Billow (31 page)

"Excellent, Aucoin," Tristan said in an approving tone.

Dark eyes ran down the row of elites and stopped on me. "Your turn,
sondaleur
."

I walked by Blaise and patted him on the arm. Determination raced through me. It was going to be hard to top that performance, but I was up for the challenge.

Tristan crossed his arms. "As an ondine, your criteria is different."

I stiffened. I hated when anyone pointed that out, especially in the Training Center.

"What are your strengths and weaknesses?"

"I have heightened eyesight and hearing, but they're not as strong as either demillirs or selkies."

Tristan eyed me. "And?"

"And my weaknesses are the same as demillirs. Same as humans."

For a long moment, he stared. The room turned silent.

"You want to be a chevalier and yet you won't acknowledge your own vulnerabilities?" Incredulity colored his voice.

I refused to be humiliated. I'd worked too hard to get into the elites.

"I pointed out my known weaknesses, Your Highness." A hard edge entered my tone. "I have —"

"What about your aura?" he said. "If your sight becomes compromised because of the dark, you may not see the Aquidae's movements. But they'll see you."

A shiver ran down my spine.

"Your aura is glowing all the time, pointing out your location to every Aquidae in the vicinity. You won't be able to hide from them. You'll always be more vulnerable than a demillir or selkie because of it."

"But I can sense any Aquidae that are near —"

"That's your other big weakness. Your magic."

My Virtue was a lot of things, but it most definitely was not a weakness.

"No," I countered. Ewan winced at my tone. "Empath is an asset."

Besides sensing Aquidae, it provided speed and strength. It also allowed me to fight with a silver dagger, without need for a
kouperet
.

"But that magic has a cost. Your aura burns brighter, leaving you more visible. Your magic can also affect any gardinels fighting near you." His expression hardened. "The way you use it leaves you imbalanced. Uncontrolled."

I recoiled at his words.

"And that doesn't even address the most basic question of all. What if your magic is cut off?"

He was referring to the kidnappings. If the Aquidae got nix blood on me, I'd be vulnerable.

"Would you be able to fight,
sondaleur
?" His tone was harsh. "Or have you become too dependent on your magic?"

The words snapped me out of my shock.

"Yes," I hissed, furious at being treated this way in front of everyone.

Tristan held my gaze a moment longer then nodded. Ewan tied the blindfold and securely restrained my hands and ankles.

"No Virtue. Don't pull energy from others. Find it within yourself."

"Of course," I ground out.

Dark silence pressed in from all sides. I strained outward, but couldn't sense anything.

Sweat slicked my palms. Pulse thudded.

I searched for something. Anything to tell me where Tristan was.

The blow completely caught me by surprise.

Pain shot through my stomach and I bent over, struggling to breathe. I barely managed to stay on my feet.

"Let your senses rise." His voice surrounded me.

A kick to the back of the thigh knocked me down to my knees. I gritted my teeth and clumsily pulled myself up.

Frustrated anger unfurled.

What senses? What elemental awareness?

All I felt was the same slowness like in my first training sessions with Julian. When I didn't know how to fully use my Virtue.

What was the point of all this?

"Let go,
sondaleur
."

Behind me.

"Control is not external. It's internal."

In front of me.

A sharp jab to my upper arm. Damn, that hurt.

If I could just reach with my Virtue…

"No!" Tristan's voice was hard. "Don't hide behind your magic."

I bit back a nasty response. I wasn't hiding behind anything.

"Evade,
sondaleur
." His voice echoed. "Why are you letting me get hits in?"

A hard blow to the back.

I teetered forward, but remained standing. Fighting back the pain, I concentrated.

Endure it until you get your bearings. Then you'll get your chance
.

I stilled, hardening my body into stone.

"Don't let yourself get hit." His voice came from the side.

I didn't move. Digging deep, I focused on finding that connection to my elemental senses.

Nothing.

Without the power of my Virtue, there was only a growing desperation.

The strikes continued. Against my thigh. Right arm. Lower back.

I strained my ears, but couldn't catch anything except the rush of my own breath.

You hear, but you do not listen.

I couldn't do it. No matter how long I waited, how long I endured the pain, I wouldn't be able to fight back.

Without magic. Without sight. Hands. Legs.

I didn't know how.

Lack of control sent fear roaring back to life. Body locked up as anxiety and panic dug through my stomach.

"Protect yourself."

Maybe it was my screwed up state of mind, but Tristan almost sounded pleading.

I clenched my jaw, holding tight to the dizziness.

"I'm. Trying."

"No. You're not."

The kick slammed against my sternum and sent me flying back. I hit the mat hard, full weight crashing onto bound hands.

Sharp pain reverberated through my body. Ewan pulled off the blindfold and ropes and I focused on not wincing.

"You rely too much on Virtue,
sondaleur
." Tristan stood before me. "You've forgotten what it means to be an elemental."

Embarrassment burned. I slowly made my way back to the other elites with as much dignity as I could. Alex shot me a sympathetic look and I averted my eyes.

I'd worked so damned hard to be one of them. To prove an ondine could be just as good a chevalier as a demillir.

And in one lesson, he'd shown everyone I was different.

I didn't hear anything for the rest of class. Anger grew with each passing second.

As soon as it ended, I grabbed my things and stormed out. I changed in record time and hurried out of the Training Center. Everyone stared at me, the pathetic ondine who got her ass handed back to her.

"Kendra."

I ignored his voice and pushed my way blindly through the woods.

What was so wrong with the way I used my magic?

I'd sucked up the responsibility of being the
sondaleur
. And now, they criticized the way I was doing it.

I burst through the trees to the chevalier rest post on the northern corner of Haverleau.

