by Coco Ma
“I can help with the chemistry,” Rose said. “I don’t think Harry has any eggs, but we can find an alternative. Vinegar with baking soda might work.”
“We can rig the secret traps with the dye bombs,” Asterin said. “Even if whatever or whoever we catch manages to escape, then …”
Luna’s lips parted at the simple ingenuity of it all. “The dye will remain.”
Asterin nodded. “So at least we’ll know whether or not Harry is the demon.”
Rose began gathering the maps. “Then let’s get started. It’ll probably take a few days to set it up, and we have to make sure Harry doesn’t suspect anything.”
“You know what?” Asterin said. Her eyes glinted conspiringly. “Just to be safe, what do you say we keep this a secret from the boys entirely?”
All three of them shared identical, wicked grins.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“All right, Princess,” Quinlan said, standing in the clearing with the forest at his back. The horses were safe in the barn, and Luna was inside the cottage. He folded his arms, examining the princess before him from head to toe. The girl was already in a defensive stance, her expression wary, as if she half-expected to be ambushed by his arrows again. Good. “What are the two types of magic?”
“Spells and raw magic,” Asterin answered without hesitation.
“Correct. Spells are commanded by incantations derived from the Immortal tongue. Raw magic is commanded by thought. Why do we need spells when we have raw magic?”
“Spells have specific purposes that raw magic cannot always achieve, like healing or shielding.”
He nodded. “Exactly. No matter the affinity, no wielder can heal without the healing incantation. Energy shields cannot be produced by any element. Affinity stones are tools. They help us tap into the magic in our bodies, but that’s it—they aren’t the actual source of magic. You are. And you have enough power in your body to forgo the stone entirely. You just have to figure out how to release it.”
Asterin made a face. “You make it sound easy.”
“It will be, eventually. But you’ve been relying on affinity stones as crutches for your whole life. You’ll need a lot of patience and practice to walk on your own.” Quinlan pressed his palms together, twisted his wrists, then let his hands drift apart as a glowing orb of light slowly expanded at his fingertips. “Attention, control, and efficiency. Let those be your new rules. We’ll begin with attention.” He stepped off to the left while beckoning Asterin forward. “First, we hone your focus—you won’t be able to summon anything without strength of mind.” Taking a few more steps backward, Quinlan raised his right arm, and the orb burst into flame. “Try to dodge.”
Asterin took up her defensive stance once more. With her knees bent and her fists loosely clenched, she coiled, ready to spring. Quinlan noted her eyes, riveted on his fire, her muscles drawn taut in anticipation.
Only to be hit with a scorching blast of flames from behind.
Asterin yowled, twisting around. “What in the Immortals—”
With a smirk, Quinlan extinguished it. “Pay more attention next time.”
“You set my trousers on fire, you lunatic!” Asterin exclaimed, batting away the embers.
“Quit whining. In an actual fight, I would’ve set you on fire.” Her mouth snapped shut. “When you beat my ass in swordplay, you told me that I had to be aware of more than just my opponent’s weapon, right?”
“Yes.” She grinned. “And then I cornered you up against an open window and you almost fell to your death.”
He sneered. “Shut up. Anyway, this is the same thing. Since magic can take on infinite forms, limited only to the wielder’s imagination, it is the most flexible weapon. So use that to your advantage.” Quinlan reached into his pocket and tossed her the omnistone. “Here’s your next lesson. Control.”
Asterin caught it with surprise. “Why are you giving this back?”
“No offense, but you can barely summon magic without it. We’re taking things slow.” Quinlan splayed his hand outward, bright orange flame igniting in his palm. “Use your ice to smother the fire. However you choose to form your ice, keep it as close to the flames as possible. Remember, this is about precision, not power.”
Doubt flashed across her features, but he gave her a nod of encouragement and dropped his hand, leaving the ball of fire to bob between them.
