“I assume you brought me here so I could practice?” She chucked the apple core across the field and rubbed at her shoulder.
In the weeks since they had started this journey, he had been looking forward to this night. Beltane was her night. A night of fire and dreams.
“Ignite them, and keep the fires controlled and even all night.”
“All three.” It was not a question.
“Keep the end ones low for the jumpers. The middle one should be scorching the clouds.”
She looked at him with a slight fear in her eyes. She had just begun to master her powers, but she still needed to master control.
“This could easily turn lethal.”
He lifted a hand and allowed the wind to stir around her. He could not help the glee he felt, tonight their magic could work together.
“I’ll be here.”
“And if I somehow still manage to turn someone into a living torch?”
He smiled, though the smile was lost on her.
“Then it’s a good thing the healers are also here to celebrate.”
She gave him a dirty look and rolled her shoulders. “When do you want to start?”
“Now.”
He stood with her, watching and guiding her. He watched the sweat roll down her neck. She was beginning to lose control, “Easy.”
“I know.”
His magic was dancing along his bones.
“When can I stop?”
Her flames had also evolved in the past weeks. What started as blue now was a range of colors from the brightest rubies to the darkest sapphires.
“When I say so.”
He was amazed, the well of power she had rivaled his. She just needed to learn how to control the power. They had the opposite problem of most fae. The strength they had to possess was to control the power from destroying everything around them. He remembered his early lessons, how he felt like a failure when he could not easily control his powers like his cousins. His favorite tutor once told him that learning control over his powers was like as damming a mighty river instead of damming a trickling stream.
“I’m sweating to death, I’m starving, and I want a break.”
He held back a laugh.
“Resorting to whining?”
He sent a cool breeze and immediately regretted the move when the moan that escaped her went straight to his cock. Gods be damned, she was beautiful. He had known by the number of males he had to chase away, but in this moment he saw the woman she was becoming. It was bad enough that his magic betrayed him when it came to her, he was uncertain if he could handle it if his body betrayed him as well. Boundaries, they needed boundaries.
“Just a little while longer.”
He was torn between sending another chilled wind in the hopes of hearing another sweet moan from her or…
He watched as her flames change, the change almost took his breath away. She could not lite a single candle, but she just unlocked shaping her flames.
“Easy.”
That is when he noticed the flames matched the beat of the music.
“Music. That day on the ice, you were humming.”
He hoped he was on to something. He would sing during her lessons if it help her progress.
“Let the music steady you.”
He let out a breath, the change was remarkable, “Easy.”
He felt pride and could not pull his eyes from the flames, he could feel the music through the heat of the flames. He mindlessly reminder her, “Steady.”
He felt the pull on his magic, a trance requesting a dance. He looked at her and realized that she was losing control.
He felt his heart pound against his rib cage.
“That’s enough for now.”
He reached out for her and immediately let go, she was burning from within.
“That is enough.”
Slowly, too slowly, she looked at him. The blue in her eyes were gone, in its place was the golden flames. She looked away, returning to her flames.
“Look at me,”
He could not touch her. He wanted to pull her away.
“Look at me.”
She would not look at him, could not.
“Let the fires burn on their own.”
His breath stopped when she finally looked at him. His nostrils flared with the panic he felt.
“Aelin, stop right now.”
She was burning from the inside out. She needed to let go, reign her power back in.
He pleaded with her, “Let go.”
He pushed his magic towards her, trying to cool her. He had not planned on this, he started the long spiral into his magic.
“If you don’t let go, you are going to burn out completely.”
He could not process the look of relief on her face. Didn't want to understand it's meaning.
“You are on the verge of roasting yourself from the inside out,”
The fires started to surge, in that moment he knew he was out of options.
“I’m sorry.”
He was born with the ability to control wind. It was the ability he hated the most, the ability to deplete air, to suffocate his enemies. He warred with his instinct not to harm her as he broke the teather.
He held back the bile in his throat.
“Breathe. Breathe.”
He ran towards the group of revelers, screaming for a healer. Hoping that they were not too drunk to help. Two came forward.
“Can you stand to carry her? There aren’t any water-wielders here, and we need to get her into cold water. Now.”
He created a shield of ice around him as he picked her up.
He could not fail. He could not fail again. They were going to climb out of that dark abyss together.
