Page 20 of The Rose in the Shadows

Ryla’s soft laughter pulled me out of my thoughts.

“What?” I demanded between breaths.

“I thought a thin little thing like you would have complained more on the hike up.”

A snippy remark flashed through my mind but froze on my tongue as the hint of admiration in her voice registered. So, I just nodded and straightened my posture.

“So, what now?” I asked.

She rummaged through the pack she had brought up with her and held out a single apple in her palm. My stomach called out for it, and I quickly covered my gut in embarrassment. I hadn’t realized how hungry I had been, but the sight of that shining fruit reminded me that Nessira and Geia hadn't brought me breakfast that morning. From the sparkle in Ryla’s eyes and the slight turn up in the corner of her mouth, I had a feeling that hadn’t been an accident.

“Here,” she offered, feigning sweetness.

I narrowed my eyes at her.

She openly grinned then, as if proud I had passed her first test. She wrapped her fingers around the apple and placed it on the ground before her.

“You move that apple without moving your body, and it’s yours.”

“I don’t know how,” I protested.

“You knew how to on the bridge."

She leaned back and waved a hand towards the apple in a silent invitation to try. This was ridiculous. How could she expect me to magically move that fruit when I had no memory of ever using magic in the first place?

After a few moments of silence, she pulled a second apple from her pack and bit into it, chewing slowly. My stomach raged in protest as she laughed and chucked the apple core into the tree behind me, announcing she would wait all day if that’s what it took for me to move the apple.

Grinding my teeth, I focused on the fruit and where it sat on the dirt. It was a small thing, hardly the size of a full bridge filledwith people and carriages. Ihadmoved that. Or so they told me. I had shaken the entirety of it. I had ended a life.

And yet, the apple didn’t budge.

I tried to imagine it moving. I envisioned it floating up into the sky before Ryla’s face. I imagined her expression as that apple flew and landed in my waiting hand. I could almost hear the thud as it connected with my open palm. But when I snapped out of the daydream, my hand was empty, and the apple sat motionless, five feet away.

I growled in frustration.

We stayed like that for nearly two hours. The sun, which had only been dawning as I left my apartments at the palace, came to hang high in the sky above us. Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I ripped my hand against my brow angrily. Ryla was silent but kept herself well-fed. I watched bitterly as she threw back two more apples, a loaf of bread, and even a small pastry that smelled of cinnamon. I nearly screamed when she sighed, pulled out a jar of brown liquor, and started drinking deeply.

Move, damn it,I mentally cried at the apple. But if that apple was listening, it simply wasn’t in the mood to move.

I was so focused on that stupid apple that I hardly noticed when Ryla had shifted her weight and reached down to her belt. I didn’t see her hand wrap around one of those deadly blades and pull it out. It wasn’t until that dagger had already flown by my head, nicking my ear as it passed, that I even drew my gaze from the apple. My hand instinctively flew to my ripped skin as I stared at where that blade had implanted itself in the oak wood behind me.

“What in all of creation was that for?” I demanded, voice raised.

She was at my side almost instantaneously, wrapping her calloused fingers around the handle of that dagger and ripping it from the bark.

“Magic is tied to our emotions and physical states,” she explained. “Until you learn to connect with your power and control it, you’ll need to find what can evoke it. Hunger and frustration aren’t doing it.”

My stomach sounded out in agreement with her. She rolled her eyes at the sound and held the blade close to my face. I flinched back away from it.

“Neither is fear,” she announced, spinning on her heels to return to her seated position.

I wiped the tear that escaped while she turned her back to me. We continued on like that for hours until my head throbbed in pain from hunger and concentration, and we were both ready to shout. By the time we finally started our trek down the mountain, I was greedily savoring each bite of that apple. But I suspected the only real reason she let me cross the distance between us and pick it off the ground was that she didn’t want to carry me back to the palace if I fainted on the way down.

On my first day as a Descendant, I’d nearly murdered a slew of people. On my second, I’d inspired a nation. On the third, I’d failed to do even the most basic task.

Chapter Six

Ryla may have been harsh in her teaching methods, but the Royal Tutor Hansel was positively devilish. After a bath, Dimitri escorted me to the royal library to study mythology with Hansel. Most of my lesson had comprised of being cursed at for not even knowing the basics of history.

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