Page 78 of The Prince's Mage

“Enough to cast simple rune, is not?” Marcella said, turning and giving the other girl a sharp look.

Aimilia opened her mouth, but Nikias said, “It should be.”

Aimilia’s eyes doubled in size and she whipped around to Gavril and hissed, “Gavril, you didn’t even attempt it until you could—”

Gavril said, “We’ll start with you trying to cast a simple rune.”

Aimilia threw her hands up and sank back into her seat with a huff.

It took all of Marcella’s self-control—and Nikias’ presence—for her to not break down in tears that they were almost there. She was tired and terrified and feeling everything slip through her fingers but this.

Gavril demonstrated the rune for her, and Marcella made her first attempt to recreate the motions. She didn’t get through the first one without Gavril having to correct her.

Aimilia muttered, “I was trying to tell you she’s not ready.”

Gavril glared at Aimilia and the two of them continued to snipe at each other under their breaths while Marcella blocked them out and focused on her work with an intensity she had never once managed to apply to her studies as a child. There was a lot more at stake this time.

Nikias still watched her. At least that was consistent.

Above all, peace.

Of course, it didn’t work the first time.

Or the first fifty.

Gavril constantly had to correct her finger movements, his hands on hers as he positioned them and moved them through the rune. Casting with both hands, even with the fingers making the same movement was as unnatural to her as trying to walk on her hands. The fact that her fingers had to be making the exact same movements at the exact same time was far more difficult than she’d imagined. The fact that she needed to have perfect control over the minuscule amount of vitae to evenly distribute it was as foreign to her as breathing under water.

Also, it was incredibly hard for her to focus on what Gavril was saying when his hands were on hers and he was whispering in her ear and sending shivers down her spine. She was about ready to shove him away and demand Aimilia do it because at least she would be snippy and touch Marcella as little as possible.

Gavril seemed to be enjoying any excuse to have her hands in his.

Marcella wished she didn’t like it as much as he did too. It would make her life so much easier.

But it did seem to make Nikias’ eye twitch, so despite the agony it was for her, that twitch kept her mouth shut and let Gavril keep correcting her.

They stopped when her legs began to shake and she was drenched in sweat from trying to manipulate the little vitae she had into the foreign rune and failing. As Gavril would wrap an arm around her and take on her weight, Marcella cursed herself.

When he walked her back to her room, softly telling her she was making progress and that they were close, she ignored him. She was too busy dwelling on her failures.

Of all the clan mages for this responsibility to fall on, it just had to be her.

The daughter of a Solitus mother and a soldier who barely had any vitae.

A soldier who’d failed her tests twice.

A mediocre mage who was more useful as a sacrifice left for dead than she was alive.

She was already drowning in the blood to be shed.

Chapter28

GAVRIL

Gavril hated this.

Watching Marcella push herself far past her limits and having to stay silent until she pushed herself a little more and started to collapse before finally calling it.

“We’re done for the day. We’ll try again tomorrow,” Gavril said, pulling Marcella into his side. Her head bobbed as her hands fell from the air, her vitae fizzling out and the light fading.

---