Page 62 of The Kingdom Cursed By Iron

His expression shifts. “Because it’s what you needed. I knew you wouldn’t really test yourself—take yourself to the limits of what you could do—unless I made you.”

I start to disentangle myself from him, shifting across the ground to put as much distance as I can between us in the cramped space of the bower.

“Ella,” he says beseechingly.

“Don’t call me that.” Someone could’ve gotten hurt, but that didn’t matter, because Ruskin thought he knew best. He wanted me to lose control, never once considering what I’d have to say about it—how unsafe it would make me feel.

He sighs. “You did something amazing here today. Don’t you see that? You reached deeper into your magic than you ever have before.”

“You manipulated me,” I snap, feeling around behind me to re-buckle my breastplate.

“I guided you. You needed to be determined if you were going to reach the silver and?—”

“You knew it was there, didn’t you?” I say, with dawning realization. “That’s why you brought us here.”

“You’re angry because I planned ahead?” he says, somehow sounding bewildered and mocking at the same time.

“I’m angry because, as per usual, you kept me in the dark. You knew what was going to happen—that’s why you were so ready, right? Ready for me to lose control and for all hell to break loose, so you could step in and save the day.”

I kick at a section of wood in the side of the bower, opening up a big enough hole for me to crawl through. When I straighten up and turn around, I see the extent of the damage: the shelter Ruskin created looks like a pin cushion, impaled on every inch with sparkling splinters. I shudder at the violence of it, the power needed to create this chaos. Power that came from me.

The branches of the bower unfold and Ruskin emerges from it much more gracefully than I did. He levels a serious look at me.

“It wouldn’t have worked if you’d known that I was deliberately provoking you,” he says. “You needed to let go, to be more angry than afraid.”

“Well, mission accomplished,” I say, seething. I’m so tired of him pulling at my strings, thinking he can steer me in whatever direction he likes without once bothering to explain our destination. If I let him, he’d assume complete control, and I’d be left feeling I never deserved an explanation or opinion.

“I’m done with you treating me more like some animal to be trained than a partner,” I say, marching back towards where we left the horses—thankfully more than a safe distance from where we’d been sparring. I grab my sword from the grass on the way.

“And what about training?” he says, striding after me. “What about the progress you made here today? You can’t just ignore that it worked, Eleanor.”

He’s not wrong. Before the silver I was accessing my magic more quickly than before, forced to adapt because of Ruskin’s relentlessness. But there are still some boundaries, some lines that shouldn’t be crossed, no matter how good he thinks his reasons are.

“And that’s the problem, Ruskin,” I say, somehow having managed to scramble up onto my horse unassisted. “As long as it gets you what you want, you don’t care about the fallout. I understand you’ve always done what you had to for your court.” I stare down at him. “But I am not your court. So just know that with me, that attitude doesn’t work. With me, it will cost you.”

I coax my horse into moving, leaving Ruskin behind and not looking back as I set off across the valley, now strewn with silver.

I haven’t seen Ruskin in the two days since the valley. I don’t know if he’s as angry with me as I am with him, or if he’s simply off somewhere licking his wounds. I tell myself I don’t care. If he’s not ready to change, to accept that he needs to be open with me—when it comes to the training if nothing else—then I can work on solving the Seelie Court’s problems on my own.

I drop another mask onto the heap beside my work table with a satisfying clunk. I’ve been in my workshop day and night making equipment for the miners. Destan’s come to visit me a few times, but he was put off by the fumes and my focus, claiming I was being boring.

Now it’s Halima’s turn to drop by. I nod at her as she comes in, but she just eyes the growing pile of lead armor with a neutral expression.

“Do you have something to say?” I ask eventually. I can hear that I’m being a little curt, but I’m still annoyed about Destan’s dismissal of what I’m trying to do. After Ruskin telling me I shouldn’t waste time with this project too, it feels like no one’s on my side.

Halima picks up one of the masks, turning it over in her hands.

“The eye gap should be bigger. It will maximize visibility.”

I blink at the sincere suggestion.

“I considered that,” I say. “But I was worried about exposing too much of the face and canceling out the mask’s benefit.”

Halima nods, thinking. “Make the slits wider at each end, then put a strip down the center like a nasal guard on a helm. You’ll protect more of the face, but the eyes won’t notice the additional strip, so you’ll maintain a wider sight line as well.”

“Really?”

“Think about it; you don’t walk around seeing your nose all the time, do you? Your mind hides it for you.”

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