Ever the Brave (A Clash of Kingdoms Novel)(33)

A hit of guilt gets me between the lungs. I’ve not shared the secret about my mother with anyone other than Aodren. I’ve wanted to talk about Phelia, but shame and residual shock keep me from opening up to Gillian.

“I’ll be fine,” I tell her. Leif and his men have spent the last ten days scouring the Evers for any sign of Phelia and her accomplices. They’ve found nothing. The clearing, on the king’s land, is safer than where the king was attacked. “I’ll bag a goose for supper while I’m gone.”

“We have enough meat for the rest of the week. And that’s not an answer to my questions.”

“Winter’s coming.” I open the door. Echoing one of Papa’s many lessons, I add, “The best defense is being prepared.”

Her hands wrap in her skirts, wrinkling the dusty blue fabric. “Don’t just run out. I—I suppose I could come with you. It’ll be safer if we go together.” It ends on a questioning high note. Her upturned nose and the tight clench her hands have on her dress spell out how much she’d dislike tagging along. Gillian would be content if the world were covered in gravel roads and stone buildings, swept free of all dirt.

“I’ll be well. Promise.” I tap my bow on the ground.

Her look of relief amuses me as she wraps her arms around me in a tight squeeze of a hug. We are so different.

There’s an undercurrent of energy in the Evers. In all life. Enat taught me to recognize it. But something about healing Aodren has awakened my awareness, making it impossible to ignore the forest’s thrum. The tune sticks with me while Snowfire carries me to the base of the narrow canyon that leads to Papa’s old training spot.

Nobody crosses my path as I ride to the clearing that sits on the edge of a frozen lake. Here, the quaky trees are little more than skeletons this time of year, leaves hanging from limbs like tattered rags.

I rub Snowfire’s neck while I wait. The sun moves behind thick, overcast clouds. When the light lowers in the sky, edging further past noon, Cohen still hasn’t come.

Needing a distraction, I slide an arrow out of my quiver. Steadied to the bowstring, I aim at a cluster of dead leaves on a quaky tree and shoot. My arrow snaps a branch that’s no thicker than a raven’s claw. The leaves sail to the frosty ground.

I scan the shadows between pine trunks. With an ear tipped toward the gray sky, I listen for anything beyond the rustle of wind.

Few birds remain in the trees now that winter has settled over the Malam Mountains, and those great black predators who have lingered don’t seem to be on alert against anyone besides me.

I’m alone.

Don’t you want to know all you’re capable of? Phelia’s question taunts me. It’s wound through my thoughts a dozen times since the attack in the woods.

Enat’s lessons on our trip from Shaerdan to Malam taught me the basics. I’m not sure about much else when it comes to Channeler magic. There’s no one in Malam who can teach me because there are no Channelers here, let alone rare Spiriters. Only Phelia.

I shudder, wanting to pry her words out of my head.

No way would I ever go to Phelia to learn. Not ever.

I pick up the broken branch and then walk to find my arrow. The three leaves on the branch look like dead mice curled around the stick. Resting my bow against a boulder, I focus on the gray veins that stretch over the browned velvety leaves, honing in on the branch. A week more and they’d be brittle enough to crumble between my fingers. As they are, I might be able to bring them back. Under the branch’s white skin a hmm hmm hmm registers. Barely there, barely moving, barely enough to recognize as life.

I imagine my energy is a dance of bright blue color zipping through me to the beat of my heart.

What I’m doing is illegal. It likely will always be in Malam. Knowing that should be enough to make me stop.

Like Enat taught me, I push some of that sapphire energy from my elbow, past my hand, and into the branch. It’s much easier this time. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was stronger now. Phelia said something about turning eighteen. Could my birthday have changed the way I sense energy around me?

Tingles spider walk up and down my forearm. My pulse throbs in my hand as I push a little more. A little more. A little more.

The first leaf uncurls, its teardrop shape returning.

The second leaf opens, exposing veins of amber that crawl from the stem outward.

The third leaf flames to life like a spit-shined gold coin.

Awe and relief course over me, warming me like an August sun at high noon. I sink down, place the branch in my lap, and pump my hand in and out of a fist to encourage more blood flow. An ache blossoms between my elbow and fingertips, sleepy tingles like mites crawling under my skin.

Wind chills the forest. The bite of the season is dulled by the drowsiness spreading through my body. I wish I could sustain the leaf’s vibrancy, but to keep this branch alive, I’d have to push life into it every few days.

Ravens flap out of the nearby trees.

At their sudden departure, adrenaline shoots through me. I shake my limbs awake and on instinct dart behind a trunk. The rough bark’s ridges press into my back.

The guards are patrolling the woods around Mount Avemoir. No one would be near this clearing.

Except Cohen . . . but it could also be Phelia . . . Rozen . . .

To be safe, I slide the hood of my cloak back for better visibility. I slip the branch into my pocket and nock an arrow.