Slowly, a white shell of frost began to creep around the bottom of the ball of fire, but it hissed away to steam almost immediately. Asterin tried again. Each attempt grew better and better, until her ice cupped half the flame—but by then, the bottom covering had melted and dripped onto the grass.
The back door opened and Luna drifted into the garden. Quinlan caught a whiff of something that smelled of fermentation. He frowned, but turned his attention back to Asterin when she let out a growl.
“This is ridiculous,” she said, her shoulders hunching. Displeasure rolled off her in waves. The ground at their feet had begun to freeze over, bejeweling the grass with snowflakes wherever the melted droplets fell—but the flame still blazed strong. “I would never need to extinguish a fire like this in a fight.”
“Don’t be stupid.” His breath clouded up in puffs of fog. “Of course you wouldn’t. The purpose of this is to hone your control.” He shifted, grass crunching underfoot, shivering. “So shut up and focus.”
She clenched her jaw. “I am.”
“Focus harder, then.”
“I’m trying!” Asterin yelled. With a snarl, she stamped her foot on the grass. The temperature plunged. The frost beneath Asterin’s feet exploded, racing outward and blanketing the entire clearing in ice. Her ice curved up from the base of the flame, up and over the top. The roof of Harry’s cottage and the tree branches glistened white, icicles hanging from the eaves. Luna fled back into the house, her skin tinged blue. When Quinlan inhaled, it felt like he had swallowed a lungful of snow.
And yet, the flame still burned as brightly as before.
“Trying isn’t good enough,” Quinlan barked, throat raw and stinging from the frigid air. He met her livid gaze. “Just do.”
With a puff of vapor and bitter cold that sent chills down Quinlan’s arms, the flame sputtered out.
What remained was an egg-shaped hollow made of ice, lingering in the air for a split second before falling to the ground, the fragments splintering at their feet.
Asterin panted, grinning to herself in victory.
Quinlan bent down to pick up a sliver, holding it to the light. “That was terrible.”
Her face fell. “Why?” she spluttered.
“Look around you,” he chided. “Sure, you succeeded in extinguishing the flame, but look how much magic you wasted. What if the grass and the trees had been your soldiers? Or what if you’d been sitting atop your horse?” He flicked the scrap of ice over his shoulder. “You’d have frozen him half to death.”
“What now?” she asked, defeated.
It was Quinlan’s turn to grin. “Again.”
To say that Orion was surprised to find snow decorating Harry’s roof like a Vürstivale holiday greeting card after a weary day of demon-searching would have been a severe understatement. But with the passing of Asterin’s every training session with Quinlan, the icicles dangling from the eaves receded slightly, and the temperature went from borderline glacial to an early spring chill.
Orion knew one thing for certain—Asterin had never been terribly aware of her own limits, for better or for worse. Sure enough, he came home with his team one day to find her passed out on the sofa, a cloth draped over her forehead.
Orion pressed the back of his hand to her cheek and recoiled at the heat. He glanced around the living room and growled. “Fireface.”
Quinlan’s head popped out of the kitchen. “I’m trying to make soup.” He held his hands up when Orion opened h
is mouth. “I know. I overworked her. I’m sorry.”
“Get her some tea,” Rose said to Eadric as she hung her cloak on the banister in the foyer.”
“I’ll go grab some more blankets,” Harry volunteered, and dashed up the staircase.
There was a yelp of pain and then metal clattering onto stone. “Quinlan, you idiot, you dented the kettle,” Luna exclaimed from inside the kitchen.
Asterin shifted, eyes fluttering open and head turning as Orion crouched on the rug beside her. The cloth slipped from her forehead, but he caught it and cooled it with his magic before replacing it.
Asterin blinked up at him, focusing. “Morning.”
Orion smiled, tucking a stray lock of ebony hair behind her ear. “Evening, warrior princess. How are you feeling?”
Asterin groaned, eyes closing. “Like shit.”