He ran for the bath house, trying not to jostle her. Listening to her ragged breaths, hoping they were not too late.
He wanted to drop to his knees when she felt her breathing ease.
“Get her into the water.”
He lowered into the water as one of the healers swore.
“Freeze it, Prince, now” What the ruddy gods did she think he was trying to do? Boil it?
He did not have time to be amazed as her power overwhelmed his and watched the water begin to boil.
“Get her out!”
He pulled her out and went to the next tub. He could not directly fight her fire.
He took a breath and let his magic pushed against hers, starting a dance that could save and damn them both. He wondered if this is what the bond was meant to be, not the perversion that he had seen over the centuries. A partnership built on trust, but she had not trusted him.
Deep within her magic trusted his and his trusted hers.
He would not lose her. He could not lose her. He would fight with every fiber of his will.
“Breathe, let it go—let it get out of you.”
He let her magic pull at his as she took a breath.
“Good.”
Their magic was like the ebb and flow of the tide, the bath froze, then melted, froze, then melted, slower each time. Eventually the water was warm as their magic found an equilibrium.
He was pulled from the dance of fire and ice with the voice of one of the healers, “We need to get those clothes off her.”
He looked away as the healers stripped off her clothes. She had almost burned out completely.
He continued allowing their magics to dance. Fire and Ice. Embers and Frost. He would not lose her, not to this. Together they would fight this burn out. Together.
“Just answer yes or no. That’s all you have to do.”
She managed a slight nod, though she winced with pain.
“Are you in danger of flaring up again?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Are you in pain?”
“Yes.”
“We will prepare a tonic. Just keep her cool.”
He found a bucket across the room, filled it with water. With little effort he brought it close to freezing. How could he have missed the signs?
“The burnout, you should have told me you were at your limit.”
He wrung the cloth over her brow as he continued to cool the bath water.
“If you’d gone on any longer, the burnout would have destroyed you. You must learn to recognize the signs—and how to pull back before it’s too late.”
He could have lost her.
“It will rip you apart inside. Make this …”
He shook his head again, unable to finish the sentence. “Make this look like nothing. You don’t touch your magic until you’ve rested for a while. Understand?”
She tilted her head, beckoning for more cold water but he waited until she nodded her agreement.
They sat in silence. They had stopped the dance between their magic. He needed to move, needed to do something.
“I’m going to check on the tonic. I’ll be back soon.”
He walked out of the baths and sank against the wall.
Gods be damned. She had almost burned out. Bile rose in his throat at the thought. He could not, would not swallow it down. He bent over to empty his stomach.
She had almost burned out. He had almost lost the sliver of hope she gave him. The companionship without judgement.
He wiped his mouth clean and walked towards the infirmary.
He barely felt as one of the healers stripped off his shirt. He was grateful she did not talk to him while she worked on the burns. When she finished she handed him a tonic for the pain.
“We’re still working on the stronger pain tonic, we’ll bring it over once it is done.”
He nodded his thanks. He was in a daze as he walked to his room for a shirt then mindlessly walked to the bath house.
He had almost failed her. Again.
He opened the door to the bath house and instantly felt relief when he had noticed she moved. That relief vanished when he noticed her back.
He felt his heart stop and his mind went blank.
It took a moment for his thoughts to realize what he was seeing. To stop his movements. For his breath to catch.
Of all his whippings, hers were worse.
He fought his territorial rage. He wanted to roar and tear the room apart.
“Who did that do you?”
He would kill whoever had done that to her.
“A lot of people. I spent some time in the Salt Mines of Endovier.”
Another set of shackles.
He silenced the roaring in his mind. Even this far away he knew what the salt mines were. A slow death sentence.
An assassin with Ashryver eyes was spotted by the horned Lord of the North in a wagon bound for --
Maeve had known.
“How long?”
Could not be long, no one survived long.
“A year. I was there a year before … it’s a long story.”
A year. She survived a year as a slave.
“You were a slave.”
He had not meant to say that aloud but she gave him a slow nod in response.
He opened his mouth, but shut it and swallowed.
What could he say? How did this happen? How did she survive?
He turned on his heel and shut the door behind him.
As he shifted, he felt a rage he had not felt since that day two hundred three years, forty-one days ago. Something deep in him had awoken.