained. “No one should be alone after losing a mate. Sage would never allow it if it was one of us,” he added quietly.
I had been about to snarl back at him for his insistence, but his final words about Sage made me stop and stare up at him in suspicion.
“Wait! Are you two taking turns watching me? Is that why Rian spent the night, and now you are here so early? To make sure that I am neveralone?”
“You may thank us later when you’re in a better frame of mind to appreciate our efforts,” he assured me with an infuriating little wink.
“You fucking—” I bit off the insult with a low growl of frustration while he knelt in front of me. He was a little smarter than I would have given him credit for because he knew to stay just out of striking distance.
“I did not think you would object to the opportunity to learn my weaknesses,” he admitted. Anddamn himfor making it completely impossible for me to decline.
An hour later, I was regretting all my life decisions while leaning against a tree and fighting to keep what remained in my stomach down.
“I am going to…killyou,” I panted just before losing the battle and vomiting once again.
Ciaran merely tsked at me from where he stood ahead of me on the trail, waiting for me to finish being sick.
“A waste of good food,” I heard him mutter before he tookpity on me and walked over with the waterskin for me to rinse out my mouth again. But I was never going to forgive him for this torture. It was the third time that I had thrown up so far on this stupid run.
“I still don’t see what this has to do with summoning my armour,” I complained as I lifted my head. All of the warriors we had been running with were long gone.
“You are desperately out of shape. I have seen children with better stamina,” Ciaran advised matter-of-factly.
My jaw dropped as I turned to glare at him in offense, but he merely gestured back the way we had come as if that was supposed to mean something.
“Are you calling mefat? Ilikemy curves!” I snarled, my ears pinned back in aggression.
“I am talking about your endurance! We have barely covered twelve kilometres in the last hour,” he explained. Then he snatched the skin back and continued jogging down the forest trail. He clearly expected me to follow.
I might have slipped into the Tithriall through the roots of the tree in front of me and met him back at the edge of the forest. But thechukapowder was still repressing my magic too much to risk it. So I tried not to sulk and forced my wobbly legs to comply with his pace.
Ciaran did not slow again until we finally reached the training field where I slumped into the grass at his feet in front of all the new recruits. They would have gotten back from the warm-up run a while ago, but they stood waiting with hands behind their backs like proper little soldiers. Until I hit the ground inelegantly, and then they started to shoot looks at one another.
Ciaran ignored their obvious confusion and split them into smaller groups to practice what looked like footwork. When he was done, he walked back over to where I laid, casting a shadow over my prone form.
“Get up, little doe,” he demanded wearily.
“I cannot feel my legs,” I whined, but he merely beganprodding at my thigh with his toe, pressing progressively harder until I finally relented and clambered upright.
“You didn’t even break a sweat!” I accused with an envious glare at his dry tunic.
