“You learn new tricks. You get faster. You learn how to guess what I’m going to do. More than anything, you need to practice your powers and learn what you can do. Your base powers aren’t unusual. What you can do with them is going to be different, though.” He smiled. “Especially if you learn to combine them.”
“What do you think, Cara? Could you imagine how strong she’d be if she learned to combine earth and light? Or seeing along with my empathic abilities?”
“Unstoppable,” she murmured. “There’s nothing you couldn’t do. With the right people beside you, you’d be able to do anything.”
Sebastian nodded with a grin. “But first, you need to figure out how to work with your own natural abilities. You’ll always have those regardless of who you’re near, so you need to be as good with those as possible. We’ll work on combining them with other people’s after that.”
I nodded, feeling at least a little bit of hope that I could become strong enough to survive the Immortal Realm and everyone that was trying to kill me.
Sebastian stepped back twenty feet, smiled, and pulled out his daggers. “Now, try to kill me.”
Chapter 27
Rose
I wrapped one hand around Kasia’s waist as she galloped across a field as fast as she could. She wore thick leather armor and carried a spear and shield as she galloped. A group of three dummies stood at the end of the field, and I held the silver sword with one hand as I tightened my thighs around her, doing my best not to lose my seat.
She’d refused to wear a saddle, informing me that if a rider couldn’t manage to stay in their seat without a saddle, they weren’t worthy of riding a centaur into battle. My arm didn’t shake anymore. A month of steady training with sword, magic, and riding had strengthened my body and mind.
As we closed on the dummies, I released my hold on Kasia’s waist, lifting my arm and focusing on my power as I prepared my swing. She struck out first with her spear, hitting the dummy square in the chest. A burst of power came from me. Liquid shadows flowed through the air and hit the second dummy in the face at the same time that I swung the sword, connecting with the top section of the other dummy.
Kasia slowed and looked at the dummies. “You’ve grown, Rose. Do you remember when you dropped the sword and almost fell off at the same time?”
I couldn’t help but giggle as I thought about the first time that I’d tried this exercise. What had they expected of a girl who had never done magic or held a sword?
“You have too. You don’t complain nearly as much about how slow you are when you’re carrying me.”
“I have never complained,” she said indignantly. “A centaur warrior does not complain about her tasks.”
“You’re right. They don’t complain. Gnomes complain. Centaurs bitch.” She snorted, the sound much more horselike than her other sounds.
There was still a light in her eyes that seemed to beam at me. Centaurs were notoriously difficult to work with until they respected you. I’d been an idiot fairy when I first arrived, and though she’d trusted Sebastian’s judgement, she didn’t trust me anymore than Enivyn had.
Now it was different. Just as Cara had done, each of the people in the village had tested me in their own way. They’d trusted Sebastian’s word before, but none of them had trusted me.
“Race you back to the village,” I said with a smirk.
“That is not a fair race. You do not use your feet.”
I shrugged. “Fine. I’ll use my two feet, and you can use any combination of two of yours. That way it’s truly fair.”
She snorted again. “Wings only. No magic.”
“Sounds good to me. Go!”
Kasia took off at a gallop. She would always win in an initial sprint. My wings began to flutter, lifting me off the ground. That was what I’d known how to do instinctually. What happened next was learned.
I leaned forward, my wings moving even faster, a blur of shadows on a sunny day. I could feel them working, the connection through the skin reverberated faster than anything I’d ever felt.
Unlike a muscle, my wings were made of pure magic, and they didn’t tire, burning magic to move rather than physical energy. I had to hold my body up, though, and that was tiring. My stomach and back tightened, holding me in place, as I edged ever closer to Kasia whose hooves pounded the ground in a cloud of sparkling dust.
Lights began to flash around me, faster and faster. The same lights that had surprised me in that field with the unicorn. As I flew, they clustered around as though I were being chased by a swarm of lightning bugs. Wisps, the Immortal Realm’s version of flies. Instead of consuming decaying flesh, wisps consumed the remains of spent magic.
Flying a little higher, I looked down on Kasia from above, and as I passed her, I tugged at her hair. She reached up and tried to grab me as we raced towards camp. I expected physical and magical testing almost constantly. The punishment for failure was pain, and I’d begun to accept that.
She missed my arm, and with her other arm, she tried to snag my leg. I twisted away, giggling as I passed her. “You’re as bad as the gnomes,” she snarled.
“You’re as bad as a unicorn,” I replied. “All snorts and snarls.”
That seemed to make her run just a little harder. She was faster than any horse I’d ever heard of. It had been weeks even after I’d learned to fly before I could beat her in a race.
My muscles ached as
