Page 40 of Enchanted Kingdom
He paused, but then gently, barely touching me, wiped a spot on my cheek. “You had some flour on you,” he explained.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “And thank you for trying to make me feel welcome here.”
He reached for my hand to place a kiss on it. “I’d likely try to kiss your lips right now, but I am sweaty and disgusting and due for a shower. Since I want it to be highly memorable, it’ll have to wait.”
I snorted a laugh. “But why are you sweaty at this hour?”
He grinned, a cocky grin I wasn’t sure I had ever seen him use. “We were training.”
“Training for what?”
He trailed a finger lazily across my hand he still held in his. “Practicing our magic, Jorah.”
That had me shutting up. “Oh.” Hadn’t Renna just told me they were only supposed to use magic in select ways? Or else they’d use it all up, or something like that? But Owen said he needed to use his every few hours and the princes were off training with theirs too. What I was hearing and seeing were contradictory.
He let go of me only for a moment, and blue magic came out of his hand farthest from me. But this strand of magic was slower and took a form as it flowed from his hand. It looked like a raven made out of blue lightning as it slowly shot in the air. Not far from us, it fanned out from the raven shape and formed a flower that began spinning in the air next to us.
“Are you repulsed?”
“No, it’s lovely,” I admitted while still staring at the flower. “Why did it take a shape that time?”
He smiled. “Each Enchanted’s magic takes a form as it travels out of us and to its target. An apparition of sorts. We just usually send the magic out so fast that you don’t notice it.”
“May I touch it?” I asked him, the flower still spinning in the air next to us.
“You can try, but it’ll probably disappear,” he said softly.
I reached out with a finger, wanting to see if it would or not. I found my finger shaking slightly. The moment I reached a petal on the flower, just as he said, it disappeared, as if I had scattered the magic.
“Thank you for not running,” Keir said softly.
“Because you used magic?”
He gave me a nod. “I know you don’t like it.”
That was the fourth time I had been around magic in the last few days. Each time I was getting less nervous about it. That wasn’t to say I liked it, but I was also understanding more about how it all worked. “I think I mostly just don’t like abuses of power. Magic used to hurt and harm. What I just saw was beautiful, Keir.”
He reached up with his free hand and pulled at his hair. “Get out of here, woman. Before you make me kiss you, sweat be damned.”
I laughed. “Good night, Keir.”
“Good night, Jorah.”
I must have been smiling like a fool the entire walk back up to my room because Owen kept giving me the side eye.
“Say one word, and I’ll never bake for you again,” I threatened.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he began whistling a tune that lasted the rest of the way to my room.
Easton was there to take over for the night duty, and I managed to wiggle out of my dress before collapsing onto my bed.
The king was suspicious of me. The other women hated me. And yet for some reason, it was the first time since arriving that I found I didn’t mind having to stay.
CHAPTER15
The next day, there were three more women that wanted to learn how to play cards. It made the time pass more quickly, so I didn’t even mind.
Renna and I taught the new batch, while the others from the previous day all played together at a different table with their own deck of cards.
