Frostblood (Frostblood Saga #1)(25)

We arrived at the scrubby bare patch, our booted feet crunching bits of dead grass wet with recently melted snow. The air smelled of woodsmoke and pine. Birds piped from distant trees. Tendrils of mist snaked along the ground, slowly lifting as the sun rose.

“Good morning, Miss Otrera,” said Brother Thistle, dressed in his usual robes and leaning on his walking stick. “I trust you are ready for our training?”

I nodded. Arcus stood off to one side, close enough to hear but not close enough to be in the way.

“Sit,” the monk commanded. We both sat, and I hoped I wouldn’t stiffen so much that I couldn’t get up.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

I closed one but kept the other open, not relishing the sense of being completely vulnerable. I wasn’t ready for a surprise attack.

“Both of them.”

I sighed and closed both eyes.

“First we must clear your mind.”

My eyes popped open. “My mind? What has that got to do with anything? The heat comes from my heart.”

“Which is controlled by the mind. Which you would know if you had learned to master your gift.”

I followed the monk’s instructions. He gave me a strange word, either ancient or gibberish, and I repeated it over and over. The idea was to get to a place where my mind was completely clear. I thought I was doing quite well until a loud sigh issued from the monk.

“Miss Otrera, a hummingbird is capable of more stillness than you. Perhaps if you didn’t fidget quite so much, your mind would be quiet.”

I looked up at him, stung by his tone. I hadn’t realized I was fidgeting.

“Trying to make my mind quiet makes me fidget,” I replied. “And if you’re trying to teach me patience, perhaps you should have some yourself.”

He blinked in surprise, his cheeks darkening slightly.

“You may be right,” he said, standing and leaning on his cane. “But what you do not realize is how little time we have. It is spring now, when your power waxes and mine wanes. At summer solstice, you need to be ready for your task.”

A mixture of excitement and fear surged through me, making my fingertips tingle.

“That is just over two months away,” he continued, “which may seem like a long time to you. But it takes years of practice to effectively learn this. So in the time we have, we must do what we can. And I suppose I must be satisfied with the outcome.”

My skin heated at his resigned tone. There was implied censure in his words, as if he expected to be disappointed.

“Your body temperature is rising,” said Brother Thistle. “Good.”

“You can tell from so far away?”

“Of course. And so can you, with others. You only need to pay attention. Attune yourself to things outside you instead of constantly being preoccupied with your own thoughts.”

There was the censure again. My blood heated further.

“Good, Miss Otrera. Now, let us do a test to see how much control you already have. Channel your anger and burn that small shrub over there, as you did the table leg in the library.”

“But I didn’t mean to. That happened without me thinking about it. I’m only good at heating things, not making fire out of nothing.”

“Do not think about fire. Only think of making the essence of the thing hot, and it will burn.”

Although his words echoed what Grandmother had taught me, it was hard to trust the advice of a Frostblood.

“Forgive me, Brother Thistle, but what do you know of the art of heat?”

He inclined his head. “Where I grew up, there was a great Fireblood master nearby. I used to watch the students in his school as they trained.”

“A school?” I asked with a rush of curiosity.

“High on a hill next to a temple of Sud. I suspect the master knew I was watching. He was a fair-minded man. Even-tempered for a Fireblood.”

“Did you ever train with them?”

He shook his head. “That was not allowed. I trained on my own and came to realize that many of their same techniques could be used with frost. When I came here from Sudesia, I was far ahead of many of the other Frostblood warriors.”

“You came from Sudesia?” I said, unable to keep the surprise from my voice. “And became a Frostblood warrior?”

He straightened and leveled me with a piercing look. “Indeed.”

I imagined a younger Brother Thistle, his face unlined, his hair dark, his chest covered in leather or armor. He wasn’t a large man, but he carried himself with assurance.

I focused on the distant bush. I was more aware than I wanted to be that Arcus was watching, his silent presence doing nothing to help my concentration. But I closed my eyes and brought the heat within me to readiness, as Grandmother had taught me. Stoke the flames, then harness them.

My skin became hot. Sweat pooled in my armpits and between my breasts. I trembled with the effort. When the heat increased so much that I grew fearful of losing control, I let it out in a rushing torrent.

All the yellow grass between me and the bush caught fire and burned before fading to black. The shrub remained untouched.

I cursed under my breath.

“Control, Miss Otrera,” said the monk. “You have power, but you need to learn control. If this had been a battlefield, you would have burned your own line of soldiers and left the enemy untouched.”