Torn: Bound Trilogy Book Two (2 page)

“
T
ry to relax
.”

I opened one eye to glare at Aren. “I
am
relaxed.”

“No, you’re not. You’re thinking about it too much. If you want it too badly, you’re never going to get there. You’ve almost got it.”

Irritation churned my stomach. He couldn’t read my thoughts as he could most people’s, but I shot him a look that told him to stop talking before he made things worse. He got the message, and leaned back.

He brushed his dark hair back from his face and waited. I forced myself to look away before my thoughts had a chance to stray.

My breath sent a cloud of vapor into the frigid air of the old barn as I slowly exhaled. The winter had been a long one on Belleisle, and places to work at the school were hard to come by. Though Aren been allowed to stay, Emalda forbade contact between us outside of these lessons, and always had someone watching us. He was never to use his magic with or on another person, and wasn’t allowed in the main building except at mealtimes. Even then he usually ate alone, later, rather than bear her cold looks and the silence of the rest of the staff. It was the price he paid for killing Emalda’s sister—a punishment he bore without complaint, if with obvious irritation.

So we had to find other places for these lessons, and after nearly four months we had yet to find one that was particularly warm or pleasant. Still, this barn’s walls cut the wind, and blocked out distractions so that I could practice my magic.

I closed my eyes.
Magic
. For so many years I had dreamed about it, imagining it was something as beautiful as what I’d read about in old stories instead of the abomination my people told me it was. It was beautiful, truly, but there was nothing simple about it.

You wanted this
, I reminded myself.
Did you think it would be easy?

In fact, I had. Magic had proved to be a more mysterious and powerful thing than I’d ever suspected, and mine was a unique case. According to Ernis Albion, Aren’s grandfather and headmaster of this school in Belleisle, I’d nearly lost my magic when I broke the binding that had held it inside of me for almost twenty years. I was fortunate that using it hadn’t killed me. In fact, Aren believed the only reason I’d survived was that the dragon scale I’d carried in my pocket had absorbed or deflected some of the magical force. Even that had been a close thing. I’d wakened from a dream world nearly empty of magic. But now that I had it back—

“Rowan?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Don’t think.”

“I swear, Aren...”

Much as I adored him and admired how hard he’d worked to be allowed to remain with me, his approach to tutoring left much to be desired. I hated feeling irritated with him, but had so few chances to see him in other settings.

I opened my eyes again to peek at the snowball on the floor that I was supposed to move using my magic. Aren was watching me. His gaze had strayed from my face to the place where my bright red hair curled gently into the open collar of my shirt. His face showed nothing of what he might be thinking, but a wave of heat washed over me as my own thoughts strayed.
Other settings would definitely be nice
.

I raised an eyebrow, and his green-flecked, brown eyes moved back up. No embarrassment at getting caught, though. He still wasn’t comfortable with love, but he was fine with lust.

He smiled. “Whenever you’re ready to try again.”

“One more time.” My eyes fell closed, and my breath slowed. I tried to remember the advice I’d been given so far. So many people here had it to offer. Albion, Aren, the teachers. Even the students, all of whom were younger than I, knew what they were doing. But then, they’d all grown up with full knowledge of their gifts and learned how to channel their power as it grew.

Open yourself to it.
I focused on relaxing the muscles of my face and my shoulders, and rested my hands on my knees.
Come on, magic. This will be fun. Work with me.

Magic welled in me, warm, smooth, and powerful as an ocean wave, lifting me. I pulled back from it, though I tried not to. Using magic wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, but I found it so unfamiliar. So intimidating. I wondered,
what would happen if I did it? It might be amazing. Or—

“Come on,” I whispered. I needed to push through, do it once, get it over with....

The magic moved in me, but I didn’t feel anything else change. When I peeked again, the snowball hadn’t moved.

My frustration flared, and I leaped to my feet.

Energy flashed, and the snowball vanished into a puddle.

Fantastic.

“I give up!” I stomped on the puddle. Childish, but I had to take my frustration out somewhere, and Aren had borne the brunt of it too many times.

He stood. “Rowan?”

