The Bound (Ascension #2)(101)

Cyrene followed in Vera’s wake as they exited the castle a short while later and hurried out to the docks. This wasn’t exactly how she had pictured celebrating the Eos holiday, but she couldn’t have been more excited.

Matilde had left at once to begin preparations for whatever was to come. Meanwhile, Cyrene had sent her friends off to tie up loose ends. Orden had rushed to find Maelia and let her know what had happened. Avoca had gone to collect the Book of the Doma and Cyrene’s Presenting letter from her rooms. While it had been up to Ahlvie to find Dean and let him know what had happened. Cyrene had really preferred to do that one herself, but once everything was underway, Vera had bustled her along to collect the things she needed. It seemed that Vera was as anxious to get started as Cyrene was.

With book and letter in a leather pouch, Cyrene and Vera met Matilde siting in a gondola on the water. There was no gondolier in sight.

“All right. In you go,” Vera said, prodding her forward.

Cyrene carefully eased herself into the boat and dropped her bag onto the floorboard. Vera followed in behind her, taking the seat next to Matilde.

Matilde smirked at her. “Are you ready for your first lesson?”

“Absolutely.”

“Row our boat to the Third Harbor. We have a lot of work to do, and we’d like to get started as soon as possible.”

Cyrene skeptically eyed them both and then glanced at the oar. “You’re serious?”

“Very,” Matilde said.

Vera nodded her head.

“I’ve never rowed a boat in my life. Well,” she said, “just once in my life, and that was because I feared it was life or death.”

“Then, fear this is life or death,” Matilde told her.

Cyrene saw that they weren’t going to budge on this, and she shakily stood. She walked to the stern of the boat and reached for the paddle. She wanted to tell them how ridiculous this exercise was going to be. She had no idea what she was doing, it was the middle of the night, they were going to lose the entire night for training. A gondola wasn’t like the little dinghy she had used to navigate the underground waterways in the Byern castle. But she steeled herself and decided she would give it a try before giving up.

Taking the paddle in her hand, she pushed off from the dock and rowed out onto the open lake. She rowed it about halfway across the lake before her arms were aching, and her breathing was heavy. With every stroke that she pushed, she appreciated what the gondoliers did. They must have the most powerful arm muscles in the world to get across the water so effortlessly all the time. And back muscles. They were going to hurt in the morning. She just knew it.

“Is there a point to this?” she asked as she finally approached the gate to exit the lake.

“We were just seeing how long it would take for you to realize that you should use your magic for this,” Matilde said dryly.

Cyrene froze. “But I thought you were going to train me to do that.”

They glanced at each other, as if they were reading each other’s minds, and then up at Cyrene.

“We are,” Vera said simply.

“I’m dangerous though. I could destroy the island if I tried to move the boat.”

“We would never let that happen,” Matilde told her. “But you must start somewhere, and this is where we’ll begin. Now, grasp for your powers.”

“Gently,” Vera amended. “Like a lover’s caress.”

Cyrene reached for her powers, and they came all too readily to her fingertips. It was euphoric.

“Now, each power has its own thread.”

“A pulse?” Cyrene asked. “That’s what Avoca called them.”

“Similar, yes, but within you, not within the substance. If you want to manipulate water, you have to first find the energy within yourself to do that work,” Vera instructed calmly. “The number of elements you can manipulate determines how many different energies you can feel within. You clearly have all five, and Spirit is the strongest. But to work with Spirit safely, you need to master the other four elements. Let’s start with water, shall we?” Vera took a breath. “I’ll show you what I mean.”

Vera put her hand out in front of herself, and a warm band of gold light wrapped around her arm to her wrist. She slowly and deliberately let Cyrene see the thread of power between her and the water as their boat drifted forward of its own accord.

She dropped her hand and smiled. “Now, you try.”

Cyrene closed her eyes and fumbled for the thread within her that called to the water. She had felt the energies within her for months. Now, she just needed to figure out how to harvest them.

Vera was right. Spirit was the most powerful. It almost seemed to push all the others out of the way when Cyrene stretched down inside herself. She didn’t even know what it could do, but it was so blinding and begged for attention that she almost wanted to open herself up to it. But she pushed the urge aside and took ahold of the line that brought water to her fingertips. She used the movement to push the boat forward, just as she had seen Vera do.

But instead of flowing smoothly, the boat jerked out of control, as if propelled by a tidal wave. A gust of water came over and crashed down onto Cyrene, knocking her from her feet and shoving her onto the floorboard of the boat. The boat stopped moving just before hitting the gate that let them exit the royal grounds.