I was dreading it. Dovelyn didn’t like me on a good day, but now—when Brock was still somewhere in Lux—it wasn’t going to be pretty. And to make matters worse, I was already late.
I followed the handwritten directions Kallon had sketched for me earlier today. But her drawing skills were almost as bad as Peter’s, and her map was illegible. I’d been walking in circles all morning. It didn’t help that all the tents looked identical. Tezya offered to walk me, and now I was regretting being stubborn and saying I could do it on my own.
I looked back down at the map in question. I was supposed to meet Dovelyn toward the back of the camp at the opposite end of the training rings.
When I finally made it past the clearing of trees, I halted. Dovelyn was sitting against the corner of a tent—there was only one in the area. Her legs were pulled tightly into her chest as she sobbed into her knees.
Behind the lone tent were open fields. I could just glimpseone of the border control towers—from Kallon’s map there were supposedly twelve—but that was it. There was nothing else here.
I stood there awkwardly, unsure if I should leave. I waited a good minute before deciding to do just that. I turned to walk back the same way I came.
“You don’t have to go.” Her voice came out in jumbled sobs before I even managed to take a step. Of course she already knew I was here.
“I’m sorry about Brock,” I offered. I was upset when they arrived without him. He was quiet and the most closed off out of Tezya’s friends, but he was also the kindest. If Brock was still with the Lux King, it was because of me—because of the assembly…
The moment Kallon portaled in without him, Dovelyn used her ability and made herself invisible. Rainer sobbed as he choked on his words while Kallon kept whispering it wasn’t his fault, and everything was going to be okay.
But it wasn’t.
I thought back to Tezya’s punishment, about how cruel and sadistic it was, and that was only because Tezya kept information from him. The King did that to his own son, or at least someone he still believed was his son. I didn’t want to think about how enraged he’d be now that we were all gone. We openly committed a crime against the kingdom by freeing not only me and Peter—who were considered his property—but now Sie too. And on top of that, his own children were the ones who did it. I doubted he’d hold back with Brock, and it broke a piece of me. I couldn’t imagine how Dovelyn was feeling. I kept envisioning how I would feel if it was Tezya left behind…
Besides him offering to walk me and telling me my training with Dovelyn was still on, I hadn’t seen Tezya all morning, and I found myself wondering how he was holding up. I knew it was killing him.
Dovelyn wiped her eyes once, then stood. “Me too.”
To my surprise, she didn’t say anything else and started training me.
I could sense her abilities as I reached my enhancement out to her. We worked with invisibility first, and by nightfall, I managed to turn a quarter of the camp invisible for an entire minute. Dovelyn explained she normally made shields within a thirty foot radius. Unless she was working with other air users, it was easier to make multiple smaller shields than one larger one.
“That’s enough for today,” she panted. I wanted to fight her on it and beg her to keep going. I wanted to make the entire camp disappear and for more than just a minute. I needed to master my abilities so I could be an asset. I didn’t want my inexperience to be a reason I was left out again.
But I didn’t push it. I knew what was behind her sullen face and little words. She was distraught and emotionally drained. A pang of guilt sprang through me as I realized she worked with me in silence, only speaking when absolutely necessary, which was unlike her.
“Thank you for training me,” I said as I turned to leave. “I know I’m not your favorite person, but I appreciate it.”
“I don’t hate you,” she replied, surprising me.
I seriously doubted that statement. I raised an eyebrow as I turned around to face her again. “You don’t?”
She shook her head softly. “No.”
“Right,” I huffed a laugh.
“You terrify me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”
“Because I see what you can do to my brother. I love him with all my heart, and I will always pick him over anyone else. If I had to sacrifice everyone in the camp to save him, I would. But I see the way he looks at you… I see the way he loves you. You should talk with him. Hear what he has to say.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you have the opportunity to be with the person you love, and you’re wasting it. It infuriates me. Back in Lux, Brock and I could never be together. We both knew it. He’s a rank four, and I’m a five. But even if we were the same rank, my father never would have allowed it out of spite. It was the same for Tezya. He never would have been able to be with you if you stayed there.” I nodded, knowing the King arranged his engagement to Kallon, even though I hated it. “But my brother always planned on getting you out. Tezya’s a dreamer to a fault. He was working on a way to fake your death, to safely get you away from my father without raising questions and risking the camp. He planned on bringing you here. He was going to tell you about all of this when the time was right. But seeing you at dinner that night, chained to my father, it did something to him. He acted rashly. We lost our element of surprise because of it.”
I didn’t move, scared if I did it would bring her out of her uncharacteristic candor.
“I know what that feels like,” she continued, “to love someone so desperately, to be forced to see that person every day, but never have them. It’s not something I wanted for my brother. So I tried to stop it before he developed feelings for you. I didn’t think his plan would work. I didn’t think he’d be able to get you out. Not with my father’s new obsession with you now that he knows you have the capability to make him stronger.” She wiped at her nose. The tip of it was bright red. “But now, that doesn’t matter. The people in this camp may look at Tezya like he is their prince, but he won’t act on it. He will lead them, but he has no interest in politics.”
“And what does he have an interest in?” I asked.
