Page 81 of Shade of Ruin

~King Gethin, personal journals

Darian and Lee arestanding next to me as we watch Cole move on the training grounds, all alone. High above him, we’re standing behind the railing of what can only be described as a gallery. Instead of the red marble that everything else in theKeep of Flames is made of, this training area was built with typical stone and mortar. There’s no doubt that the architecture doesn’t compare to the opulence of the rest of the Keep, but this… this feels like a training ground.

When we’d first gotten here, there had been dozens of people using the space, all sparring against each other or using the training dummies to practice their attacks, something that Cole’s always been against me doing. Now… they’re all gone, and Cole’s standing alone in the massive space.

I finally realize why everyone talks about Cole like he’s unbeatable. Cole moves like the wind, flowing from one movement to the next, completely unfettered for the first time since I’ve met him. His feet barely touch the ground, and yet, he moves so solidly. The wings on his back flicker in and out of existence only when he needs them.

Still, he doesn’t use fire. The sword flashes across a wooden training dummy’s chest, and then he’s flying backward in a wing-augmented leap, turning as he moves. His feet hit the ground hard enough that the sand flies up around him. Moving his hilt in a blocking motion, he turns the block into a counter-attack against the imagined attack, the tip of his blade sliding across the dummy’s throat.

He’s in the air again, hitting the ground ten steps away before the sand he’d thrown into the air previously has even hit the ground. His sword flashes out with five strikes, and he’s leaping again.

“Is this how he trains?”

Darian nods and Lee says, “For hours. At least if he wants to be alone. If he’s serious about his training, he brings in a few hundred soldiers in full armor with various blunted weapons and he lets them attempt to touch him.”

“I don’t think anyone’s touched him in at least three hundred years,” Darian says. “So don’t feel bad if you don’t either.”

I smile at the comment since I hit him three times yesterday. “Why doesn’t he use flames?”

Darian and Lee turn to each other, and Lee shrugs. “Because he doesn’t want anyone to know how strong he is. He wants everyone to understand just how good he is with a sword, because that’s how members of the House of Steel measure themselves. Flames are what he’d use against his own House. Against his father. He doesn’t wantanyoneto know how good he is with them.”

I blink. “Not even you two?”

They shake their heads. Darian says solemnly, “No. He quit publicly training with fire hundreds and hundreds of years ago. As soon as his father had stopped pushing him. He kept up the swordplay because it kept his father off his back, but the flames were his and his alone.”

Oh. “His father thinks he’s better than Cole with flames?” I ask.

“While he wears the Painted Crown, he is better. And the last time that the House of Flames received the crown, Casimir earned it. Not Cole. I assume nothing has changed, but Cole has his skill with the swordandhis House of Steel magic. Casimir has neither of those. But with the Crown, there’s no contest. Casimir would kill him.”

That’s terrifying. How could anyone be faster or stronger than Cole? What would that even look like? “Are you two glad that you aren’t really in any of this conflict? You’re House of Light, right?”

They look at each other, and it’s like they’re talking without words again. “We’re in it,” Lee says with more than a little attitude in her voice. “We’re with Cole. Whatever happens, we’re with him, and we always will be. We may not be in this conflict based on our powers or House, but we are based on our allegiance.”

It seems like Cole’s inspired a lot of loyalty. All of Aerwyn. Darian and Lee. Most of the people that work within the Keep look at him like Nevan did. They trust him. They care about him. I don’t think that anyone looks at Casimir that way.

“Do you really think it’s going to come to war? And is that war going to be with the House of Steel?”

This time it’s Darian that speaks up. “War will happen eventually. The world is breaking, Maeve, and the two most powerful people in the world caused it. They know things are wrong, and the only answer either of them has is to gather more power. Even if that power will come at the cost of breaking the world even more. They believe that if they can’t find any more enemies to kill, they will have saved the world. Even if that world is nothing but ash when they’re done.”

Gods, how am I supposed to stay out of this? I’d thought I was completely unimportant before. I’d thought that my only role in all of this was to fix the problems that I had created, but the more time I spend with Cole, Darian, and Lee, the more I wish I could help. Cole had seemed sure that I was going to be someone important. The Shade had pushed me to become powerful enough to be worth his investment in me. But only Sia knows everything.

And she says that I’m not strong enough. Just a Wyrdling.At least you’ll save your cousin that way, and no one else will get hurt.

I let the conversation fade as we continue to watch Cole train. I want to go down there, to hold a spear and see what it would be like to fight him at his full strength. I know I would lose faster than I could move. A single strike, and he’d cut past any of my defenses.

And that’s not even him using his magic. That’s just him being the best swordsman in all of Nyth.

It only convinces me further. I’m not meant for this world. Wyrdlings are meant to live in the woods, not have people depending on me.

“You’re sure we’re safe?” I ask.

Cole nods. A two-hour flight away from Draenyth. Deep in the mountains to the west. I can’t think of a single village or city near us. I slide the ring off my finger and put it into a pocket in my pants, making sure that I push it deep into the pocket. It’s the most valuable thing I own and the only way that I’ll be able to convince Calyr to heal my cousin.

The ground is rocky where we stand. Pebbles and stones the size of my fist are strewn about everywhere. It’s a terrible place to spar as the ground is nearly more dangerous than the magic and weapons we’d wield.

This is where Cole set us down, though. I try to stand as solidly as possible, the spear in my right hand and shadows flowing around my feet. I force myself to feel the emotion that I’ve worked so hard to contain since we got to Draenyth, the feelings that would give me away as a member of the House of Shadows.

Desire.

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