Page 61 of Their Chosen

She really was so different from any other fae I had ever met. I couldn't help but respect her, even after she had embarrassed me earlier this morning. I hadn't been mad at her winning. She was honestly the better fighter, and I was glad. It meant that she wasn't as helpless as I had originally thought. I’d been mad that I was finding myself with fewer and fewer reasons to leave here and to push her into returning to Earth.

I was angry that in that moment, I wanted to kiss her when she’d been straddling me with her desire so potent. I wanted to roll her over and consume her so completely, but my mind wasn't ready to let go of my dream of freedom. However, I was realizing more and more that I would never know what freedom felt like. I would never be able to live in solitude. It was not to be my destiny and, by fighting that, I was only making myself and everyone around me miserable.

Those conflicting emotions had angered me. I’d needed the space to clear my head. It was while I was storming off that I realized if my life included her in it, I might just find myself being happy for once. I had never been happy, not since finding out just what my mother was capable of at the age of eight. And now, I was afraid of truly letting myself be at peace, afraid of how fragile something like that could be.

I shook my head and accepted the glass from Callum, who sat in the chair next to me. All of us were watching Rhowyn, lost in our own thoughts. Now, I needed to let them in on what had happened. I took a deep breath and exhaled. “Now that you guys know what I can do, you can see how I helped her. But what was truly terrifying was that the amount of power I had to consume drained me. I have never had to exert that much of myself before,” I said.

Arryn glanced at me. “She was that powerful?” he asked, concern evident in his face.

“More than that. She was something I have never experienced before. I have tasted almost every single magic there is, little tastes here and there. Never enough to be noticed but enough to know what each one feels like. And she was something new entirely,” I said, my gaze on her face as I tried to puzzle out just what she was.

“What do you mean?” Baer asked, leaning forward into my peripheral view.

“I mean that she had so much power, but it wasn't electrifying, like I’d been struck by lightning,” I said, finally making eye contact with Arryn.

“That's not possible. There's never been anyone with that kind of magical affinity,” he insisted.

“I would have agreed with you this morning, before I consumed so much of her magic that I almost drained myself. I am completely certain that she is something new entirely. I don't know how or why, but she is,” I said softly, my exhaustion weighing on me, along with the need to keep this quiet.

We all sat quietly with that information, letting it sink in fully. Callum finally chimed in. “So, how do we plan on training her? Because we can't repeat what happened this morning. She needs a way to access her magic without it getting out of hand.”

“I won't be able to consume that much again for another twenty-four hours at least,” I muttered, making sure they took that into account. I had no clue how we were going to manage this, but I knew we needed to figure something out. Arryn was our best bet at making sure we planned for all possibilities.

“I can create a shield if we need it,” Baer offered. “You know, in case she is unable to control it while training.”

“We may need to find some way of limiting her magic for the time being. At least until she has some control over the small amount. As it is, the problem seems to be that she has too much power to control, which means she’ll be consumed by it rushing out of her each time, unless we can turn it into a trickle,” Arryn mused.

“I can speak with Master Jude about a way to do that. If anyone knows how to make that happen, it would be him,” I said, knowing that me speaking to him would result in less questions than if one of the others went to him.

“I think that's probably best. How soon do you think you'll be able to reach out to him?” Arryn asked me.

I sighed, considering his question. “I should probably be well enough to walk to his temple in a couple of hours. I need to eat and rehydrate before I can do anything else,” I admitted, even though it went against everything in me to reveal such weakness.

“Did someone mention food?” Rhowyn groaned out, her eyes fluttering open. All of us sat forward, and it took everything in me not to rush to her side. I grasped the arms of the chair with my hands, holding myself in place. She didn't need all of us ambushing her at once.

Arryn walked toward her as she pushed up to sit on the couch, her hands going to her head as she did so. “How are you feeling?” he asked her the one question we all needed the answer to.

“I feel like I got hit by a semi,” she mumbled. Whatever that was, it must not be good by the way she winced her eyes with each movement. “My head is pounding, but mostly, I'm thirsty and starving.”

Baer jumped up and rushed to get her a glass of water, like a puppy, eager to please her. He ran back, careful not to slosh it all over the place and handed it to her. She drank it all in one go, my consumption of her magic having left her drained of everything.

Arryn sat next to her. “Do you mind if I check you over again, just to make sure everything is good?” he asked hesitantly.

I was pretty sure she was fine, she just needed to replenish the energy she expended during her episode. Callum got up and walked to the door, exiting the suite and leaving us with her. Arryn's hands went to her shoulders, and he closed his eyes as he focused in on her.

When he opened his eyes, she asked, “Good?” A new glass of water appeared in her hands, after Baer rushed to refill it as soon as she had emptied it.

“Everything's fine. No lingering effects,” he confirmed, but his worry was still present on his face. No doubt a result of our conversation prior to her waking.

“So...” she started, making sure to make eye contact with each of us. “What the hell was that? I don't know much about this whole magic thing, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't normal.”

Of course she would want answers. Arryn's eyes met mine, questioning whether we should tell her right now. She needed to know if for no other reason except to keep her from accessing her magic before we could limit it somehow. Now, the question was, how to tell her all of this in a way she could understand.

I nodded at Arryn in agreement, and he turned to face her on the couch. She turned to him as well, meeting his gaze as he started speaking. “To be honest, we’re not entirely sure what that was. All we know right now is that you are more powerful than we had initially realized and that your affinity didn’t coincide with anything we’ve ever seen before.”

“Isn't that a good thing? Why do I get the feeling it's not?” she asked.

“Normally, it would be great. It would mean that we have an advantage in the trials. The problem is that because you currently have no control over your magic, you seem to be accessing it all at once, and it's overtaking you. If it hadn't been for Lennox's intervention earlier, you would have burned up completely. He saved your life,” Arryn stated plainly.

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