The acrid scent of smoke filled the air, and I turned to see weak flames licking at a hay-bale behind me. Before I could react, a load of snow the size of a small pony floated in through the open door and melted over the flames, extinguishing them.

I turned to the girl sitting on the wooden bench behind Aren. She hadn’t panicked. Hadn’t even troubled to stand, or to stop petting the purring tabby stretched out on the bench beside her.

“Thanks,” Aren said, and she nodded.

Celean was sixteen, but looked younger. Her wide, owl-like eyes peered out from behind thick, black hair and gave her a look of youth and innocence that suited her personality well. She was my roommate, my friend, and our assigned watch-keeper for the day. I’d nearly forgotten she was there.

“Lunch bell’s ringing, anyway.” She gave the barn cat one last rub behind the ears and went to the door. “I’m going to walk slowly. Try to catch up before I get to the kitchen so I don’t get in trouble for leaving you.” Celean’s soft voice projected a quiet confidence I envied. She’d always known what she was, and expected to be respected for her powers. She knew her place in the school, her importance to the world.

I had been denied all of that by my people. Even though I knew they were wrong, some part of me still struggled to break free of their beliefs. I’d grown up hearing that people bought their magic from the devil. My own father, a magistrate in our small border town, had sentenced more people to death for using it than I cared to consider. He hated magic. They all did. I had realized months ago that it was my mother who had paid to have my magic bound when I was a baby, but I didn’t know any details. Had she done it to protect me? To hide something shameful from the world?

Whatever her motivations, her actions had brought me a life of pain. A life I might not have had otherwise, if Aren was right about my people killing babies born like me.

At least the headaches were gone. In a sense, I was everything I was born to be—filled with magic, free of the binding. But it still wasn’t right. I had power in me, and couldn’t make it work. I couldn’t even heal injuries as I had on a few occasions when my magic was still bound. That had been our first experiment in me using my magic, and it had turned out to be a painful one for Aren. That ability had been a weakness in the binding, nothing more. I’d lost it completely, and had found nothing useful to replace it.

After Celean left, I crouched on the floor and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. I wasn’t going to cry. Not in front of Aren. Not over this. But the little frustrations kept building, and I felt ready to explode.

“You’re getting there,” Aren said.

“Am I?” I looked up at him. He held my coat in his hands, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. He never knew what to do when I was upset. When he was a child and showed emotions like this, he’d been beaten for it. At least he wasn’t trying
that
on me. I sighed and stood. “Nothing has changed except that I’m causing more damage now.”

“That’s still progress,” he said. “This happens to anyone trying to use her magic for something new. You get backlash. Unexpected effects. The problem is that everything is new to you, and you’re dealing with a lot of power. There are going to be rough spots.” He nudged the smoldering bale of hay with his foot. “Maybe the barn was a bad place to work.”

“The barn’s not the problem, but thank you. I guess moving stuff’s not one of my natural gifts.” The chaotic results were supposed to be less if one worked at a talent that was a strong gift. An encouraging theory, until one ran out of things to try out.

“We’ll go back to things we’ve already tried,” he suggested. “Maybe your magic simply wasn’t ready before.”

I stepped closer to him. The words came so easily to him. I wanted to believe them, to relax and have faith that the magic would settle into me, and I into it, but all I felt was pressure. His need to fix me only made me feel more broken.

During our early lessons, I accomplished nothing. My magic had been weak then, and we hadn’t pushed it too hard. When it returned, though, it came in a flood. I could hold it back, but only when I wasn’t trying to use it. When I did attempt to direct my power it ran wild, and trying to control it was like trying to catch a raging river in a tin bucket.

“It’s going to happen,” Aren said. “Just remember to focus your intentions, concentrate on what you want to happen, but—”

“But do it without thinking about it, I know!” I forced my voice lower. “Do you have any idea how little sense that makes to me? It’s so easy for you.”

He pressed his lips together, likely holding back sharp words. I’d have deserved them. I braced myself for a fight. Maybe clearing the air would help. It would be a release, anyway.

He looked away. “I don’t know how else to help you. Maybe these lessons are a bad idea.”

My stomach dropped. “What? They’re all we’ve got.”

