Something.
Anything.
It wasn’t that the apple exploded.
She’d done as Serrik had requested and not done that.
Not exactly.
Ava screamed all the same.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Serrik watched as Ava learned to wield magic for the first time. It was a thing of beauty.
Tedious.
But a thing of beauty.
Idly, he had begun to toy with one of her wild curls, wrapping it around his finger before releasing it, again and again, as she focused. She did not notice. And for the longest time, neither did he. He put his hand down the moment he realized he was touching her.
She sat, staring at the apple, entranced, for what might have been hours in her time. The dream world, this interstitial space he brought her to—worked differently than the waking world. And truth be told, he oft lost track of the passage of the minutes himself. Imprisonment for centuries would be liable to have that effect, he supposed.
So he stayed there, sitting beside her now, watching as she tried to find her way through the corridors of his power like a mountain spring weaving its first path to the ocean.
Not because a desperate need had inspired her to, such as with Rig, but because she was searching for it. Learning to wield magic purposefully, in lieu of reflexively, would be a key andimportant skill for her. She would not survive long if she could not aid herselfmindfully.
Without ripping catastrophically large items through space and dimensional walls, that was. Watching her destroy the treacherous Rig had been a rare moment of delight for him.
To be able to pull an object of such size and scale so effortlessly through dimensions without even flinching…without even recognizing the magnitude of what she had done?
Perhaps she mistook the horrified stares and sudden trepidation from the other fae as being related to the murder she had committed. How wonderfully human of her, to think that any of the others would do anything but laugh and celebrate the death of one of their own, especially accomplished in such a wonderfully flamboyant fashion.
No, it was themannerof his execution that now made them unsure of what to do with their new co-inmate. Save, of course, for the ever-scrutinizing Nos.
He was quite glad that Ava had decided to be done with him and his companion Ibin. He had not looked forward to scheming a method of being rid of them. However, a plan may still be needed. Ibin’s desire to protect Ava—and sway her from his side—was a powerful one.
His thoughts could not seem to linger on them long. For they always returned swiftly back to Ava.
Could she do it a second time, he wondered? Break the laws of reality twice over? Work her magic here, in this dream-state, where it should be impossible? Simply because she did notknowit was so?
And the look on her face as she had sat there, back against the tree, staring at the buckled metal contraption? He had wished with every fiber of his being that he could have appeared beside her and told her not to dismay—that what she had done had been a beautiful display of what she would become.
Ripping several tons of iron and steel from another world with no knowledge of what she was doing and, as far as he could tell, minimal effort on her part. When she grew more confident in her power—when she had any sort of practice, any sort of footing, she very well may be the one to shatter his prison.
A war raged in his chest. A tempest that had seized him for as long as he had been alive. A battle between his natures that he kept locked away as the world kept him. But it did not stop his thoughts.
It did not stop his desires.
How he wanted to stroke her hair. To capture her lips in a kiss. To crush her body against his. To pin her to the floor and take her like the bestial side of his nature demanded. To sink his fangs into her throat, flood her with his venom, andclaimher. To make herhis,as his body and now quickly his soul was demanding he do.
Little butterfly, what have you done?
Ripping holes through the dimensions—a task thatshouldhave been impossible, even with the grimoire. A task that should have left even the most talented witch drained and exhausted.
She was talentless. Raw. Unfocused. With all the elegance of…well, a several ton metal wreckage. But she was pure, untappedpotential.There was the power of a burning star within her.
A power thathecould wield.
