Page 43 of Unbound

"Yield," Blackstone repeats from the sidelines as he drifts toward our match, his tone making it clear this isn't a suggestion.

"I yield," Davrin finally spits.

I lower my weapon, taking a step back. The borrowed energy drains from me quickly, leaving me light-headed and slightly nauseated. Not free, I realize. I've taken something that must be returned. The balance must be maintained.

I release the excess energy back into the stone. I release the warmth I gathered from the torches and the water saturating the air, feeling it flow from me like water finding its level.

Even with the energy gone, I'm tired down to my bones. Whatever I did took something from me. Something that will take time to recover, I imagine. And it's something I'm going to have to avoid using at all costs moving forward.

If anyone ever sees I can manipulate elements other than water, I'll be exposed. If Bastian's first warning hadn't made the danger of exposure clear, the book has. People used to know and fear what I am. They used to hunt us down because they were terrified of what we could do if allowed to live.

Mireen is at my side a moment later, fingers probing the place where Davrin's blow landed. She produces a small vial from her pocket, uncorking it. "Found some juniper leaf growing just outside the castle walls. We used it back home for pain." The salve smells of mint and something sharper as she dabs it on my skin. The pain eases immediately.

I lift a brow. “We’re not supposed to leave the castle walls.”

Mireen leans closer, smile conspiratorial. “Tell that to the cute guy who insisted on ‘ravaging my perfect body in nature.’” She shrugs. “In any case, he knew when we could sneak out. The sex wasn’t anything special, but now I can stretch my legs from time to time.”

“You’ll have to tell me more about this mysterious guy later.” I give my shoulder an experimental rotation and find the balm works amazingly well. “And thank him for me.”

"Impressive footwork, Thorne," Blackstone says, interrupting us. There’s a hint of surprise on his face. "Perhaps you've been paying attention after all."

From across the training area, I feel Malakai's eyes boring into me, cold and calculating. He's standing over the dead body of a girl who is bleeding from a horrible wound to her neck, eyes wide and unseeing.

“By the four elements, Malakai… Again?” Blackstone grumbles as he notices, leaving us to head toward the dead body.

“Got carried away. My mistake,” Malakai says, voice devoid of all emotion.

I watch Blackstone dragging the body from the room, hating how I can already feel myself normalizing all the death. Maybe that’s the most horrifying part of life at Confluence. I can look at a corpse and feel sadness, but not shock. I can feel the selfish relief of knowing I’m not one of the dead. Neither are my friends. Four of us lived when Malakai wanted us dead. It’s harder than it should be to feel the appropriate emotions for the ones who didn’t live.

But if I gave every death here its proper respect, I’d never come up for air. That’s what this place is doing to us. It’s teaching us to keep moving forward, no matter what surrounds us. No matter what hells we’ve just passed through.

The dead girl will join the pile of corpses in the back of my mind—the ones that drift into my thoughts every night and linger like haunting ghosts, a grim backdrop to the recurring nightmares of being trapped in the water with the thing that hunts me.

Davrin and Malakai's other soldiers join together in a small group, several of them glaring occasionally in my direction.

Mireen looks at Malakai’s people and then back at me as she gives me a shoulder to lean on. "You know this means trouble, right? Malakai is probably going to dream of playing jump rope with your intestines tonight.”

I shoot her a look.

She smirks, then lowers her eyes. “Sorry. But you know I’m right. In spirit at least.”

All I can do is nod my head, because she is right. I've just painted an even bigger target on my back. And now the bull's-eye is bright red.

"That was quite the display," a familiar voice comments.

Bastian stands nearby, observing the training session with arms casually folded across his chest. His legacy uniform is immaculate as always, making our sweat-stained training clothes look even more pitiful by comparison.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, immediately suspicious. Other than the instructors, he's the only non-offering in the whole room.

"Observing," he replies smoothly. "As I told you. It's one of my assignments here."

His eyes drop briefly to my left hand, then back to my face. "I see you've been doing your reading. That's good."

With that cryptic note, he walks away.

"Okay," Mireen says, tilting her head. "What was that about?"

I shrug, aiming for nonchalance and probably missing by a mile. "Legacy business, I guess?"

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