“I’m not helping you. Every time we see each other, it ends with you feeling frustrated and me feeling guilty. I don’t even understand why, but I do. I seem to be making things worse rather than better.”

“I’m sorry for making you feel that way,” I said. I should have been pleased he was willing to admit to feeling anything. That was progress for one of us, at least. “I wanted to talk to you about something Albion mentioned yesterday. Something that might help.”

“What’s that?”

“He said in some places, people use words to focus their magic. Or wands.”

“Spells? No. Absolutely not.”

I crossed my arms. “What do you mean, ‘no’? This isn’t your decision. He said that they’re helpful, that people use them to—”

“I know. It’s a bad idea. All you need is time and practice. Those magical crutches are for weak people who can’t use their power without them.”

My eyes narrowed. “Yeah? Well, I don’t seem to be doing so well on my own.”

His eyebrows knit together, shadowing his dark eyes. “You can’t give up. You’re better than that.”

“Am I?” Anger overtook frustration. “What if I’m not? What if the binding permanently crippled me, and I need something like that to help me control this thing? Will you stop caring then?” Tears prickled at my eyes, but I held them back. “Will you move on?”

His expression hardened. “You need to calm down.”

“And you need to stop thinking you know what I need. You’re so stuck on this idea of what I am that you can’t even try to imagine things happening differently.” I grabbed my coat from his hands. “Your way isn’t the only way. You need to accept the fact that maybe I’m not good enough for you.” I’d seen the way he looked down on weaker students, Potioners, and people without magic.

His upper lip lifted in a silent snarl. “You’re fighting the wrong battle right now. I’m not your enemy.”

My shoulders slumped. “I know,” I whispered. “And I’m sorry. I’m just so damned frustrated. It’s easy for everyone here, especially you. Your magic comes so naturally. It’s beautiful. Mine fights me and frightens me. I can’t control anything anymore. My feelings, my magic... my temper. I shouldn’t take it out on you. You’ve been good to me. Better than I deserve right now.”

He opened his arms and I stepped closer. I wrapped my arms around his waist, and he held me tight. “You say you’re sorry too often.”

“You’ve said it to me before.”

“Only when it was important,” he said. “People lose respect for you when it’s a habit. It makes you smaller, humbler. A Sorceress shouldn’t feel she has to apologize to anyone.”

“Maybe not in Tyrea, but people do it a lot here. Good manners smooth things over. You should try it some time.” I pulled him into a deep kiss that made my heart pound. I placed one hand on his chest and felt his heart doing the same. He tried to hold onto me, but I pulled away and offered a shy smile. “I won’t apologize for doing that, though. Ever.” I reached up to brush my thumb over his cheekbone.

“Any chance of you getting out tonight?” he asked. “Without Celean?”

“I wish I could, but I think they’ll expel me if I get caught again. Maybe I’ll see you in my dreams.”

As if that could ever be enough. I wanted so badly to stay in the barn with him, away from prying eyes. We needed more of that. Every time he touched me, it left my body aching for more. We’d managed to share dreams on a few occasions since our arrival on the island, in spite of the fact that I slept in the main school building and he in his little apartment over the carriage house. The dreams were good, but that was all they were. The few times when we had managed to be alone, when I managed to sneak out to his rooms at night…

I forced my thoughts away from the memory of his touch. Thinking about it only made things worse.

I pulled my coat tight around me and stepped out into the bright sunlight that blanketed the school grounds. Celean waited for me by the old oak tree, and I hurried to catch up.

Fast as I ran, I couldn’t escape my thoughts.

I had Aren, but thanks to Emalda’s rules, we had to keep our distance. My magic was free, but I couldn’t do anything with it. And somewhere behind me, my old life lay shattered. I’d had no word from my family since I left Darmid, though I’d written many times and Albion had assured me that he had reliable means of delivery. I worried about my parents, my aunt and uncle and their servants, my cousin Felicia…even Callum, the magic hunter who I’d agreed to marry, once. I wanted so badly to talk with him about everything that had happened. He’d been a good friend and could have been so much more. He deserved better than what I’d been able to give him, and as a hunter, he deserved to know the truth about magic.