The man in question is certainly tall, with tawny skin, a sprinkling of freckles, and a jaw sharper than the edge of a cliff. With a flick of his head, he tosses his white hair to one side, letting it fall over his left eye. He winks with the right. I expected him to be old, with hair like that, but he can’t be more than twenty-five. “Hello” is all he says, his voice deep and certain.
“Hi.” I nod at them, overwhelmed both by their presence and my own inability to act anywhere close to normal. “Sorry, this is a bit of a shock.”
Tyton rolls his eyes, but Ella bursts out laughing. A half second later, I understand and cringe.
Cal chuckles at my side. “That was pretty horrible, Mare.” He nudges my shoulder as discreetly as he can, a brush of warmth emanating from him. A very small comfort in the Piedmont heat.
“We understand,” Ella offers quickly, stealing the words away. “It’s always overwhelming to meet another Ardent, let alone three who share your ability. Right, boys?” She elbows Tyton in the chest and he barely reacts, annoyed. Rafe just nods. I get the feeling Ella does most of the talking and, based on what I remember from the blue lightning storm in Archeon, most of the fighting. “I despair of you both,” Ella mutters, shaking her head at them. “But I have you now, don’t I, Mare?”
Her eager nature and open smile take me severely off guard. People this nice are always hiding something. I swallow my suspicion enough to give her what I hope is a genuine smile.
“Thank you for bringing her,” she adds to Cal, her tone shifting. The cheery, blue-haired pixie draws up her spine and hardens her voice, becoming a soldier before my eyes. “I think we can take her training from here.”
Cal barks out a low laugh. “Alone? Are you serious?”
“Were you?” she shoots back, narrowing her eyes. “I saw your ‘practice.’ Little bursts on a target range is hardly sufficient to maximize her abilities. Or do you know how to coax a storm out of her?”
Based on the way his lips twist, I can tell he wants to say something decidedly inappropriate. I stop him before he can, grabbing his wrist. “Cal’s military background—”
“—is fine for conditioning.” Ella cuts me off. “And perfect for training you to fight Silvers the way he does. But your abilities stretch beyond his understanding. There are things he can’t teach you, things you must learn either the hard way—by yourself—or the easy way . . . with us.”
Her logic is sound, albeit unsettling. There are things Cal can’t teach me, things he doesn’t understand. I remember when I tried to train Cameron—I didn’t know her ability the same way I knew mine. It was like speaking a different language. I was still able to communicate, but not truly.
“I’ll watch, then,” Cal says with stony resolve. “Is that acceptable?”
Ella grins, her mood bouncing back to cheerful. “Of course. I would, however, advise you to stand back and stay alert. Lightning is a bit of a wild filly. No matter how much you rein her in, she’ll always try to run wild.”
He gives me one last look and the tiniest quirk of a supportive smile before heading to the edge of the hilltop, well beyond the ring of blast marks. When he gets there, he flops down and leans back on his arms, eyes trained on me.
“He’s nice. For a prince,” Ella offers.
“And a Silver,” Rafe pipes in.
I glance at him, confused. “There aren’t nice Silvers in Montfort?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been,” he replies. “I’m Piedmont-born, from down in the Floridians.” He dots his fingers in the air, illustrating the chain of swampy islands. “Montfort recruited me a few months ago.”
“And you two?” I look between Ella and Tyton.
She’s quick to reply. “Prairie. The Sandhills. That’s raider country, and my family lived on the move. Eventually we kept west into the mountains. Montfort took us in near ten years ago. That’s where I met Tyton.”
“Montfort-born,” he says, as if that’s any explanation. Not very talkative, probably because Ella has enough words for all of us. She steers me toward the center of what can only be called a blast zone, until I’m directly beneath the still-dissipating storm cloud.
“Well, let’s see what we’re working with,” Ella says, nudging me into place. The breeze rustles her hair, sending bright blue locks over one shoulder. Moving in tandem, the other two take up spots around me, until we’re clustered in the four corners of a square. “Start small.”