Quinlan hobbled into the living room holding a bowl of broth and a mug of tea. “The others are going to start making dinner. Sorry about the noise, I dropped the kettle on my foot.”
Orion snorted. “You deserve it. Look what you’ve done to Asterin.”
The princess’s eyes snapped open, glowering at Orion. “He didn’t do anything. I did this to myself, and I regret nothing. Now let me sleep.”
Orion fell silent. He glanced at Quinlan, expecting to see lips twisted in a smirk, but the Eradorian only seemed to have eyes for Asterin. Eyes full of concern, with a hint of tenderness.
Orion tried not to gag.
“She’s been training with me every day,” Quinlan said softly, placing the fruit and water aside on the coffee table and taking a seat on the table’s edge. “Slowly but surely building up her endurance.” He shook his head. “Anyone would be impressed by her determination.”
“I … I wish I could help,” Orion admitted, watching as Asterin’s breathing evened out. “With her training, I mean.” He had been her mentor for nearly a decade, after all. But his strength had never been in magic. In fact, Asterin had taught him most of what he knew. That trade was how she had convinced him to train her in combat in the first place. “But I would just spend the entire time stopping myself from wringing your neck anytime you pushed her too hard.”
A wry smile. “You still hate me that much, huh?”
Orion blew out a long breath. “I never hated you. Well, maybe a little. But not anymore.”
“Prove it.”
“There hasn’t ever been anything between Asterin and me. Romantically, I mean. She’s like my little sister.”
Quinlan gaped. “Seriously? So I’ve been freaking out over nothing?”
Orion blew out a second, much longer breath. “And I do trust you. More importantly, I trust you not to hurt Asterin. Even now, you’re pushing her to make her stronger. So she can protect herself. Right?”
Quinlan nodded slowly at him, lips still parted like a fish out of water.
“As long as Asterin is safe,” Orion said, “that’s all that matters to me.” With that, he maneuvered himself so he could lean against the sofa armrest and then closed his eyes.
Between his memories of the wyvern, his falling nightmare, and the images of the massacre at Corinthe, Orion had been struggling to find other thoughts to occupy his mind—but seeing Asterin throw herself into training until her body failed her sent a wave of nostalgia over him. That stubborn will to succeed had never bent—not when he first began training her, and not since.
After Orion’s father had saved him from bleeding to death beneath that lake dock and he had said his goodbyes to the bodies of his mother and sister, General Garringsford had ordered Theodore Galashiels to return to Axaris with two squads and, of course, his son, while the rest of the soldiers stayed behind to bury the dead.
When Orion arrived at the Axarian palace, he had met King Tristan, a handsome man whose eyes radiated a reassuring warmth despite the pain from his kingdom’s loss. There had been a royal funeral in honor of the victims, but Orion refused to leave his new chambers, eating nothing and drinking only when his throat was so parched that it hurt to swallow.
Perhaps a week later, he had finally ventured into the corridor and nearly crashed into a little girl. She hurtled past him, an affinity stone clutched in her chubby fist, shrieking with delight as not one but two nursemaids chased after her. A trail of ice followed in her wake, and the nursemaids toppled over the moment they set foot upon it.
Orion himself had burst out laughing, hysterical howls that folded his body in half. When the nursemaids attempted to rise, they slipped onto their backsides like overturned turtles, limbs flailing. Orion laughed until tears streamed down his face—tears of happiness. He never cried, but somehow, he knew that this didn’t count.
He started eating again that day, and his smiles came easier and easier every day after that.
That was how he had first met little Princess Asterin, with her bright green eyes and her lovely round face, unbroken by trauma and full of joy. He would think about her constantly in the coming weeks. He already loved her then, though he hadn’t yet known it.
“You will protect her, one day,” his father had told him when Orion shared the story of his encounter right before bedtime.
“When?”
“After you complete your training.”
“Can we start? Now?”
A laugh. “No, now you must sleep. Tomorrow, if you’d like.”
