made this year.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, I guess I’m glad for this, then. Maybe…” An idea suddenly came to me. “Maybe I can give you another project away from her menagerie. Do you have the time?”
Girard bowed low. “Of course.”
“I heard you can work with iron to a certain extent. Here’s what I need….” I described my problem with Jasmine and how I needed more flexible restraints that contained as much iron as he could handle. Theoretically, I could have brought over human handcuffs, but I wanted special ones not only for mobility but because I needed bronze or copper somewhere on them so that my guards could touch them if need be.
Girard listened thoughtfully, nodding as I spoke. “Yes, of course I can do this. I can have them for you tomorrow.”
“Whoa, I didn’t expect-”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Your majesty, you forget that we don’t forge and work metal like humans do. I order the metal to bend, and it does. The rest is in skill and patience.”
I supposed he had a point. I thanked him profusely, telling him that Shaya would settle the price with him later. Once he left, I then set out to find Shaya myself, still needing a report.
Before I could, I was intercepted again-this time by Ysabel. She was alone, which I took to mean Dorian had returned to the Oak Land. That was something, at least. I didn’t want him camping out around here-particularly after my teary-eyed weakness last night.
She came to a halt before me, arms crossed. Whatever fear she’d had from our last lesson seemed to have completely vanished. Maybe Dorian’s visit had reassured her. Or maybe she figured she had little to fear from someone who’d spent all of last night moping and drinking away her sorrows.
“My lord says I still cannot leave until we’ve worked together at least one more time.”
“Bummer,” I said and started to pass her. “I’ve got to find Shaya.”
She blocked my way again. It was déjà vu of the last time she’d accosted me about this. “Shaya’s gone right now. The sooner we get this over with, the better. I know you have nothing else to do with your time right now either. You’re simply waiting for your kitsune to throw you some sort of bone.”
Alright, now she’d pissed me off, largely because she was right. “That’s not true. I have plenty of things to do. Besides, I don’t know if I really need your help anymore. I think at this point it’s all just practicing on my own.”
With my mind, I reached out, feeling the different types of air around us. I stayed well away from her but pulled together several groups. Now that I understood their individual natures, it wasn’t that hard to combine them into larger gusts. I blasted the air through the hall, creating a gust of wind that rivaled the one she’d smugly showed me that first day. Her expression showed disdain, but I swear, there was fear in her eyes again. I remembered what Shaya had said, that I was learning too quickly and too well.
“That is…acceptable,” Ysabel said at last. “But it was clumsy. And you can’t combine it with water yet to truly control the weather.”
She was right on that, but I felt I had a good enough understanding of both to just keep practicing. “It’ll come with time. I’ll be fine on my own.”
“My lord said one more time…” That scornful expression faded now, replaced by uncertainty. “There is something else…something…well, you haven’t even come close to it yet.”
“I inherited storm magic. Water and air. What else is there?”
“Follow me, and I’ll show you-if you can handle it.” There it was, the old attitude. It was almost comforting.
She took me back out to the courtyard we’d been in last night. A servant I’d seen around the castle was painstakingly setting more tiles into the ground, expanding the patio area. We stood well away from him, and Ysabel continued keeping her arms crossed over her chest, posture still rigid and defensive.
“I’ll be glad when this is over and I can return to the Oak Land. It’s obvious my lord misses me.” Her eyes glinted wickedly. “He made love to me last night with a passion I’ve never seen before. It left me screaming and aching in ecstasy.”
I rolled my eyes and stopped myself from saying, Yeah, because he was thinking of me. “Let’s just get this over with so you can leave and get all the screaming and aching you want. What else was there I needed to know?”
“There’s something else in the air,” she said. She bit her lip in thought, trying to articulate her meaning. “I can feel it, but I’m unable to touch it. Probably you can’t either.”
“Can you be a little more specific?”
“It’s always there…it’s like the pieces of the air are…prickly. Sharp to the touch. There are more of them, though, before a storm.”
I stared stupidly for a moment, and then the human part of me put it together. “Lightning…you’re talking about making lightning,” I breathed. What was the scientific term? “Those are charged particles.”
The term meant nothing to her, but she’d nodded when I mentioned lightning. Eagerness flared up in me, and I immediately felt out around me. Sensing all the air molecules was easy now. The only two I could name were oxygen and carbon dioxide. All the others had their own unique feel, but I couldn’t say if they were nitrogen or hydrogen or what. After a few minutes of groping with my mind, I shook my head.
“I don’t feel anything like that.”
Ysabel seemed pleased by this. “Like I said, you likely aren’t strong enough.”
“It’s a clear day,” I pointed out. “There probably aren’t any around.”
“No, they’re always there. There aren’t many today, but I can feel them.”
I set my lips into a hard line, trying again. It was just like the old days with Dorian: endless waiting, save that he would have tied me up. Ysabel probably would have too if I’d let her, if only to use the chance to slit my throat.
Air, air, air. Every particle unique, yet none of it had the sharp, prickly feel she was describing. Distantly, I remembered the one time I had summoned a storm. I’d been caught by an elemental gentry, on the verge of being raped while my mother lay injured. In my crazy desperation and panic, I’d summoned a storm that nearly leveled my house. I had little memory of how I’d done it, though. The whole thing was a blur, like some kind of dream that-
All the hairs on my arms suddenly stood up. There. There, mixed in with other air above us was something…well, to put it bluntly, electric. It felt prickly, just as she’d described. I reached for it, trying to control it as I had the other particles, but it was slippery. It was like oil running through my fingers, and I understood now why she couldn’t do it. It was a very different phenomenon. Steeling myself, I tried again, and for one heartbeat, I drew them together into a knot. The smell of ozone filled the air, and then I lost my grip. No flash of light, no thunder.
But Ysabel’s face was aghast. “You…you did it. You shouldn’t have been able to…”
“I didn’t really do anything.”
“You shouldn’t have been able to do that…not yet…. I can’t even touch them.”
Too fast and too easily. Just like my father.
“I’m nowhere near to being there yet.” I hoped I sounded reassuring. “This is going to be harder.” I couldn’t say how I knew; it was just something I felt. Wielding air, creating wind…that would come with practice. Lightning was a different beast. But when I did…
I suddenly shivered and was astonished at the exultation that ran through me. If I could learn to create and control lightning…Jesus Christ. That kind of power was unimaginable. It was a large part of what had made Storm King so feared. Being able to do that would be unbelievable. Amazing. Exquisite. Being like a god…
I snapped myself out of those thoughts, aghast at what I’d been thinking-again. Talk about megalomania. I was no god. Craving that kind of power was wrong; everyone said so. Well, those from the human world, at least. Yet, if I could summon lightning, I could blow a fair number of those fucking demons out of existence. Surely that was a good use of my power. Unfortunately, what I’d said to Ysabel was true. It was going to take awhile, and until I developed some other amazing weapon, those demons were going to keep coming back and-
I froze, suddenly forgetting about the phenomenal power I’d just touched. I had a weapon right in front of me, something that might seriously get rid of those demons once and for all. Unfortunately, it was not an easy one to use.
