Page 15 of The Serpent’s Shadow

My body trembled from the energy I’d already used. I couldn’t get ahead of myself or be too happy about my first success, because Corym was a stern teacher—I had more things to do. He wasn’t going to make it easy for me, because he said I had a lot to catch up on.

Gods was he right about that.

I Shaped the air again, faster this time. The trembling earth stopped shaking. My left hand came up from the grass, opposite my right.

I drew in a new source with the Shaping: the wind catching through the tree branches around the clearing.

A small tornado formed overhead, to my left, whirling and sending birds squawking into the sky. I couldseethe vortex forming from my burgeoning power, and my heart started to hammer as fast as the tornado grew.

“Good!” Corym yelled above the din of buzzing air and blowing leaves and sediment. “A fine choice,lunis’ai!”

His enthusiasm only made me stronger, bolstering my power. The rune’s Shape stayed illuminated in the air in front of me, even as the first one—the directive to tremble the earth—faded from existence.

I drew a third Shape, calling to expel the wind toward the two stones. As the wall of wind swept down from the heavens, I gasped and noticed my error—

Shit!

—and amended its trajectory with a swift fourth Shape, my fingers dancing on the sky.

The whirlwind whittled down into a bottlenecked cyclone, focusing and clenching from awallof wind into abladeof wind. I didn’t want to blow the damn stones over, I wanted to slice through them!

With a shout, I threw my hands forward to give the blade a direction, and the invisible squall burst forward.

With an earthen groan, the blade of wind slammed and sliced through the middle of both stones, leaving a black line of surgical precision in its wake.

Panting, I lowered my hands, watching with wide eyes . . .

And the two stones became four—the top halves of both sliding down from the bottom halves and thudding to the forest floor, finely cut through the middle.

Corym clenched a fist. “Yes,lunis’ai!”

I yelped in surprise, pumped my fists into the air, and stood. Before I knew what I was doing, I laughed and jumped at him, throwing my arms around his neck in excitement. “I did it!”

He laughed with me, returning my embrace.

And I was suddenly much too close to the elf, feeling Corym’s warm, lithe body against mine, his chest pressing against my breasts. His warm breath washing over me.

With a gasp and a flush of color to my cheeks, I unhanded him in a hurry, standing back and stammering. “I, erm, s-sorry about that.”

Corym simply cleared his throat. For such a regal, noble-like race, he showed a bit of lost decorum by shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He stared at the ground, then pointed over to the cut rocks. “You still have more work to do.”

“Right.” I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry, and faced the destruction I had caused.

I felt thrilled and exhausted at the same time.How am I supposed to bind these rocks together? Water would destroy them more, eroding them. Fire would . . . could I solder them together?

I scoffed, shaking my head. I wasn’t about to ask my elven captor—the one I had just brutally bear-hugged—for advice. I was too mortified.

So, I did what he had first told me to do: I used my ingenuity.Come on, Vini. You’re the same girl who passed a runeshaping test with a water-filled condom and a bow and arrow. You can do this. Think!

I looked down to my belt, the thin metal buckle, and frowned.Well, it’s half-ass, but . . .

With a wave of my hands and waggle of my fingers, starting a new Shape, I used the belt as my source. I unbuckled it and directed a new wave of wind to carry the belt through the sky.

I didn’t want to bringmoreattention to my nether regions after lunging at my beautiful elven captor, by sliding my belt off, but it couldn’t be helped. I had to complete the challenge.

Corym chuckled when he realized what I was doing.

The leather belt wrapped around the two bottom halves of the stones, which were still standing. Slowly, the stones fell inward on each other, until they were facing end to end on the ground.

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