The fear that gripped me moments ago is subsiding a little now, making room for other emotions. I turn on Leon, my voice tight and low.
“You said it was safe.”
“Itissafe.” His voice softens a touch. “It’s just your mind got caught up in the memory. It has too strong a hold on you. That’s a problem, but the training still needs to take place in your dreams. Better than provoking your magic out in the waking world before you can control it.”
“Better?” I snap, jumping to my feet and snatching my cloak up off the ground. I’m humiliated and ashamed. “Anything is better thanthat.”
“Ana—”
“Don’t call me that!” I shout, flinging the cloak around my shoulders. I want to wrap it around me and disappear into it, let it swallow me up until I blink out of existence. No body to hurt, no mind to terrify.
I walk away from the fae prince, desperate to put distance between me and his piercing gaze, as the jays continue to chirrup overhead.
Chapter15
Leon
Even though I know she wants to be alone, even though she’s angry with me, my instincts tell me to go after Morgana. Bad things happen when I let her out of my sight.
I take a few steps, following her tracks, but before I get any further, Alastor’s at my elbow.
“I get the impression she doesn’t want to talk to you right now,” he says.
“I know that,” I say, grimacing. “But what’s to stop her deciding to try and go it alone like before? Do you really want to comb through another forest looking for her?”
Alastor’s grimace matches mine. “Fair point. Let me go check on her.”
“What are you, the princess whisperer?” I demand, more offended than maybe I should be at the idea that she’d prefer to talk to him rather than me.
“No, I’m the fellow who can make sure she’s not planning to wander off again.” He looks at me, awaiting his captain’s approval.
I sigh and nod, letting him hurry off through the trees after her.
Which leaves me alone with my thoughts.
I couldn’t have known her mind would trap her in a disturbing memory like that, but Idoremember seeing shades of that scene in her dream a few days after we left Elmere. I’d assumed it was a memory about drowning—an accident she’d had as a child maybe—but I know better now. It happened recently, and it was no accident.
It’s none of my business either way, of course. All that matters to me is doing whatever it takes to get her trained. I don’t want to speculate about what she’s carrying around in her head, not when it took so much persuading for her to let me in there in the first place. In the end, I had to bully her into it, but I don’t feel guilty about that. She can handle it. I see it in her eyes, the fight in her. When she’s angry, those eyes could burn right through you. Finding out she was a solari made a lot of sense.
And I’m learning that sometimes riling her up is the only way to get her to look past her own doubts and listen to me. Ineedher to listen to me. It’s the only way she’ll be able to keep herself safe in a world set on hunting her, for one reason or another.
Alastor returns, looking more relaxed than before.
“She promised me she wouldn’t go far,” he says. His shrug tells me he didn’t push for more beyond that promise.
“Fine,” I say, trying to sound casual, even if I still don’t like having her out of my sight.
“I think we should cut the training short,” Alastor says with his usual directness. “It makes sense to push ahead on our journey. Our stint at the inn has already made us late to meet the others, and we still have the Wirstones to get through before we reach them.”
“Fine,” I repeat, although we both know my unit will wait as long as I need them to, and they’re good at staying undetected.
“Do you think she’ll be able to do it? Unblock whatever’s making her magic so shy?” he asks, staring off in the direction Ana left.
I snort. “I wouldn’t exactly describe it as shy, would you?”Nothingabout her was shy or demure. I’d known that much from our first encounter. She is made of fire and steel, whether her powers work or not.
He shakes his head. “True, not after what she did to those trees. I think I’ve seen maybe two solari in my life, and neither of them ever did anything quite like that.”
“Exactly,” I agree. “And now she’s fully weaned herself off that poison they were giving her, her magic could get even stronger.”