Two chevaliers startled at my sudden appearance. They took one look at my face, glanced over my shoulder at his, and left.

Wonderful. I could just hear the gossip at the water cooler tomorrow.

I whirled to face him. "You want to humiliate me more? Point out everything I'm doing wrong?"

An indefinable expression flitted across Tristan's face. It almost looked desperate. "You don't get it."

If he was trying to piss me off, he was succeeding magnificently.

"What are you—"

"You have no sense of self-preservation. You're so hellbent on revenge that you recklessly go running into situations without thinking."

I forced the icy wall back into place. This was about the prophecy. As Crown Prince of the Selkie Kingdom, Tristan was concerned about the future.

"The precious
sondaleur
won't get killed." The acidic words left a bitter taste in my mouth. "I know what I need to do."

A weighty silence fell between us.

"There's a huge difference between not getting killed and wanting to live."

I crossed my arms and pushed away the discomfort.

"You can't save everyone," he said softly.

I gave a harsh laugh. "Do you know who you're talking to? Saving everyone is the first line of my job description."

"And where does it end? Are you going to save every chevalier? Every gardinel? Are you going to take out every Aquidae?"

I tilted my chin. "I'll do whatever it takes."

"I don't think you've really accepted what it means to be the
sondaleur
."

Anger whipped through me. How could he say that? "Of course I have!"

"Then like every chevalier, every gardinel, every person involved in this war, you'd also accept the limitations of your position. No matter how much power, how much strength you may have, you cannot control life and death —"

"I
can
control their deaths." It was the only thing I had left in my life I could control. "I can find and eliminate them. Less demons means less victims."

His eyes darkened. "You're an elite. What if you have to order someone into a dangerous situation? What if you're in combat and someone dies in front of you?"

His questions were irrelevant. The only thing that existed was me and them.

No one else would have to die once I hunted all the Aquidae down.

Hands curled into fists. "I won't let that happen."

"So you can continue to punish yourself?"

I froze.

"For Naida. Ryder. Marcella, Gabe, their baby, the children," he continued brutally. "You think you're punishing the Aquidae. But what you're really doing is punishing yourself."

Something inside began to scream. I wanted to shut him out.

But Tristan didn't stop.

"You drive yourself to the bone. Pulling in magic like a drug to fuel you and take away the pain." His jaw clenched. "Taking in other's emotions, so you don't have to deal with your own."

"You're wrong." It came out strained. "You don't know what you're talking about—"

"Don't. You can lie to everyone else. Maybe you can even lie to yourself. But I know, Kendra."

His eyes burned with such strength it hurt to look into them.

"I know what it's like to live in a pain so dark and deep you're convinced you never need to see outside it." Every word was hard. Insistent. "That you don't need anything except the next kill. And by inflicting pain on those who caused you pain, that's supposed to fix it."

He took a step. "But it doesn't work. Because all you end up doing is reliving your hurt. Punishing yourself again and again. Obsessively holding on until your life is reduced to nothing more than the next kill."

His words, those eyes, were too compelling. Like the beautiful iris Jourdain offered, they demanded something I didn't know how to do.

I turned away and he moved to face me.

Dark eyes flashed. "I'm not going to stand by while you do that to yourself."

Dusk was coming and the weather was cold, freezing even. But the air between us felt heated and too close.

Eyes shifted, unable to bear the look on his face.

His
pedaillon
's amber stone twinkled in the waning light. The warm color beckoned, vaguely familiar and reassuring.

Its glow coaxed forward the memory of a raised diamond against a mahogany pelt. The colors were the same.

"It was you. You took me to Jourdain."

The selkie who'd protected me. The powerful creature who'd shared with me its intensely private, magical form.

"I thought…" He shook his head, but didn't deny it. He took a step forward. "I worry about you."

He couldn't do this. Couldn't make my heart beat faster.

"I worry you'll lose sight of who you are. The reason why we fight."

Another step. Closer.

"Kendra." His head dipped forward, lips near my ear. "You have to be the one to let go. Please."

Not a single part of us touched.

Only his breath. Brushing against my cheek.

Chest and hands and lips just a few inches away.

We stood, every inhale and exhale like a heartbeat pulsing between us. His smell and the overwhelming warmth of his skin made me dizzy.

I wanted so much more. More of his skin touching mine. More of his hands, his mouth. More of everything.

I wanted him to tell me everything would be okay because I was so scared it was too late.

That being the
sondaleur
had already transformed me into an empty husk, a machine driven by things I couldn't control.

Take one more step
.
Touch me.

But he didn't. Of course, he didn't.

And I wasn't the same person as six months ago.

I stepped back and for a moment it felt like some part of me ripped out, leaving behind that horrible emptiness again.

That was a mistake
.

I clung to those words, used them to strengthen my resolve. I couldn't afford any more mistakes.

The heavy, concrete feeling I'd lived with for months settled back in my chest.

"I don't tell you how to do your job, Your Highness." My voice was ice cold. "Don't tell me how to do mine."

I walked away, body rigid with purpose. 

But the unrelenting weight of those eyes continued to burn into my back, searing straight through me.

TWENTY-FOUR

My first Christmas at Haverleau was anything but festive. The grey, cloudy weather added to the grim atmosphere hanging over the town like a thick fog.

I arranged to stay at the dorm during winter break, just as I had during the summer. Only a few other students chose to do the same and the Academy was empty.

The girls left early in the morning to spend the day with Aubrey's aunt and uncle. Considering how awful Aubrey's guardians were, Chloe went solely to provide moral support.

I headed to the dorm lounge to kill time before my lunch with Rhian. The room was empty except for the blonde ondine and golden brown-haired demillir sitting together in the far corner.

Great.

I was about to turn back, but remembered our unfinished business. Now was as good a time as any to settle it.