One corner of my mouth quirks upward. “I know you of all people wouldn’t throw around your powers unnecessarily. And out here, there’s no one to see.”
The shock hasn’t left his face. “Professor Raith wanted us to follow all the proper procedures. If something goes wrong—there’s no one around to help you.”
Of course it’s my safety he’s worried about rather than his own. A deeper twinge of affection wraps around my heart.
I grip his hands firmly. “I think it’ll be okay. I feel like this is the right spot to do it, like nothing all that bad could happen while we’ve got this forest around us.” I raise oneeyebrow. “Don’t you want to steal some bragging rights from Salvatore?”
Byron makes a faint grimace at me. “I don’t see it that way. I don’t mind waiting if that’s what’s better for you—for all of us.”
Honorable to the end. But he doesn’t have to be, not this time.
“I don’t think it is better, not anymore. I think it’ll be best if you have all the talent you can wield against whatever’s ahead of us. And…” I adjust my grasp as I push past the lump in my throat. “You’re about to make a big decision that’ll affect how your family sees you for the rest of your life. I don’t want there to be anything hanging over your head that could skew your answer.”
“Elodie.” Byron’s head dips toward me, his gaze as intent as that moment in the library. “I already told you my choice. Having my glim or not won’t change it.”
Every particle in my body peals with the urge to hug him. I hold myself back through sheer force of will. “This way we’ll both know that absolutely for sure. And you should have it. It’s part of who you are.”
He wets his lips, drawing my attention to his mouth. A tingle races through me to my core.
Then he squares his shoulders. “All right. How should we do this?”
“Let’s…” I draw him back farther into the shelter of the trees. “I think it’s best to have some cover around us.”
Letting go of his hands, I grasp the fingers of my glove. “Hand to hand?”
A slow smile returns to Byron’s face. “Mark to mark. Maybe you’ll get a better sense of your glim too.”
He tugs off his righthand glove as I do. Tucking the glove into his pocket, he extends his hand to me as if we’re about to shake on it.
I inhale slowly, steadying my nerves—and myglim.
It won’t blare into being like it did when I touched Salvatore that first time, but the final confirmation of my bond with Byron will give it a little boost.
Braced and heart thudding, I reach out, clasp his hand, and press our marked palms together.
Even though I’m fully anticipating it, the rush of ephemera sparking between us wobbles my balance and takes my breath away. I’m abruptly aware of a slight abrasion on my calf stinging and wisping away in a flicker of warmth and grit my teeth against any smaller bodily imperfections my glim might transfer to Byron to heal me.
A thunderclap booms overhead, and a hissing bolt of electricity slams into one of the treetops.
We spring apart, Byron with a startled sound, me with a breathless laugh. I knew to expect this too, but the moment is still thrilling.
Splintered light crackles between the branches, blackening most of the leaves and a great deal of bark too. Another burst of lightning warbles into a neighboring tree.
“Snuff it,” Byron mumbles, staring. “That’s me. That’s?—”
The control he’s spent his whole life cultivating kicks in.
The muscles all through his muscular frame flex. His spine pulls straighter. His expression sets with intensity.
One more flare of lightning smacks into a tree behind us, but with much less force than the first two. Byron exhales in a careful stream, and the last sizzles fade away.
He looks down at his hands, yanks off his other glove, and holds his palms several inches apart. With a slight tensing of his jaw, tiny streams of light streak between his fingers.
An awed laugh tumbles out of him. “I can feel it, all through my body. Electricity. I can pull it out of… everything. So much of it. Radiants, the things I could do…”
I beam at him. “That’s a bloom talent right there.” Raw rather than refined, but our community’s preference betweenthose two factors is a lot milder than between bloom and blight.
Let’s hope he never has to find out he’s matched to one of the most vicious raw blight talents that ever existed.
