Page 74 of Blood of the Sands

“Well, you won’t know if you don’t try. It might unnerve your enemies.”

His shoulders stiffened, as if he hadn’t expected me to play along. Then the moment passed, and he stomped over to the same pile of rocks we had used the day before, unmistakable from the cracked boulder at the center.

I didn’t manage to move any rocks today, but none broke either.

On the third day, when I crested the dune that hid where Erix and I met from the encampment, I found him kneeling, sat back on his heels. He would have looked completely relaxed if not for the tight squeeze of his fists resting on his knees. So tense were they, I was surprised I couldn’t hear the creak of his black leather gloves.

“Today, we will meditate,” he said, not moving as I approached.

I turned on my heel, ready to walk right back to Kelvadan and take Daiti out for a ride. Meditation was a strategy I had tried and failed more times than I could count. I wasn’t about to spend another hour pretending to focus on containing my magic just to avoid the inevitable outburst.

“Not like the queen would have taught you,” he added before I could take more than two steps away.

I hesitated before turning. Doubt that any sort of sitting quietly would help slithered through my mind, but I found myself loathe to leave. More than anything Erix had said so far helping me, it was more the feeling that he understood what I felt, in his own twisted way.

The storm that raged within me sometimes made me feel more alone in Kelvadan than I had when isolated at my oasis in the desert. How odd it was that the man who had ripped me away from my solitude in isolation was the first to face my power without fear. Even the way the queen tried to help me left an aftertaste of apprehension in my mouth.

I knelt in front of Erix, sitting back on my heels, mirroring his pose. Our knees were a few inches apart, and the warmth from his body seeped through my loose linen pants. I wondered how he could stand to be covered so completely from head to toe in the beating sun.

“Picture the origin of your power within you,” Erix instructed once I had settled.

“Aren’t you going to tell me to close my eyes?”

He shrugged. “I prefer to meditate with my eyes open, but I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

I let my eyes flutter shut. I didn’t think I was going to be able to focus on anything staring straight into his metal mask.

“Now, focus on your purpose. The drives that decide all your actions and the passions underneath them.”

Surprisingly, I found his tone soothing as I turned my attention inwards. His voice was a smooth tenor that lost its hard edge when he wasn’t trying to be menacing. I internally shook myself, remembering his words.

My purpose.

“To protect Kelvadan.” He hadn’t asked me to say it out loud, but it felt right.

He huffed in derision but didn’t comment. “Now think about the emotions that drive that goal.”

I dug deeper within myself, tunneling down into my psyche.

Of course I wanted to protect the city that had been a symbol of hope for me through years of exile. How could I not, when even my own clan had turned me out, but Kelvadan had found a place for me? Even if I didn’t feel like I belonged there just yet, I could prove my worth. I could…

At the bottom of the well of my magic lay something dark and pulsating. I reached out a mental finger to poke it, only to have it snap and snarl at me.

It was angry.

The feeling slapped me in the face like a sandstorm. Hidden deep within me lived the resentment I felt for being left to die alone in the desert when I was barely more than a girl. There was the rage at the needless death of my horse and the fury that I couldn’t just live without fear of myself like everybody else. There was anger at myself that I still felt alone even when surrounded by a city’s worth of people.

“Good.”

I jumped, nearly having forgotten about Erix’s presence.

“Let that anger be a funnel that siphons the power out of you, even as it feeds it.”

My eyes snapped open. “No.”

Erix tilted his head.

“It was working, wasn’t it?”