Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
“You agreed to no fire.”
“I changed my mind. You’ll be dead without it, and so will we.”
I don’t argue over the fire. Micah is in too foul a mood to hear any of my arguments.
We spend hours in the library, holed up in the lower level with a table between us and books piled on the floor next to us. We study one demon after another, and Micah makes me recite what I learn. At one point, he actually drags me to my feet and insists I act out a kill scenario with him. He’s intense, and there is no small talk between us, but he finally eases up after he eats a meatball sub and most of a box of donuts long before I’m even slightly hungry. Apparently, food is the way to the man’s good moods, and I’m thankful for it.
“How do you prepare for the Fray?”
His brow inches upward. “Still talking about the Fray?”
“I guess I am. It’s training I will never have.”
“You train before the Fray,” he says. “You survive the Fray. And in answer to your question, you can’t fully prepare. You never know what is coming for you, and every Fray is different. You basically train for anything and everything.”
“Like me now.”
“Exactly.”
“Which reminds me, what time do I train with Silas?”
“You’re not. You stay with me.”
I’m instantly combative. “Because I was a little beaten and bruised? That’s part of training, Micah.”
“A little beaten and bruised?” he asks incredulously. “You were incapable of standing on your own, Ember. No. You are not training with Silas.” His tone is absolute.
Mine is defiant. “You can’t stop me.”
Anger sharpens his features. “I can stop him.”
“Don’t be an asshole. I want to train with him. I want to know what it feels like to have him come at me like that and walk away tall and strong.”
“In the meantime, you plan to stay beaten and bruised while I become your caregiver?”
I bristle. “I wasn’t aware I caused you such hardship. I don’t need you to take care of me.” I stand up. “I need some air.”
He’s already on his feet, right in front of me. We seem to do this a lot. “I cannot see you like that again,” he declares, scrubbing a hand through his dark hair, leaving it in disarray that mimics the look in his eyes. “I won’t.”
The sincerity in his worry for me soothes the wound I’d wrongfully assumed. He’s not being a jerk. He’s being protective, too protective. “You’re frustrated at me for not being able to beat the spider, but you won’t let me push myself. Do you think I want to feel that pain again? I don’t, but I want to leave here able to control my powers and control the serpent. I need to be able to keep up with every one of you.”
He tilts his head back, staring at the spiral of floors towering for miles, it seems, where books line shelves and knowledge hides, before he fixes me with a stare. “Two times a week. You cannot learn anything else if you are that battered and beaten.”
“I won’t be battered and beaten for long. I will learn to keep up. And I want you to train me just as hard, Micah. I want Gabriella to do the same.”
“Learn to use your fire, and we’ll train you until you break. And I mean really learn. You have to try. You have to want it. Deal?”
I hesitate only a moment. “Deal.”
It’s near sunset when we meet Gabriella at the outskirts of the forest, the sky streaked orange and yellow again, as it had been two nights before. Micah creates a protective shield big enough for three, and I sit down in front of a cauldron, this time with Gabriella across from me, while Micah stands behind her and watches me.
It’s unnerving.
I chant my spell, and I try, I really do, but there is no fire.
“You have to believe, Ember,” Gabriella presses. “Dig deep and find the fire inside you.”
The problem isn’t me not believing in myself. Not anymore. The problem is my fear that I have far more than fire inside me. I don’t want to do this, and when I glance up at Micah, when our eyes collide, there’s disapproval in his stare.
He knows what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling, and he’s not pleased.
“That’s all for tonight, Gabriella,” he says after a full hour of training. “Let’s meet in the morning for breakfast in the cove. We’ll work together, the three of us, before Ember is battle-worn. Same spot.”
Gabriella and I push to our feet, and the cauldron and shield disappear. “You’ll get it,” Gabriella promises me, offering me an encouraging hug. “I know just what we should have for breakfast. I’ll treat.” She smiles a beautiful smile—she really is a stunningly beautiful woman—and then simply disappears.