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Twenty minutes later, Kieran called a stop to their sparring, frowning at her. “You are holding back.”
Claire panted softly, “I’m not.” She had been using her magic, just not all the time. She used it sparingly and only when she didn’t see another option.
“You are. You’re scrappy and think outside the box, I’ll give you that. But you are holding back. Let your magic out.”
With that Kieran attacked again, his sword slicing down towards her. Claire barely deflected it with her daggers letting her magic out a little to absorb the Energy and kick him away. “Let it out,” Kieran growled as he attacked again.
“I don’t need to,” Claire panted, dodging his attack and slicing out towards his side, forcing him to retreat.
“You’re wasting Energy by not finishing the fight,” Kallan barked. “It’s sloppy and inefficient.”
“Wouldn’t it be sloppier to use magic if I didn’t need it?”
“You are a limitless well,” Kieran said, studying her closely. “You don’t need to worry about that. Put your opponent down and move on. You are barely using your magic at all.”
“I can’t only rely on it,” Claire pointed out, clenching her fists around the hilts of the daggers before relaxing them. She wanted them to drop it. They might call the whole Traditio off if they learned Claire couldn’t control her magic. Either because they didn’t want to risk the other Fae or Claire, she didn’t know. What she did know is she couldn’t risk not being able to compete in the Traditio. Especially as it was the only way she was going to secure the Fae’s help.
“Of course you can,” Kieran looked puzzled. “What else would you rely on?” He made it seem as if magic was just a part of one’s being and maybe it was for him but for Claire it felt like an uncontrollable beast.
“Are you afraid of it?” Kallan’s question had Claire faltering and Kieran’s blow sent her flying onto her back.
“You are afraid of it.” Kieran said as he helped her to her feet. “Why?”
“I’m not afraid of it,” Claire said. Just afraid of losing control, she thought.
“Then let it out. Your magic is you and you are your magic.”
Again, that idea sounded nice in theory but Claire had already lost control or almost lost control too many times to risk it again. The shaking mountain incident came to mind and Claire winced. She couldn’t risk hurting her cousins. Especially since they were Holly’s mates. “It’s fine,” she brushed their questions off. “Is dueling with magic a requirement?”
Kieran and Kallan exchanged a look. “It’s not a requirement,” Kallan answered her. “But there are magic tests as part of the Traditio. We will need to prepare you for them.”
Claire bit her lip to hide her frown and nodded. When she didn’t say anything, the twins shared another look.
“Let’s move on to your Energy Reading lesson,” Kieran said. “We can revisit the sparring later.”
34
They were doing more? Claire hid a grimace as she put her daggers away and joined Kieran in the middle of the arena. She took a seat when he motioned her to, folding her legs underneath her. Puck bounded from the boulder from where he was sunning herself to settle into her lap.
“Will Energy Reading also be a part of the Traditio?”
Kieran shook his head. “It’ll probably be taken into consideration that you weren’t raised in the Fae lands where you would have learned this and be left out. At least that’s what Kallan and I heard last night.”
“But if I had grown up here, it would have been part of it?”
Kallan shook his head from his seat on a boulder at the edge of the arena. “Not necessarily. The Traditio usually doesn’t include specific magic ability tests as that helps give everyone a level playing field. It’s one of the reasons the ruling families in the Fae change often.”
Kieran nodded. “I am going to teach you it anyway to give you an edge in the Traditio.” She would need any edge she could get. Especially if her magic proved to be uncooperative.
“You said you didn’t know much about Energy Reading?” he asked.
Claire nodded. “Obviously I didn’t know anyone at the Academy who could really help me. There was one professor, Helene, a dryad, who was able to but we only had a few training sessions.”
“I’ll start with the basics then,” Kieran said. “As you might have already felt, Energy exists all around us. It’s in living beings like people and animals but also in the elements as well. There are different levels of Energy depending on the being or element.”
Claire nodded, this all tracked with what she had learned so far.
“When someone has Energy Reading abilities,” he continued, “They are more sensitive to Energy.”
