Page 63 of Anomalies

She shifts her weight, her skin still flush from the run here. “What exactly are you training me for, Captain⁠—”

“Stop talking.” Her mouth snaps shut, and I nudge the dagger upwards, drawing her attention back to it. “Take it from me.”

I brace myself when her magic barrels through the training ring. The air around us spins; heat and wind and pressure so high my head throbs under the weight of it all. She allows more and more of it to slip free⁠—

“Control, Lucina,” I bite out, planting my feet in the dirt. “You don’t need that much.”

The pommel of the dagger twitches in response, tendrils of that power latching onto it as her eyes go watery and her hands flex at her sides. Her magic has its own thoughts and impulses, but they need to become her thoughts and her impulses. She needs to know her magic; the same way her magic knows her—fully and irrevocably.

The dagger is ripped from my hand and yanked through the air, then the heavy wind and high pressure recede the moment her fingers grasp the hilt.

Damn. I was banking on this keeping us occupied most of the time.

Lucina lets free a staggering breath, then a dangerous smile spreads across her face as she flips the dagger over in her palm. She wasn’t expecting that either.

“Can I trust you with sharp things?” I ask, and her answering smirk tells me all I need to know. I snatch it back, catching the hilt in my awaiting hand. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“That isn’t a normal dagger,” she says, wiping sweat off her forehead, curled pieces of her hair catching on the back of her hand. “The weight of it is wrong.”

I blink back at her, a bit shocked and slightly impressed. “It’s not wrong, it’s mine. They’ve been tailored for me and my strength specifically.” My thumb grazes the details on the ivory pommel. “Were you throwing daggers while you raced trains or something?” I ask, holding out the knife again. I want the act of her taking it to be as quick as an inhale.

“No,” Lucina scoffs, as if it were a stupid question, then her magic rolls across the training ring again. “What purpose would that have served?”

I shrug as the dagger begins to quiver. “Slowing down whoever you’re racing?”

She yanks hard on her magic, and the dagger zips through the air. She reaches for it, but her fingers slip past the handle, and it clatters to the ground at her feet. “No. I didn’t keep knives to win races,” she says, bending down to pick it up, but I snatch it back before she can grab it.

She prepares herself to start again, confusion flashing across her face when I don’t hold a knife out for her—I’m too focused on what she just said. “Then what did you keep them for?”

At first, she looks anywhere but at me; the dirt, the dagger, the fence surrounding the training ring. Then her hands find her hips, and her soft eyes find mine. “Protection,” she says plainly, and it’s the last thing I expected to hear.

A few beats of silence pass.

“From who?” I ask, but my question is cut off when the pressure rises, and I close my fist around the dagger half a second before she can take it. Her magic whips out carelessly around us, hissing past my ears like venomous snakes. “That was sloppy,” I tsk, flicking my chin to the dirt at her feet. “Twenty pushups.”

She scoffs when she realizes I’m serious. “Fuck no.”

“Twenty-five,” I counter, gently wiping the dirt off the blade.

“For what!?”

“Ten for being sloppy, ten for dropping the dagger, and five for cursing.”

She wants to protest, I can see the fight churning in her eyes, but to my surprise, she doesn’t. She drops to the ground and powers through each push-up, letting her anger…fuel her.

Interesting.

By the time she stands, her face has turned a lovely shade of crimson. If she doesn’t hate me already, she certainly will after tonight.

We spend an hour on control—her magic sharpening, and she’s actually starting to get the hang of it. Her arms shake each time she catches the dagger, and she looks ready to slit my throat, but for a guy without a plan, I’d say whatever I’m doing is working.

I’ve decided that Lucina needs something to light a fire in her. She’s fueled by fear and anger. No wonder she killed all those flowers; she needs something that makes her heart pound. Something that pushes her to the edge and leaves her with no other option but to fight.

“How does it feel?” I ask, as she finishes what was probably her hundredth push-up.

“Feels like you want me dead.” Lucina spits in the dirt, then wipes her face in the next heartbeat, pinning me with a stare that promises death, at the very least, injury. “Which is ironic considering you have direct orders to prevent that.”

I try not to smile. “I was talking about your magic, sweetheart. How does your magic feel?”