The Blessed Curse (The Elder Blood Chronicles Book 4)(99)

She nodded slowly, her eyes flicking to the mage stones on the bed. “If I can learn how to taste the magics. So far I haven’t been able to. Seth says it will take a while, though. He says I have been starving for too long and it’s like asking a man starved for food what spices were in the dish you served him.” There was a note of discouragement in her voice but she smiled faintly and shrugged. “So I will keep trying until I can be useful or Jala runs out of time to help me.”

Neph stared at her for a long moment and slowly looked down at the idol of Fortune in his hand. He had been praying for years for a way to save Delvay and the Divine had finally answered him. His salvation had been delivered wrapped in black leather and attitude and at the moment she hated him. "Seth says a lot," he murmured as he carefully set the idol of Fortune back on the shelf with reverence.





Chapter 13





Merro





Sweat beaded on her face as the afternoon sun glared down at them. Zoelyn frowned and refocused herself trying to ignore the heat as well as the noise of the people behind her. Usually when she trained with Jala, the garden was empty, but today it was bustling. Scouts had arrived from the border and Jail was visiting from Sanctuary.

“Ignore them. Valor has it covered. Just worry about focusing,” Jala’s voice was calm and soothing behind her and she glanced back toward the High Lady. She looked tired as she often did lately, but her bearing was still that of a leader. No matter what the situation was, Jala always looked in control.

“I don’t want them to see what happens,” Zoelyn whispered as her gaze dropped to the ground. She hated the look on a stranger’s face when they witnessed her draining something. It was always a look of revulsion and no matter how often she told herself that she didn’t care what they thought, the simple truth was, she did care.

“The goal is to touch the plant without draining its life, so if you focus, maybe they won’t see anything,” Jala pressed in an encouraging voice. She sighed heavily and moved forward beside Zoelyn, leaning over closer. “Honestly I wish they had chosen another area to talk, but Valor chose here and I can’t run them off. Don’t worry about Jail, he will understand and would no doubt be interested in your talents. The scouts won’t be here long and their attention is fully focused on Valor right now. Just try to ignore them, please.”

Zoelyn nodded slowly and swallowed heavily. Her eyes locked on the blooming rose before her. Slowly she lifted her hand as she focused all of her will on containing her curse. With the faintest touch she brushed her fingertips across the leaves and felt her heart sink as the leaves withered and blackened. “Damn it,” she hissed as she dropped her hand back down and backed away from the rose. She didn’t look behind her at all. She didn’t want to see if anyone else had noticed.

“It’s OK. Wisp will fix it and we will try again tomorrow,” Jala said gently. “You are too nervous right now to focus. Maybe we should work with the mage stones instead?”

“Wisp has got to be sick of healing the plants daily and seeing no improvement from me. It’s been over a week and I still can’t grasp a single thing Seth said I could do,” Zoelyn’s frustration broke through as she spoke and she shook her head at Jala in both apology and surrender. “What if Neph was right? What if Seth was just feeding me false hope?”

“Why would he? What does he gain from it?” Jala countered with the same patience she always seemed to have.

Zoelyn knew she had to be growing as frustrated as Wisp. Jala barely had time to manage the affairs of her country and yet she still took the time to try to help her learn. “Why haven’t you given up on me yet?” Zoelyn asked in a soft voice.

Jala smiled at her. “Because I never give up on anything I believe in,” she returned gently as she glanced toward the garden gate. “And look we have more company, and it’s Noble. What a surprise,” she sighed as she watched the knight approach them with a crate tucked under one arm.

Zoelyn smiled faintly and nodded in greeting as Noble stopped near them with a beaming smile on his handsome face.

“Lady Jala, Lady Zoelyn,” Noble said as he bowed slightly.

“Ahh. Noble what a surprise to see you again,” Jala said dryly, her eyes narrowing as she stared at him. “Didn’t we just see you yesterday at around this time? What was that urgent business again? Something about a horse?”