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Her full cheeks bloomed red but she nodded. Her small smile was just as forgiving as it was genuine.
“And you’re sure that she won’t …explodeagain.” Nikolai whispered the word as if I wouldn’t hear it. He waved his arms around mimicking the whirlwind I had caused in the wood.
Rheih leveled him with a deadpan stare. “I have no power over that. That’s up to her stubbornness.” She slapped my shoulder with a surprising amount of strength for a Mortal her age. “The elixir has dampened her powers for a few days, but she’s going to have to make the effort to train. I’m merely a Mage. I can’t cure insolence.” Her long pupils narrowed as she glanced down at me. “Or stupidity.”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” I mumbled, pulling myself into a seated position.
Gerarda stepped out from behind Maerhal. Her lips were chapped and bleeding, but she didn’t seem to care. “We all warned you that you needed to train your magic.”
I winced. Riven turned toward Gerarda with a flash of violet in his eyes, the shadows along the walls darkening. “We said we would ease into that.”
Gerarda shrugged. “If you didn’t treat her like a child, you’d know thisisme going easy. I would have dragged her out of bed by now. She could have killed someone.”
My hands balled into fists along the coverlet and I lifted a hand to Riven’s arm. “Gerarda is right.”
Gerarda’s jaw went slack. She turned to Rheih. “Whatever concoction you gave her. Give her all of it.”
Rheih snickered and whispered something to Syrra in a dialect of Elvish I didn’t understand. Syrra’s eyes widened for the briefest moment before she nodded.
Maerhal wrapped her arms around her knees and leaned against Syrra, who stroked the top of her sister’s head. Syrra had spent the better part of two days braiding thin vines into Maerhal’s shorn hair. The result was a beautiful fountain of deep green braids that bloomed in sunlight. Though from centuries of surviving underground Maerhal’s eyes were too accustomed to darkness for her to step outside until the suns had fully set.
“She thirsts like a fish,” Maerhal whispered in her singsong voice.
My throat burned at her words. Even after everything that had happened, the craving was still latched onto my mind.
Rheih crossed her arms and turned to Nikolai. “It’s no wonder why.” The stark edge to her tone surprised me.
Nikolai tugged on the strand of his hair until it was completely straight. “I couldn’t just stand by any longer. No one was doing anything.”
Rheih muttered something under her breath as she threw a black leaf into her bowl and started mixing it into her paste. “Why does no one listen to a healer unless someone is bleeding?”
I glanced up at Riven but his jaw was as hard as stone and his gaze still locked on Gerarda. I turned to Syrra. “What are they on about?”
Syrra sighed. “The state you were in only made you more susceptible to burnout. Rheih thinks it’s best if we ration your wine while you train your powers. Going without is obviously too dangerous.” Syrra’s eyes narrowed and I registered the statement for what it was. She hadn’t told the others about thewinvrabut she would if I gave her any reason to.
I bit my lip, but the burning in my throat had already made the decision for me. “I will train my powers with Feron and Lash and any of the other magic wielders you think may help.” I turned to Vrail and then Gerarda. “But that is all I have to offer. I cannot spend my days chasing lost dreams or this”—I raised my hand and a small gust of wind breezed through the room—“will only get worse.”
Vrail opened her mouth, ready to launch into the expertly prepared argument that she had constructed while I was unconscious, but Gerarda held up her hand. Riven’s eyes narrowed and the shadows around my legs tightened protectively.
“I can see that trying to persuade you will only be a waste of our time.” Gerarda tucked the thin Elvish blade she had been flipping through her fingers into her weapons belt with an emphatic tug.
She left the room and Vrail chased after her. Nikolai looked down at me with a hard line across his mouth. “I’m one for dramatics, but what happened yesterday cannothappen again, Keera.”
The lack ofdearat the end stung more than anything else. I grabbed his hand and nodded. “It never will again.”
Nikolai smiled, not as widely as usual, but with the same warmth as ever. “Good.” He squeezed my hand and then lifted an arm to help his mother off the bed. “We’ll meet you at dinner.”
Syrra followed, revealing the small bundle of limbs in the corner. Gwyn’s chin was resting on her knees and her red curls were pulled back into a messy tangle behind her head. Deep purple crescents hung under her icy glare from the far corner of the room.
My heart fluttered. I reached out to her. “Gwyn …” I trailed off, unsure if I should offer some words of comfort or an apology. I had never realized how much of our relationship was her pulling me into conversation until she stopped speaking altogether.
All I wanted was to pull my voice out of my throat and wrap it with beautiful lace so I could watch Gwyn laugh as she opened one last gift from me. But there was no gift that could give Gwyn back her voice.
She stood and my chest flickered with hope for the briefest moment, thinking she was going to take my hand. Instead she lifted her chin to hide her trembling lip and ran out of the room.
I collapsed back onto the pillow. Riven’s thumb caressed the back of my hand, but he said nothing. Somehow, he knew being comforted about my failings would only make me feel worse.
Tears pricked the corner of my eye. “It’s torture to watch someone fall away and have no idea how to catch them.”
