Page 27 of Lady for Embers

“Will you train me? You and Eliza and Rayner,” he clari?ed.

“You want us to train you?” Eliza asked, her head tilting and copper braid slipping over a shoulder.

“You know how to handle a sword,” Cyrus said, his arms folding across his chest. “I’ve seen you spar.”

“Yes, but not as well as I could. When we go into battle again, I want to be able to ?ght,” Callan said, lifting his chin. “I want to be able to defend my family, my— The people I care about.”

“You are still just a mortal,” Eliza said, eyeing him thoughtfully now.

“So were Sorin’s High Force,” he countered.

“But they were soldiers. They’d been training for the king’s army nearly their entire lives,” Cyrus cut in.

“I don’t want to be like my father,” Callan said, his tone shifting. “A king should not constantly be behind closed doors in council rooms, making laws and decisions that affect people he knows nothing about. If I cannot walk among my kingdom, my people, without fearing for my life, then I should not be a king. If I am not willing to ?ght for my people, willing to pick up my own sword and go ?ght beside them, then I should not be their king. If I am not willing to do whatever possible to better myself for my people, even those who would rather see me dead right now, then I should not be their king.”

The others were staring back at him when he fell silent. For the ?rst time since he had met the Fae, some type of respect looked back at him. He’d been bitter in the Fire Court—ridiculously self-pitying, if he were being honest—with how they’d treated him. But he’d never acted in any way to earn their respect either. He’d never had to earn respect before. Another thing that had always simply been given to him because of his title.

“If he wants it badly enough, he can obtain that level of skill. I did,” Eliza ?nally said. “I did that and then some. I surpassed all my teachers.”

“So you will do it? You will train me?” Callan asked, glancing around at the Fae.

“We can’t really do much on a ship,” Eliza mused in contemplation. “But we can do what we can until we reach Avonleya.”

“And then?”

She ?ashed him a wicked grin. “And then the real fun begins.”

Chapter 7

Talwyn

The black wolf stumbled slightly as she traversed the rocky ground of the Fiera Mountains. The sun was quickly setting, and even her heavy fur coat wouldn’t completely shield her from the elements of the mountains. Spring may have begun to make itself known in other areas of the continent, but high in the mountains snow still blanketed everything. The winds still howled as if she were in the Shira Cliffs. She padded past a few evergreens before ?nally spotting the cave ahead. The same cave she’d sought out last week.

She dropped to her belly on the hard, cold earth when she was deep enough inside the cave to be free of the elements. The growling of her stomach seemed to echo off the cave walls. She’d forgotten to eat. Again. Which was ?ne. Food tasted like ashes on her tongue these days anyway.

She curled into a tight ball, tucking her nose into her fur. This was the only place she could sleep anymore. Tucked away in the cold caves of the Fiera Mountains. She couldn’t sleep in her chambers in the White Halls because Tarek was there, and everything about him being there felt off. He still called her his twin ?ame. She still adamantly ignored that voice in her head that told her he was not.

That voice that sounded like Azrael Luan.

That voice that made the ashes of her heart stir, as if it would almost start beating again.

If only.

But she had seen Scarlett come apart when she’d watched Sorin dying. She’d watched her instantly descend into hysterics.She had always reasoned that her reaction to losing Tarek wasn’t as strong as Cyrus’s because they hadn’t completed their Trials. But Scarlett and Sorin hadn’t either. They may have completed a few, but their bond had not been Anointed. There was no denying anymore that Talwyn should have felt something more when she had thought Tarek was dead. So either something was wrong with her or... It had not been a true twin flame bond at all, and she’d offered up a piece of her soul she would never get back.

Not that she had much of a soul left at this point anyway.

She’d gone to Azrael’s Desert Alcazar, tried to sleep there, but it smelled like him. Soil and forest and ?r. She’d thought that might be comforting on some small level.

She was wrong.

She couldn’t even bring herself to sleep in his bed. She’d curled up in her wolf form on the ?oor of his room, but even that brought forth memories of late night talks and the most effective ­distractions.

Distractions that Tarek in no way came close to comparing to.

She didn’t try Sorin’s Fiera Palace. She’d vomited when she’d stood outside the palace after she’d let Alaric and the Maraan Lords into the Courts. It was the price of securing their alliance in the coming war with Avonleya. Because there would certainly be a war. Scarlett had made sure of that by tricking Alaric into closing all of his rifts and dropping the wards that kept the Shifters and Witches in their own territories.

But when Talwyn was standing there beside the Tana River, looking up at his home, all she could see was Sorin showing her the Twilight Fires when she had been a child. Sorin teaching her how to hold a sword in the private training pits on the top level beneath a ceiling of ?re glass. Sorin bringing her hot cocoa after letting her play in the snow all afternoon while Eliné had been attending to other matters. Sorin sneaking her an extra bowl of frozen cream when Eliné had said no.

---