“I had no idea punching was so fraught with peril.”
“Apparently, it takes brains to be a brute.”
Nesta flattened her brows, but focused on aligning her forearm and the knuckles he’d indicated. “That’s it?”
“To hit with the proper knuckles, you need to angle your wrist downward just a fraction.”
“Why?”
“So your wrist doesn’t snap.”
She lowered her arm. “Considering how many ways there are to break my own hand when punching someone, it doesn’t seem worth it.”
“That’s why a good warrior knows when to pick his battles.” He lowered his fist. “You have to ask yourself if the risk is worth it each time.”
“And do you always throw a punch with perfect form?”
“Yes,” Cassian said without one ounce of doubt. He shook his hair from his eyes. “Well, most of the time. There have been some brawls when I didn’t have the right angle and balance, but a punch, even one that could break my hand, was the best way out of a bind. I’ve shattered my hand …” He squinted at the sky, as if doing a mental tally. “Oh, probably ten times.”
“In five hundred years.”
“I can’t be perfect every moment of every day, Nes.” His eyes flickered.
There had been no repeats of that madness in the hallway last week. And she’d been too tired at night to even make it up to the dining room, let alone to pleasure herself in bed.
“Right,” he said. “Now shift your hips into the punch.” He struck at the air again. He moved more slowly this time, letting her see how his body flowed into the blow. “It will engage your core and your shoulder, both of which add extra power.” Another jab.
“So those abdominal exercises are useful beyond wanting to show off your muscles?”
He threw her a wry grin. “You really think this is just for show?”
“I think I’ve caught you looking at yourself in that mirror at least a dozen times each lesson.” Nesta nodded to the slender mirror across the ring.
He chuckled. “Liar. You use that mirror to watch me when you think I’m not paying attention.”
She refused to let him see the truth on her face. Refused to so much as lower her head. She focused again on her stance.
“All business today, huh?”
“You want me to train,” Nesta said coolly, “so train me.”
Even if no priestesses showed up, even if she was a stupid fool for hoping that they would, she didn’t mind this training. It cleared her head, required so much thinking and breathing that the roaring thoughts had little chance to devour her whole. Only in the quiet moments did those thoughts pounce again, usually if she lost focus while working in the library or bathing. And when that happened, the stairwell always beckoned. The infernal ten thousand steps.
But would it do anything—the training, the work, the stairs—beyond keeping her busy? The thoughts still waited like wolves to swarm her. To rip her apart.
I loved you from the first moment I held you in my arms.
The wolves prowled closer, claws clicking.
“Where’d you go?” Cassian asked, hazel eyes dim with worry.
Nesta took up her stance again. It sent the wolves retreating a step. “Nowhere.”
Elain was in the private library.
Nesta knew it before she’d cleared the stairs, covered in dust from the library.
Her sister’s delicate scent of jasmine and honey lingered in the red-stoned hall like a promise of spring, a sparkling river that she followed to the open doors of the chamber.
Elain stood at the wall of windows, clad in a lilac gown whose close-fitting bodice showed how well her sister had filled out since those initial days in the Night Court. Gone were the sharp angles, replaced by softness and elegant curves. Nesta knew she herself had looked like that at one point, even if Elain’s breasts had always been smaller.
She peered down at herself, bony and gangly. Her sister turned toward her, glowing with health.
Elain’s smile was as bright as the setting sun beyond the windows. “I thought I’d drop by to see how you were doing.”
Someone had brought Elain here, since there was no way in hell she had climbed those ten thousand steps.
Nesta didn’t return her sister’s smile, but rather gestured to her body, the leathers, the dust. “I’ve been busy.”
“You look a little better than you did a few weeks ago.”
The last time she’d seen Elain—a week before she’d come to the House. She’d passed her sister in the bustling market square they called the Palace of Bone and Salt, and though Elain had halted, no doubt intending to speak to her, Nesta had kept walking. Hadn’t looked back before vanishing into the throng. Nesta didn’t wish to consider how poorly she’d looked then, if the picture she presented now was better.