A prince never held back!
My mother's voice echoed in the back of my head, screaming at me in the way she always had before she began making it hurt. Magical pain, physical pain, or any other punishment she could devise came when she screamed like that, and she only screamed when I wasn't the best, so I fought harder, no longer looking at the faeling before me. Instead, I focused on his chest, the shift of his arms, and the threat.
"Hold!" someone called.
But I was so close to winning. I didn't even slow. I couldn't. I hit harder, faster, and took less honorable shots. Head, groin, hands - they should've been reserved for need, not training. Right now, Ineededto win. The screaming was getting louder in my mind. The Queen's training had been too good.
Pascal was tired now, and his arm was lagging behind. Seeing exactly what I needed, I risked everything to make sure this fool would never test me again. I swung, adding my bodyweight into the blow.
The practice stick crashed into ice. Vines grabbed it. A shadow shielded Pascal with a layer of iridescence right over it. The entire court had reacted at once, seeing I couldn't stop, but an invisible force held me. One that smelled of Avalon's flowers.
Breathe, Aspen told me even as she stepped into my line of sight. "Tor? Look at me, ok? I'll release it if you look at me."
I forgot where I was, I admitted as I shifted my eyes to meet hers.
And Aspen made a gesture at those behind me. All the conjurations faded, leaving only a wisp of Rain's shadows dissipating between me and Pascal. Through them, I saw fear on the poor guy's face.
"What the fuck, Tor?" he demanded.
Shit. I wanted to apologize, but I didn't know the words. I never learned how to do that. I also could think of a million reasons why it would make me look weak. I still had to give him something. Keir had just made a point of telling me this guy was his friend.
"I got carried away," I said blandly, offering my practice stick to whoever would take it.
Keir did. "Tor?"
"I thought he'd be able to keep up!" I snapped.
Because lashing out was easier. It was safer than admitting I'd fucked up bad and didn't know how to fix it. If I could push it away, it wouldn't matter anymore. Besides, Pascal wasn'tmyfriend. He was Keir's and Rain's, and maybe Hawke's.
So I turned, storming toward the far side of the gym. I heard Aspen whisper, "Go." A moment later, footsteps followed.
"Tor?" Yeah, that was Hawke.
But Pascal clearly hadn't learned his lesson. When I turned to look at my best friend, the stupid sentinel was making his way closer.
"What the fuck was that, Torian?" Pascal demanded. "I said warm-up!"
"That was his warm-up," Hawke said. "He wasn't trained the same as you."
"And he was going to knock my head from my shoulders!" Pascal grumbled, turning his eyes back to me. "Do you just like hurting people or something?"
"There's a reason I don't use a blade," I grumbled.
So this arrogant faeling stepped right into my face. "Well maybe that means you need to learn, Torian. Saying you're too good? Trying to convince us all that we suck compared to you? That isn't how you get people on your side." Then he thrust his arm back to Aspen. "She's a fucking queen, man! She outranks you, and welikebeing around her. Aspen's nice! You? You're just like your mother."
And with a disgusted look, he turned away and headed back to the crowd of people watching us. Keir offered Pascal a pair of sticks, then glanced at me, but I couldn't read that look. Clearly, Rain could, because she left them and jogged over.
"Hawke?" she asked. "Can you help Pas? I need to make a few things clear to Torian."
Fuck. Of course she was going to take charge. That was what her kind did. The Morrigan was always a leader of some kind. Magical, societal, combat, culture, or anything else. Depending on why they were needed, the one the Crow King picked had a propensity to be what was needed at that time.
"Rain..." I tried.
She just wrapped her arm around my back and guided me into a side room. "PTSD?" she asked, keeping her voice down.
My head snapped over. "What?"
"Post-traumatic stress disorder," she said. "Although I'm not sure they use that term anymore? Syndrome, maybe?" And she waved that away. "Tor, it's what they call it when people like us have a bad moment."
