Page 135 of Daughter of No Worlds

If I had been able to stop myself, stop my thoughts, for even a fraction of a second, I might have been moved by it. I didn’t think that Via so much as looked at me when I first met her, let alone saw me as worthy of something like this.

I unsheathed the blade again, feeling the carved bronze handle beneath my palms, trailing my eyes over the dancing silver and gold. Something inside of me purred at the sight of it.

“We haven’t had very much training with swords.”

Max had continued to give me some rudimentary combat training throughout our time together, but not very much of it, and always with much shorter blades than this.

“No,” he said. “I probably should have… if I was thinking right, we probably should have done more. Considering your plans.”

I looked up, and he looked away.

Our gazes still had only brushed each other's since I woke up. He wouldn’t reallylookat me. And I supposed I understood that. Even those brief scuffs were heavy with words that weighed on my heart like lead.

I considered all of those words now, everything that I wanted to say to him. Considered how I might tell him how sorry I was for what had happened to his family; how to tell him how much it meant to me that he came back for me. Considered how I might ask him what might happen to me — to us — next, considering the creature that now lived inside my mind.

But all I could hear was my own rapid heartbeat pounding in my ears, my muscles twitching.

I could try to say all those things… or I couldmove.

I stood up, pacing, Il’Sahaj clutched in my hands. “We can begin now.”

“Begin… training?”

“Yes.”

“Are you feeling—”

“I’m feeling like I cannot stay still for another minute.” I turned on my heel to face him. A wry smile tugged at one side of his mouth. The left, as always.

“You need something to throw yourself into.”

I let out a small breath. He understood. Of course he did. I nodded, loosening a bead of sweat that pooled at my temple.

“Well then.” He picked up his own weapon, curling his fingers around it gingerly. “Fine. If you can do it, I can do it.”

* * *

I was so soakedwith sweat that the cotton of my shirt was plastered to my back, strands of loose hair clinging to my wet cheeks and neck. And my heart throbbed and throbbed and throbbed.

Once, as a child, I found a little baby rabbit — one left alive after the entire nest had disappeared. It was so small, so fragile, that its whole body trembled with its heartbeat. And each beat was so rapid they all blurred together like hummingbird wings.

That was what my heart felt like. A thousand beats for each breath.

I wasn’t scared, though. Quite the opposite. I felt hungry. I feltravenous.Powerful, like my blood was boiling in my veins.

Max brought me down to a training room, and I threw myself against that wall with everything that I had. Il’Sahaj sat unused against the door, a sight that infuriated me every time I looked at it. He had given me a sparring stick instead, which I now swung with as much force and precision as I could muster through a series of exercises.

“It’s all about control,” he told me, as he blocked one of my strikes. He used his staff, though he kept the blades sheathed, saying that he needed to get re-acquainted with it. “Just like magic.”

Control. Control. Control.Whatwasn’tabout control?

I threw myself into it further — faster, harder, losing myself in the repetition and the scream of my arms, my back. If it hurt enough, I wouldn’t have to think anymore.

A grunt escaped through my teeth at the impact as another one of my blows smacked against Max’s bronze staff.

“Don’t push yourself too hard.”

I opened my mouth and let out a laugh. A laugh that sounded a little sour, a little acidic — a little too frantic.

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