Page 96 of A Baron of Bonds
He squeezed my hand. “Yes, it did. The very night I met you, your magic slid from your hands to catch the vase you had knocked off the table before I caught it.”
I met his eyes with disbelief. “I don’t remember that.”
“I’d guess at the time, you didn’t believe you were so powerful and didn’t notice those things as I did. Do you remember growing the crocus in the forest before I took you to Viridis for the first time?”
“Of course.”
“You sat on that hard ground with your eyes squeezed shut and green magic rose from every surface of your body. You were trying so hard not to use your power, it instead left you in excess. That’s what had confused me for weeks. You were obviously powerful, but denied it continuously, pretending you held very little.”
I thought for a moment in silence. I remembered trying to hold back what was mine to wield here in Felgren in those first few weeks on its soil. I remembered pretending, feigning a difficulty in summoning the power that I had always possessed.
It wasn’t until Heimlen had shown me the Blight that I’d decided to test my own limits, and prove that I was strong enough to save Felgren.
“And what about you?” I asked. “Has your magic ever left you without summoning it?”
He slid his eyes to mine as we walked. “No.”
I raised a brow. “Just how powerful are you as Baron of Felgren? I don’t believe I’ve seen the extent of it.”
I felt his hesitancy at my mention of it. I felt the pull from our bond to suddenly protect me and keep me near, yet something was amiss.
“What are you not telling me, my love?” I asked, my eyes narrowing.
He cleared his throat quickly and replied without answering, “What would you like to me to show you? The power of a Baron is very strong indeed.”
I stared ahead, thinking. “Could you move the trees if you liked? Diverge a stream?” I grabbed his arm, and pulled myself closer to his warmth. “Could the Baron of Felgren move the very earth we walk and transport us right up to the steps of the Fortress if he so wished?”
“Yes.”
“Alright then, let’s see it. Show me something new. Something I haven’t seen you do before.”
He responded to my challenge immediately, nodding ahead of us as roots of the opposite towering pines broke through the earth, rising upward to wind together across the path in an archway. Clomps of dirt fell as a woody vine slid along the intertwined roots before blooming into great heaps of purple wisteria that hung heavily down the archway.
My jaw dropped at the display, and I laughed, letting go of his hand and running to the proof of his power. I gripped the sides of my waist and asked, “Was that simple for you, Revich?”
“A Baron’s power is most easily called upon in Felgren. I’m not sure I could do something like this outside of it, or to trees that did not grow here.”
I lifted a purple hanging strand of petals to my nose and breathed in the sweet smell of fresh blossoms. I lifted my hand in the air, calling to the monarch nearby. She landed on the ringof my forefinger, stretching her wings in and out slowly before finding the wisteria and fluttering to its petals for a drink.
I looked to the sky in a wordless call to more of them. Moments later, a swarm of orange and black wings flew to the blossomed archway.
“We can do it, can’t we?” I whispered, coming back to him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders while Philius and Mychael set the trunk down on the path to take a rest. “We can build our lives here, training channelers together. We can provide the isle with more magic and make people’s lives better because of it.”
He pressed his forehead to mine. “Together, I believe we could do anything.”
I closed my eyes, inhaling his warmth of fresh pine and woods—the life of Felgren. “You breathe, I breathe,” I spoke, our phrase of tethered lives now settled between us.
He hovered over my mouth, his breath familiar and sweet. “You live, I live, Karus.”
Our lips met in slow admission of our strength together, our love of this forest, and our desire to see it thrive.
We could do that. Together, we could do anything.
We stoppedevery once in a while to allow Philius and Mychael to catch their breath.
Mychael’s magic was still weak, but present all the same to help him on our long trek to the Fortress.
Philius, however, couldn’t keep his magic flowing and his forehead was streaked with sweat.
