Page 18 of The Hidden
Sutton reaches out and grabs my wrist with his big meaty hand and proceeds to move my whole arm until my hand is shaking. I watch my hand flip flopping all over the place like a fish on a hook, and I realize that technically he is doing what I said he’s supposed to do. I crack up when he stops and then offers me his hand to shake. I don’t know why, but I do to his arm exactly what he just did to mine instead of showing him what a handshake is really supposed to be. Maybe it has something to do with the weight that lifts from my soul as I laugh and reinvent the handshake with him. Or maybe I’m just a fucking weirdo; either way, I feel safe and hopeful for the first time since I woke up in this strange place.
“Alright, Sutton, let’s make me a terminator,” I announce when our hand shaking is done. He looks at me, perplexed, and I slap his rock hard pec twice in encouragement. “I’ll explain later.”
Sutton nods at me and then a devilish smile takes over his face. “Let’s begin.”
10
“No, Falon!” Sutton bellows and comes stomping toward me. “You’re not feeling the counter attack!” he tells me for the four thousandth time.
I rub at my ribs and glare at him. “I promise you I am most definitely feeling the counter attack,” I argue, my irritation clear. I’m practically one big fucking bruise at this point, and I’ve yet to get a hit in. Sarai, my opponent, gives me a sweet smile, and I fight the urge to chuck my sword at her. My ego is probably more bruised at this point than my body, and that’s fucking saying something.
“You shouldfeelthe shift in the air when she changes her stance or the direction of a hit. You should feel it coming as easily as the air current through your feathers when you fly. You’re not tapping into your instincts. You’re notoneinside,” Sutton explains once again, his closed fist hitting his chest at the end of his statement.
“I know that!” I shout, exasperation dripping from my words. “My gryphon is an asshole! I keep telling you that. She won’t even wake up to help me best a thirteen-year-old.” I gesture to Sarai who is momentarily distracted by something that looks like a dragonfly whizzing through the air.
Sutton’s gaze fills with sympathy, and he steps closer to me. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Sarai’s the best with weapons I’ve ever seen, but you’re ready to learn from her. You’ve worked hard these past three weeks, you just need to figure out how to work with your animal at all times, or you’ll never get anywhere in the next phase of training.”
I look past him to the part of the field where shifted gryphons are learning to defend and attack. I exhale a deep resigned breath.
“I can’t make her listen to me, Sutton. She doesn’t even wake up when Iactuallyneed her. She’s a lazy, good for nothing gryphon who likes to pump me full of hormones to fuck with me and then gets off on leaving me hanging at all other times.”
I leave off that she sits up at attention whenever Zeph or Ryn are nearby, as it feels like TMI. I barely see them these days anyway, between training and working on my project for Tysa, which means my bitch of a gryphon is pretty much dormant at all times.
My trade with Tysa has worked out well. I now own several pairs of pants and shirts, a couple bra-like garments I walked Tysa through making, and last week, she gifted me with my very own braided armor vest and pants. What looked like leather turned out to be something called Narwagh hide. I guess it’s like a pig or something. The material is protective on the outside but soft and somewhat stretchy against my skin. The pants she made are so badass they almost look like black scales all over my legs, and I laughed so hard when I saw them.
The story of what I thought I was when I woke up flying in the sky that first time, slipped out one night when I was working late at Tysa’s house. She and her mate, Moro, laughed so hard they had tears streaming down their face, and now I have black dragon scale-looking Narwagh armor. Tysa is the fucking best, and aside from Sutton, my only friend here. The looks of mistrust and disdain from people are still a daily occurrence, but mostly they just ignore me now, which I suppose is a step in the right direction.
Sutton snaps his fingers in front of my face a couple of times. “Focus, Falon, you’re as bad as Sarai sometimes with daydreaming and distractions.”
I offer him a sheepish look, and he chuckles and reaches out and tucks a wayward strand of ghost-white hair behind my ear. He’s been doing that a lot lately, touching me or looking at me softly. I’m not sure how to take it. Is he expressing attraction, or is this just how he is? I honestly have no fucking clue what to think about any of it. Sutton is handsome and nice. He’s an incredible teacher, and I like talking to him, but I don’t know if there’s more beyond that.
“Ami!” Sutton bellows out of nowhere, and I jump from the shock of his sudden booming beckon. “I’m going to have you pair off with Ami for a while. He struggled with his gryphon too, and I think he can teach you to get past your blocks. You two have some things in common,” Sutton tells me cryptically, reaching out and tugging the end of my braid as he walks past to intercept Ami and fill him in on the plan.
I stand there awkwardly like a forgotten kid after school, waiting at the now empty pick up line. Ami looks over at me as Sutton speaks to him, and I almost expect his eyes to go white as he observes me, like they did when Zeph brought him into my first interrogation. Ami gives Sutton a nod and then makes his way over to me. He’s just slightly taller than me, lean, and from the look of him, still growing into his body. He shakes Bieber-brown hair out of his face, and his light brown eyes land on mine.
“You won’t need that,” he tells me, his chin jerking toward the wooden sword still gripped in my hand. “Follow me,” he instructs, and then he turns and walks toward the bordering trees. I turn back and look for Sutton like I need his reassurance that this is okay, but he’s busy working with the other trainees. So I drop my practice sword at my feet and follow the mysterious Ami away from the training fields.
I’m grateful for the boots that Tysa got for me as I follow Ami in silence over rocky terrain and then through a shallow part of the river until we’re standing close to the edge of the cliff on the opposite side of the cliff castle. We both stare out into the never-ending water, and I wait for him to tell me what we’re doing here. He walks casually to the cliff’s edge, and I tense. He sits down and hangs his legs over the rim and motions for me to do the same. I hesitate.
“You afraid of heights?” he teases.
“I always think I’m not until I get somewhere dangerously high, and then I rethink my answer,” I offer as I inch slowly closer to the edge. I move like a baby fawn on shaky legs, arms outstretched like if I trip and go over, somehow my noodle arms will stop me.
“You do have wings, you know,” Ami rags, and I shoot him an unamused glare.
“Psshh, pretty sure my gryphon would get a kick out of me falling off this cliff,” I inform him, and he chuckles.
“You most likely wouldn’t die if you fell,” he offers, as if that should be all the reassurance I need.
“Yeah, I’ve been there and done that thanks to your fearless leader. I’ll take a hard pass on any future bone-crushing falls.” I sit carefully next to Ami and hang my legs over the edge like he does. Wind rushes up the cliff side like it’s trying to escape the crashing waves below. It carries cool mist on its back, and the breeze flirts around us as we sit and take it all in.
“It’s beautiful here,” I offer reverently.
“Yeah, something about this place is very calming to people like us,” he agrees, and then he pulls his arm back and chucks a pebble over the cliff. It’s impossible to track the little rock as it falls to meet the water, but I try anyway.
“People like us?” I query.
“Yeah, you know, highborn, dirty bloods, Ouphe tainted,” he sneers. “This place used to belong to the Ouphe. Their magic is practically built into the cliffs themselves. You’ll see their writing all over the castle and the surrounding land. I think that’s why people with more Ouphe in their blood than Gryphon, people like you and me, resonate so much with this place.”
