“Sloane and Imogen can do this?” I ask.
“Naturally.” Professor Trissa shakes her head at me.
This is why Xaden had me practicing runes with fabric. Is that man ever going to learn to just tell me things outright? Or am I always going to have to dig information out of him? “‘I’ll answer any question you ask,’” I mock under my breath. It’s hard to ask questions I don’t even know exist.
“You’re supposed to be the best of your year, so stop gawking and get to work,” Professor Trissa lectures. “The first thing you’ll need to do is learn to separate a piece of your own power. Let it fill your mind, then reach in and visualize plucking a thread of it from the current.”
Rhiannon, Sawyer, Ridoc, and I exchange a series of what-the-fuck glances that are echoed by the fliers across from us.
“Advice?” I ask Tairn and Andarna.
“Don’t blow anything up.” Tairn shifts his weight behind me.
“At least blowing something up would be interesting,” Andarna notes, eliciting a growl from Tairn.
“Now,” Trissa demands, then holds up a finger. “Oh, and be careful. Power gets temperamental when you pull from it. That’s why your bondeds are here. The closer the source, the easier it is for the first time.” She looks us over, then folds her arms across her chest. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
I shut my eyes and envision my Archives and the swirling power that surrounds it. The blazing, molten stream of Tairn’s power that flows behind his giant door looks capable of consuming me, but the pearlescent flow of Andarna’s power just beyond the windows feels…approachable.
Steadying my breath, I reach for Andarna’s power—
Boom. An explosion sounds, and my eyes fly open, every head whipping toward Sawyer as he flies backward. He lands just short of Sliseag’s claws, a scorch mark left smoking in the grass where he’d been standing.
“And that is why we’re having this class outdoors.” Professor Trissa shakes her head. “On your feet. Try again.”
Ridoc walks back and helps Sawyer to his feet, and then we do just that.
Try again. And again. And again.
Before sunset, I manage to weave an unlocking rune, but I’m not the first.
Cat has that honor and, unlike the rest of us, no scorch marks beneath her feet.
It is somewhat fitting that the only weapon capable of killing a dark wielder is the same thing that drove them to soullessness…power.
—CAPTAIN LERA DORRELL’S GUIDE TO VANQUISHING THE VENIN PROPERTY OF CLIFFSBANE ACADEMY
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“Runes?” Xaden asks a few days later, leaning over my shoulder as I sit at the desk in his room, practicing today’s assignment, a triangular piece of torture that’s supposed to somehow boost hearing. He picks up one of my five discarded attempts, burned into hand-size wooden disks, and I breathe deeply, savoring the scent of soap on his freshly washed skin.
A private bathing chamber is definitely one of the perks of sleeping in his room.
“We’re the trial squad. I meant to tell you last night.” I take the delicate strand of pearlescent power and bend it into the third shape in the pattern Professor Trissa gave us for homework, then let it burn brightly in front of me while I gently reach for another. Now that I know what to look for, I see the flow of power clearly before me, somehow both solid and insubstantial, glowing strands that flex under my touch. Seeing it doesn’t make pulling individual strands any easier, though.
“I meant to tell you a lot last night, too,” he says, setting the disk back down on the desk with the others. “But once I found you in bed, my mouth was otherwise occupied.”
My lips curve at the memory as I form the next triangle, this one smaller, and set it within the larger ones floating in front of me. He’s been gone more than he’s been home, running the weapons from our forge to the front lines near the Stonewater River and filling Tecarus’s armory. This trip lasted an extra day when he and Garrick found themselves caught in an attack.
“Do you want my help?” he asks, skimming his mouth down the side of my neck.
“That is…” My breath catches when he reaches the collar of my armor. “Not helping.”
“Pity.” He kisses the side of my neck, then stands, leaving me to my homework. Good thing, too, since I have class in a few minutes.
“This is why you left me that book in Navarre, isn’t it?” I take the next strand and form the circle that should stabilize the shapes within and place it around the rune. That should do it.
“I wanted you to have a head start,” he says, picking up Warrick’s journal from where I abandoned it on the desk and thumbing through it.
“Thank you.”
“This is impossible to read,” Xaden mutters, closing the journal and setting it back on the desk before walking to where his uniforms hang next to mine in the large armoire.
I grin at the domesticity of it. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep it just like this between us. “My father taught me.” I shrug, examining my rune for anything I might have missed. “And Dain and I used it as a secret code when we were kids.”
“Never pictured Aetos as the Old Lucerish type,” Xaden notes.
Picking up the wooden disk in my left hand, I gently move the buzzing strands of power, pressing them into the disk. Much better than the last five. “You put runes into my daggers,” I say, turning in the wooden chair.
My lips part and I blatantly ogle Xaden as he pulls his uniform from the armoire, a towel wrapped around his hips. How did I not notice he’d been basically naked behind me this whole time? Such a missed opportunity…
“Keep looking at me like that and you’re not making it to class,” he warns, his eyes darkening as he crosses the floor and tosses his clothing on the bed.
I force myself to turn away. Brennan warned Xaden that the first time I was late for class because of my sleeping arrangements, I’d be back in my assigned room. “You put an unlocking rune into my dagger, didn’t you?” I ask, sliding all the disks besides the one I just finished into my pack, ignoring Warrick’s journal, which mocks me from the edge of the desk. “That’s how we got out of the interrogation chamber.”
“A variation of it, yes.”
Holding the best rune of my attempts, I lift my pack to my shoulders and slip my arms through the straps as I stand, turning to face him. His torso is still gloriously bare, but unfortunately—or fortunately for my schedule—he has pants on. “Care to elaborate?”
To my consternation, he goes for his socks instead of a shirt.
“You can do the unlocking rune. It’s simple enough.” He shrugs. “I added an element of need into the rune. So, you can’t walk up to any door and open it just because you want to, but if the dagger’s on your body and picks up on the need for a door to unlock, it will. If you’d made it up to the forge at Basgiath, it would have opened to your need.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, he puts on his boots.
“I had the key the entire time?” My eyebrows rise, and if I didn’t already love him, I would have fallen right then.
“You did. Are you feeling adventurous with questions today?” A corner of his mouth quirks.