Page 128 of Anathema

“Magdah keeps them in a greenhouse on the castle grounds.”

“Flowers of the afterlife.” Wearing a slight smile, she sauntered toward the window, and something about her dark figure set against the misty, aphotic view, and the candles flickering around her, as if the light longed to touch her, made his chest clench. She was beautiful.

No, beautiful was too weak a word.

She was intoxicating. Exquisitely divine.

Once again, his thoughts wound back to the moment he’d found her cradling his brother’s head, giving him the gentle caresses he’d been denied most of his life. Hands balled to tight fists, he fought the tugging in his chest. The urge to carve the image from his skull and set it aflame.

Frustrated by the peculiar reaction, he turned to leave.

“Zevander,” she said, and the sound of his name rolling off her tongue sent a chill down his spine.

He turned his head to the side, refusing to let her see the yearning that was damned near beaming in his eyes. How ridiculous he must’ve looked, a man of his strict training and discipline, pining after her like a fucking prepubescent schoolboy.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Lunamiszka.”

“Do I still annoy you?” she asked.

“Endlessly.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

MAEVYTH

Just as I had the previous day, I met Zevander and Dolion in the training room, escorted by Rykaia—who’d made a point to chide me for having opened the door to her brother’s cellar the night before.

“It isn’t that he’s a danger to you, per se,” she’d said, as I’d scarfed down the milky oats and apples she’d brought me. “It’s just that he’s … well, worse than before. And he can’t really control his emotions, sometimes. I visited him once without bothering to tell Zevander. He ended up nearly strangling me to death. It was Aeryz that saved me.”

Up until we’d reached the training room, I’d promised at least three times not to venture down there alone again. Yet, while the bed in my new chambers was far more comfortable than the one in my cell, I hadn’t slept much at all the night before, my mind not only questioning the vision I’d seen of Aleysia, but what I’d learned of Branimir, as well.

Standing at the center of the training room, Zevander once more wore the mask he seemed insistent on wearing, despite my having already seen what hid beneath. With, or without it, he still looked as exceptionally fierce and handsome as the day before. And just as I had then, I found myself equally annoyed by that observation.

Far from being in no mood to train, I found myself curious for what the day’s lesson would bring. While the method may have been exhausting, my reluctant intrigue with the glyphs compelled me past the ache in my eyeballs.

Rykaia fell into step alongside me.

“You’re staying for this one?” I asked, glad for her presence.

“I’ve been tasked to help train.” The lack of enthusiasm in her voice made it clear that said task held little interest for her. She hadn’t even opted for training clothes, and instead, wore an emerald-green dress.

“Another grueling day of wind’s vengeance?” I asked, strolling up to Zevander.

“No. I’m going to show you a new glyph today, with Rykaia’s help. Another defense mechanism, one that might be most handy to you, and fairly easy to learn.”

“Thank god for that.”

When he opened his palm, a glyph glowed across his skin. “Propulszir. To repel.”

I rounded myself to his point of view until standing beside him and studied the glyph. A small square set inside a larger one, its points touching the sides of the bigger shape, and small lines sticking out from each of the bigger square’s sides.

“Propulszir,” I whispered, committing as much of the shape to memory as I could. “This one seems a bit complex.” The other glyphs I’d learned seemed to have simple shapes that I’d found easier to recall.

“The more powerful glyphs are the most complex. Some mages never learn their intricacies.” Unless I was overanalyzing, his voice seemed calmer today, less irritated.

Having committed the glyph to memory, I returned to my original spot across from him, and it was from there that I happened to glance downward, catching sight of the massive bulge in his leathers.

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