Page 159 of Death of a Mortal

I’d grown somewhat comfortable with the basics of handling a sword and throwing daggers, but I was downright awful with a bow.

But as bad as I was with a bow, I was equally good at fighting with no weapons at all. I was fast, nimble, and dead accurate with a fist.

Noxie always watched, encouraging me and insulting those that he—we—didn’t like.

Drayce had finally let me into the strategy meetings he held with the captains and order leaders about a month ago. This was mostly because of my insistence, but the group felt my unique abilities made me an asset.

I shuddered every time they referred to me as a “weapon.” It had also become common knowledge that I could see more of glythyrs than just their existence. After helping find a horse-sized hole in our wards and a nearly dead glythyr that was supposed to prevent animals other than our Veythryn and messenger birds from entering the wards, they felt like I was useful.

I did not, however, like being seen and referred to as a tool. I’d done that for Caedryn, and I’d never do it again.

We also had near-daily “meetings” at Drayce’s house with Aerie and Bramick, laughing, colluding, and discussing the future of the rebellion over home-cooked dinners and wine. Occasionally, Kellan would join too—who knew he was such a party animal when he shed the all-work demeanor.

We did this when they weren’t all away on missions, that is. I had yet to be allowed to join.

Sevrin and I had been focusing on the shadow dampener daily and were getting close. The glythyr I was working on was evolvingevery day, but required extensive raw and shadow magic from me, often leaving me exhausted and depleted.

Two weeks ago, Drayce had handed me the magic-blocking ring I’d requested from the blacksmith—Brennor, I’d finally learned, was his name. I’d nearly forgotten about it since I decided to stay. Maybe he had been staying away from me after his apprentice wastaken care of…

Like Drayce all those years ago, I finally had a real purpose. It was fitting that my mother had given him his, and he had given me mine.

Since we had company nearly every night he was on base, the tension had continued to build, but nothing had happened between Drayce and me. I caught the looks he gave me sometimes, the flirty remarks, or the sultry tone, but still, he held himself back and retreated to the couch each night.

I’d spent exactly one day with each of the other orders, and while I didn’t want to admit it at first, I knew I belonged with the Arcanum order. It turned out I was one of only a couple of Umbrathren at the base. But we quickly learned that my place among the scholars who studied magic—the unnatural, the raw, the unknowable—was just natural. Each of the Arcanums gave me the same sense of unease that Sevrin had, but I’d learned to tolerate their…offnessin favor of learning from them. There were only two mortals in our order, as most that didn’t have umbra magic avoided the place completely.

The one place I’d made no progress was deciphering other people’s glythyrs. We’d tried and tried and tried again in various ways, but I still couldn’t see anything but colors and pulses in each glythyr.

The open and outward hatred toward me had finally mostly stopped. Sure, I still got uneasy looks sometimes, but I hadn’t been attacked outside of sparring sessions since the night I was jumped all those weeks ago. I wore the magic-blocking ring on a chain around my neck at all times but had yet to need it. It seemed the shadow beast in my heart was placated for the time being.

Maybe the explosions had been enough to satisfy it for a while. But I couldn’t bank on that for long.

As the weather grew warmer for spring, the smell of blooming wildflowers wafted in on the breeze during a particularly surprising physical combat session where we fought hand to hand.

Drayce showed up. That never happened.

He watched from afar at first, walking the perimeter of the group surrounding the dirt ring, drawing glances as he passed from the twenty-something group of fae and mortals alike.

I avoided catching his eye at all. It felt weird to be friendly out in the open. It was different from our private evenings with Bramick, Aerie, and Kellan.

The sparring pair ended their match when the larger male tapped out after the smaller pinned him to the ground, arm bent behind his back.

Kellan pointed out mistakes and missed opportunities as they stood, slapping each other on the back and then retreating into the crowd. Before Kellan could call another pair into the ring, Drayce stepped in, and whispers started.

He was up to something. I just knew it.

“Up for a fight, sir?” Kellan asked as Drayce just looked around at the group.

Then his eyes found me. Surely, he wasn’t about to ask me to fight him…

“Two best fighters in the ring,” he finally said.

It was Kellan’s turn to look around. “That would be Torin and Naci.”

I hadn’t fought Torin yet, but I’d watched him enough to know his strengths and weaknesses. He was a strong male and massive compared to me, and his punches were brutal.

He also despised me. Openly. He wasn’t one to pull his punches, definitely not for me, female or not.

We both stepped in, Drayce’s eyes on me as he backed to theedge of the ring, hands behind his back. Torin gave me a wicked grin, putting his irritating dimples on full display.