Page 22 of Secrets of Graves and Gold

It hadn’t occurred to me to wonder why Stavros said the name a little differently, but Stavros looks chagrinned.

Casimir tsks his tongue playfully. “The scholar has a point.”

“All right,” the big man says, with a hint of a smile of his own. “Let’s see how much you’ve learned so far, Alek.”

He talks Alek through a series of jabs and parries. I watch for a couple of minutes, but my attention slides back to Ivy.

She’s tucked a blanket over Casimir’s shoulders and ambled over to the horses. When my gaze settles on her, she murmurs to the stallion she’s most fond of while she brushes his neck. The animal pauses in his grazing to lean into the strokes.

Stavros clears his throat, and my gaze jerks back to him. He’s watching me with a stern expression. “You’re not going to pick up much skill if you aren’t even following the exercises.”

“I don’t want to attack you,” I point out. “We’re all on the same side. What’s the point?”

Humans are so odd.

A dry note creeps into the big man’s voice. “The point is that your body won’t be used to fending off an actual attacker if it’s never gotten any practice. Brute strength will only get you so far. Especially if we find ourselves going up against the king’s soldiers rather than only other conjured men and women like you.”

With that last sentence, his voice stiffens a bit, but I don’t know why. I can see there might be some logic to his words, though.

I roll my shoulders, reveling in the feel of the muscles flexing and stretching. “All right. I’ll practice. Whatever will work the fastest.”

Casimir shoots me a softly amused smile from his spot by the fire. “You don’t like the idea of an extended battle?”

“Daimon don’t get into fights,” I tell him. “We let each other exist without worrying about anyone except ourselves. Why make more pain?”

Alek rubs his jaw. “You do play tricks on people sometimes. Startle animals. Things like that.”

“Nothing that does any real damage. Not when we’re in control. We just liven things up where the energy gets too dull.”

“Then I’ll try not to bore you.” Stavros gestures to Alek. “Let Rheave use that dagger for a bit. Come on, daimon, let’s see what you can do.”

It’s hard to put my full commitment into the imitation of fighting he leads me through. I push the dagger through the air as he instructs, but none of the movements feel natural, like how I’d want to move if I actually needed to deflect an attacker.

My fingers curl awkwardly around the weapon. Once, when Stavros blocks it with his sword, I fumble and nearly drop it.

The big man lets out a grunt that suggests he isn’t entirely happy. “What about that burning magic the other daimon used? Can you send a little of that into this tree?” He taps a nearby maple.

I stare at the looming plant, but I can’t summon any sense of power inside me. No part of me wants to burn this living thing that’s doing nothing but growing peacefully.

A shiver runs through my limbs. That’s the kind of thing this body’s creators would have ordered me to do. They’re the ones looking to destroy whatever they can.

To show I’m trying, I walk over to the tree and rest my hand on the bark. The texture presses into my skin to delightful effect. I want to trail my fingers over the surface, not sear it away.

“I don’t know how to make it happen,” I say. “Maybe it’s something the scourge sorcerers channeled through the others, not something we brought.”

“I suppose that’s possible.” Stavros ambles back toward the fire. “Those rabbits should be just about done. Let’s see if we can’t get in a little more?—”

He cuts himself off with a wrench of his head in my direction. His metal prosthetic hand leaps up to point at a spot behind me. “Quick! One of the riven-hunters has snuck up on us—they’ll be after Ivy!”

His words and the urgency coursing through them have my body whipping around before I make a conscious decision to move. My gaze snags on a bush just behind the maple tree, the twigs shuddering as if someone’s about to spring past it.

I lunge first, a growl lurching up my throat. My arms shoot forward, the dagger dropping from my hand.

No one’s getting to Ivy. No one’s going to damage one fragment of her skin, one strand of her hair?—

Fear and anger collide to set off a flare in my chest. I launch myself right over the shrub, snatching at the first movement my gaze catches.

The need to obliterate the threat crackles through me.

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