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I swallowed. “Aria, you could be the most powerful being walking this Earth, and I wouldstillbe irrational when it comes to your safety.”
She sighed. “Sariel, our instructors wouldn’t let us get seriously injured. I have no cuts or bruises from today because they healed us.”
I scowled. “That doesn’t make it okay. I think that makes it worse, actually.”
“I’m going to see this through Sariel. I don’t care how you feel about it.”
“I’m assuming I’m not allowed to play the hero?”
“No, you’re not. And I’ll be pissed if you do.”
“Got it.”
“Our instructors don’t seem that nefarious. I think they genuinely have our best interests at heart,” she mumbled, shifting so her nose was pressed into the hollow of my throat. “Our weapons instructors are humans.”
I stilled. “Really? Humans have a lot of leeways here.”
“Mhm,” she hummed. “I was trying to talk Reese out of training after the whole thing with Lady Magnolia, and I think we may have fought a little… but whatever I said just went right out the window as soon as they introduced themselves. They’re decorated Guardians. Heroes among the fae. And they’rehuman.”
“You can’t be a hypocrite, Aria,” I said sternly. I tugged gently on her hair, so she was forced to look up at me. “If you want her to quit because you think it’s unsafe, then how can you ask me not to ask the same of you? You think me asking you to sit this out doesn’t come from a similar place as you asking Reese not to go through with training?”
She sighed, closing her eyes against the truth of my words. “I’m just scared for her,” she said softly. “She’s not like us. She’s…fragile,and she doesn’t have a lick of magic or extra strength. She’s just Reese. And she’s sacrificed so much to be here, Sariel. I don’t want her to die.”
“I think that’s the point,” I said, cupping her chin and drawing her closer. “She wants to be valuable. She hasn’t found her place yet. Johnny is the level-headed adult, Marilyn is our older and wiser mom friend, Neo is the class clown, we’re the love birds, and then there’s her. She wants to be more than ‘just Reese.’ She’s been stripped of everything she knows. Asking her to quit is basically asking her to stop exploring who she could be.”
Aria stared at me for a moment, her lips parted, and then she smiled. “Have you always been this wise?”
“I have, actually. It’s just that no one ever listens,” I answered, rolling my eyes. “You mentioned something about night classes?”
“With Lucia,” she said. Her eyes widened in wonder. “She’s incredible. I want to be like that—or even better.”
I squinted. “You don’t want to be like me?”
“I haven’t really seen you in action.”
I frowned. “Maybe I’ll ask if you can spectate Guardian training.”
“Guardian training?”
“Yeah. We weren’t at beginner training today because we were apparently tested in oursleep.”
I shuddered at the memory. They’d slipped into our minds as we’d slept and conducted their own tests on us. It was disorienting and intrusive in a way I never wanted to experience again.
From what the other men had shared about their own testings, it was clear they’d used our greatest fears against us.
Goosebumps erupted along my skin as I recalled the sound of Auren’s voice as he screamed for me to run. And it had morphed into Lucy’s, Credence’s, then Michaelson’s, and finally into Aria’s.
The first test forced us to relive the moment repeatedly until we successfully solved whatever problem or overcame whatever fear held us hostage. Little had they known that I’d agonized over my brother’s capture and subsequent death so much I’d long devised how I would’ve done things differently hundreds of times.
The other tests had been more straightforward. Being apathetic about most things outside of family had its perks—the kind I didn’t dare think about lest I get a lecture from my mate.
“That checks out,” she chuckled. “You were sleeping like the dead. A Guardian came into our room to wake me up, and you didn’t even flinch.”
“Is every morning going to start that early for you?”
“You mean at four AM?” she asked, glum. “Yes.”
“Andyou have night classes?” I asked, worried. “How do they expect you to function on almost no sleep?”
