“Of course you did. A child could do as much. You may go, you obnoxious creature.” She waved her hand at Agrippa.
Agrippa went to stand with Malahi, taking a long drink from a waterskin. Lydia was about to ask him for a sip of water when, quick as a viper, Ceenah caught hold of Lydia’s forearm. Anukastre’s queen ripped life out of her and spilled it out into the empty air.
It was like having her insides yanked out, and Lydia’s panicsurged. Killian took a step toward them, blade up, but Ceenah raised a hand to him even as she snapped at Lydia, “Take it back.”
Lydia lunged at the cloud, drawing it back into herself, and then retreated warily from the woman.
“You need to master the panic you feel when you are in a deficit.” Ceenah circled her. “There is noneedto panic because what you require to remedy your problem is all around you. Again.”
Though every instinct told her not to allow it, Lydia held out her arm. Sickness twisted her stomach as the woman took even more, casting it out above the sands.
“Wait.”
Sweat beaded on Lydia’s brow as she watched the life drift away, her hands trembling in fear that it would dissipate. Disappear. That she’d be left without, and she was terrified of what she might do if that happened.
“Now satisfy the need.”
Lydia chased after the drifting mist, gathering it back into herself until she was whole.
“Good. That is enough. We will rest until the sun begins to descend.” Turning on her heel, the Queen of Anukastre walked back to camp.
Killian watched Ceenah go with narrowed eyes, then approached Lydia. “Are you all right?”
“I think so.” She snatched up her clothes, abruptly aware that she wore only the thinnest of fabric. “We should get some rest while we can.”
“Not yet, Lord Calorian,” Xadrian said. “I have thought about your words and we will spar now.”
Killian sighed, but despite the prince’s bluster, he murmured to her, “You aren’t the only one with work to do on this journey,” then followed Xadrian into the dunes.
For days, they traveled west over endless sand dunes, and during the height of the merciless sun, Ceenah would continue her lessons. Though it had to be the purest form of misery, Agrippa never argued about being used as Ceenah’s victim, suffering endless cuts so that Lydia could practice healing him using the life in their surroundings until she could do it without thinking. She moved on to Baird and Xadrian, and though the temptation was worse with someone who was marked, their wounds closed beneath her hand.
Her friends weren’t the only ones who suffered. Lydia also had to endure Ceenah draining more and more life from her, forced to sitfor longer and longer stretches before reclaiming it. If Lydia cracked and took her life back before the queen ordered it, Ceenah made her do it again.
There was no denying that her control was growing in leaps and bounds with every test, but it still came as a shock when Ceenah held out her own arm. “It is time for a true test. Take life from me and put it out into the world.”
Lydia sensed Xadrian and Killian tense behind her, and no part of her could blame them. Already her hands trembled, both her body and her mind remembering what it felt like to take from the living. The rush of strength and pleasure that was like nothing else in this world, and every part of her wanted it.
“Just a bit,” Ceenah warned. “Do not overwhelm yourself with more.”
“What if I can’t stop?”
“My son will kill you.” Ceenah studied her for a long moment, expressionless, then she grinned. “If you get the better of me, girl, then I deserve my fate.”
Which didn’t mean that Xadrian wouldn’t kill her. Or try to. Lydia glanced over her shoulder at Killian, who was staring at the sand, his jaw tight.What are you thinking?she silently wondered.What will you do if this goes wrong?
There was no mistaking what Agrippa was thinking, for though his eyes were fixed on the sand in the same blank way as Killian’s, he held a bow he’d borrowed from one of the Anuk warriors, an arrow loosely nocked.
Malahi stood next to him, the only person besides Ceenah who seemed willing to meet Lydia’s gaze, though her amber eyes were unreadable.
“Maybe I should wait another day. We can practice you taking life from me. Take more. Take—”
“We are very nearly to the coast,” Ceenah interrupted. “At which time our lessons will come to an end.”
“Maybe I’ll never be ready.” Lydia pulled off her spectacles, wiping sweat from her face before donning them again. “Maybe I’m not one who can cross the line and come back. Maybe it’s better that I forbid myself from taking.”
“It is nothing to me whether you do or do not,” Ceenah replied. “Yet ask yourself whether you’ll be able to live with that limitation, or whether days, weeks, months from now you’ll find yourself reaching across the line.”
Lydia couldn’t live with it. Knew in her heart that this would loom over her, not only as something she’d failed to accomplish but as a razor-sharp knife that always had the potential to fall on those she cared about most. If she couldn’t master her mark, both the light and dark sides of it, she’d always be a threat.