Asterin had just turned six when he had at last been allowed to formally meet her, with both of their fathers chaperoning the tea party the princess had courteously arranged. Over mini sandwiches, Orion vowed that he would spend every waking moment training to be her Guardian.
On his thirteenth birthday, his father deemed him qualified for his position. Until Orion turned sixteen, his father was technically both the king’s and Asterin’s official Guardian, but everyone had known that Orion was ready.
That was the year King Tristan had died. Orion couldn’t remember how many hours he had spent sitting on Asterin’s bed while the princess sobbed into his shoulder.
Only days later, the seven-year-old had kicked down his door, barging in with her chest puffed and her eyes alight with a determination that outshone her grief, dragging a sword that she must have stolen from the armory behind her.
“Wake up,” she demanded.
Orion yawned and buried his face into his pillow. “Go away. The sun isn’t even properly up yet.”
The princess clambered onto his bed and began jumping, the springs squealing beneath her. “Teach me how to fight.”
He lifted his head, nearly biting his tongue off as she launched into the air. “What?”
She brandished the sword—or attempted to. It was too heavy, and she slashed off the corner of his mattress instead. “Train me!”
“Put that sword down before you kill the both of us!”
She dropped it onto the carpet with a grumble, and then continued jumping. “Train me,” she repeated.
“Why?”
“I want to be able to protect myself.”
Orion sat up, positively affronted. “I’m supposed to protect you.”
Asterin pouted, jaw set. “I’ll let you use my affinity stones.”
He snorted. “Father got me my own.”
She faltered at the word father, then crossed her arms over her chest. “And how many can you actually use?”
He ducked his head, face coloring. “One,” he mumbled.
“If you train me, I’ll try and help you.”
That perked him up. He hesitated only a moment. “Really?”
She nodded. “Sure! We can protect each other better that way. Deal?”
What’s the harm, anyway? Orion wondered. King Tristan had known how to fight, so Orion didn’t see any reason why his daughter shouldn’t. “Deal.”
He forced her through the same basic drills his own fat
her had forced him through—running up and down the stairs, jumping over fences, sprinting through the gardens until she vomited into the flowerbeds. He taught her how to throw a punch without breaking her thumb and where the most delicate parts of the body were as well as how to target them. He taught her the way his father had taught him to wield a weapon, starting with wooden swords and hammers and pocket knives. Then he taught her how to manipulate any object—a candelabra, a belt—into a weapon. Only then did he put a sword in her hand. She took quickly to the steel, especially after claiming Amoux, her father’s old weapon, even though she could barely lift it.
Orion was useless with a bow, so Asterin coerced another guard to teach her archery. She bribed the horse master to let her ride at twilight with only the moon for company, and the locksmith to teach her lockpicking. Whatever knowledge Orion couldn’t provide her, she seized by other means. Her thirst to learn was insatiable.
And true to her word, Asterin did her best to help Orion hone his magical powers. Under her guidance, he mastered another two elements.
As the years progressed, he watched her grow stronger and stronger, until there came a day when she trounced three guards at once without using a single drop of magic.
With magic, a half-dozen wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Of course, there were always blisters and cuts and broken bones, and once a punctured lung, but no injuries severe enough that they couldn’t be fixed up with a few tonics and spells. Then, one day, Asterin had come to dinner with an untended bruise coloring her eye.
Queen Priscilla had all but dragged her by the ear into the corridor and exploded. “This is unacceptable and inappropriate. For the love of the Immortals, you are a lady!”
Orion stepped forward to take the blame, but Asterin had just crossed her arms. “So?”
Once Priscilla realized that Asterin would never conform to her expectations, she decided to put her daughter’s abilities to good use by sending her and Orion on assignments around the kingdom. The queen frequently traveled to other cities and even continents for weeks at a time for important meetings, but there were other matters that required a more covert approach. For those, Priscilla would disguise Asterin and Orion with her illusion affinity, and then they would travel all over Axaria.
