Hands of Fire: Chapter Fourteen
Healing Kaith’s shoulder is a more extensive process than either of them realized, and Galos spends several hours each day trying to repair it piece by piece—bone, muscle, and sinew. The arrows shattered the bone on impact, so Galos must set each fragment like a puzzle piece before he can fuse them back together. When the bone is repaired, he has to sew the muscle and ligaments into place. Kaith never stays conscious long during the process, and Rhyssa never feels more helpless than when she’s holding his limp body in her arms.
But when he’s not healing Kaith, Galos disappears into the trees, and they are alone. Time is hazy in the forest, the only sign of its passing a faint lightening of the tree canopy during the day and an even fainter darkening in the night, and Rhyssa struggles to track the days. She and Kaith pass the time trying to figure out where they are, how far they’ll have to travel to get back on track, and above all, what this death mage’s plans for them might be. The waiting makes Kaith restless. She rarely sees him without clenched fists and wary eyes, but there’s a part of her that’s grateful for the chance to just breathe.
And to practice.
When Kaith finally lets himself rest, Rhyssa lets her magic loose. Something about this land makes it wild, harder to control, and it rises to the surface the moment she lets her guard down.
She practices calling sparks to her fingers and cupping balls of flames in her hands. She asks Galos for a few pieces of raw meat each night and practices heating them without burning. She draws lines of fire in the air and commands them to move and struggles to keep them reined in.
Rhyssa knows that what she really lacks, what she’s always lacked, is control. The power is there, raw and untamed, stubborn and willful, but the control is sand slipping through her fingers. The forest makes it worse, though she doesn’t know why. Her flames are hungrier, devouring the air around them and hissing for more. She burns herself on more than one occasion, angry red marks and blisters across her hands and arms, and still she doesn’t stop.
Bit by bit she’s improving. Bit by bit some of her fear of her own power dissipates. And on those occasions when she turns around to find Kaith watching her through half-lidded eyes, she pretends she doesn’t notice the pride in his gaze or the warmth that curls in her chest when she looks at him. And when night falls, Galos returns, and she can no longer hold off her body’s fatigue, she curls up next to Kaith and pretends she doesn’t want to take his hand in hers.
But it was easier to sleep in that cellar, with his arms wrapped around her, and she doesn’t know what to make of that.
On what she thinks is their fourth day, she wakes to Galos and Kaith arguing.
“How much longer?” Kaith is asking, his right arm cradled against his chest at an angle to keep the pressure off his injured shoulder.
Galos shrugs. “Don’t know.”
Judging by Kaith’s pained expression, this isn’t the first time they’ve had this discussion. “You’re the one healing me. How can you not know?”
“Oh, that.” Galos waves him off, focusing his attention instead on running the blade of his knife along the whetstone in his hand. “Your shoulder’s fine. Just needs rest now.”
“Then we can leave.”
“No.”
“Why not?” Kaith’s question is more of a groan, and Rhyssa pushes to her feet to stand at his side.
“She’s not ready yet,” Galos replies.
She’s not sure Kaith is even aware that he takes a protective step in front of her. “What does that mean?”
Sighing, Galos lowers the knife. “It means that she can’t control her magic, and she’s a liability to you both.”
“I’ve been practicing,” Rhyssa says with a lift of her chin.
“And when I need my dinner reheated, I know who to ask.” Shaking his head, Galos stands. “All mages are powerful, but solara mages are uniquely suited to combat in a way the other schools of magic aren’t. A blood mage can only target one person at a time. Umbra mages can’t cause wide damage with their shadows. Terra mages can shake the earth, but they aren’t good for targeting people, just what’s around them.
“A solara mage can do it all. They can trap large groups in a ring of fire, boil a man’s blood inside his body, melt his skin; they’re damn hard to hit because you can’t get close to them. And a mage of your age? One who should have years of training under her belt? You should’ve been able to kill those men with a wave of your hand. But what did you do? Glorified party tricks that didn’t help a lick.”
Something inside Rhyssa shrinks at the anger in the man’s eyes.
Kaith is quick to leap to her defense. “Not killing someone doesn’t make her a liability.”
“No,” Galos concedes. “It makes her a coward.”
Rhyssa flinches. Kaith’s scream as the first arrow embedded itself in his skin echoes in the back of her mind, and she stares hard at his back.
Galos follows her gaze. “You see now, don’t you.” It’s not a question. “You’ll get him killed if you continue like this.”
Swallowing down the lump in her throat, she asks, “Can you teach me?”
“Hold on.” Kaith positions himself further in front of her, his good arm held out to shield her. “It’s my job to protect her. Not the other way around.”
“And when the blood mage hunting you catches up? What then?” At their shock, Galos rolls his eyes. “I saw the marks on your skin, boy. Did you think I wouldn’t recognize blood magic when I saw it?”
The tips of Kaith’s ears turn red. “It doesn’t matter. The contract I agreed to was to see Rhyssa safely to the Academy. As long as I do that, the spell won’t kill me.”
“But the mage who cast it will. You and I both know that if this mage catches you, you’ll die. Unless Rhyssa fights back.”
“She doesn’t need to—”
“What do you suggest?” Rhyssa asks, stepping out from behind Kaith. “What do I do? How do I get better? If you know so much, then teach me.”
“Rhyssa, I can—”
“Teach me to control it,” she repeats, then bows her head. “Please.”
Galos tilts his head at her, considering. His eyes flick to Kaith, no doubt glowering furiously at her from behind. “Leave.”
“Excuse me?” Kaith asks.
“You’re a distraction. Leave.”
“As if I would ever leave her alone with you,” Kaith snaps.
“Kaith, please.” Rhyssa turns and lays her hand on his shoulder, the muscle taut beneath fingers.
“I can protect you.” His jaw clenches.
Standing on tiptoe, she rests her other hand against his cheek and turns his face to look at her. “I need to do this.”
He holds her gaze for a moment, his breaths ragged. Then he tears himself out of her grip and stalks away from them. “Do what you want.”
Something in her chest cracks.
If Galos notices the tension, he doesn’t comment on it. “This way.” He leads her to the bend of a creek not far from their camp, and for a moment her mind flashes to a different river in a different forest, to a pile of smoking bodies and the smell of charred flesh.
“Stop it,” Galos orders without turning.
“Stop what?”
“You’re scared. I felt your heart rate speed up. So whatever you’re thinking about, don’t.” He points to the water. “In.”
Rhyssa rolls up the legs of her trousers, peels off her boots, and then wades into the frigid water.
Galos stays on shore, arms folded over his chest. “Show me what you can do.”
She blinks. “What?”
“Do something,” he says. “Anything. I want to get a sense of your power.”
Frowning, Rhyssa takes a deep breath and raises her arms. The flames answer her call almost instantly, like they’ve been doing since the mage bane wore off. And like always since they entered the Unclaimed Lands, it thrashes against her hold, wild with hunger. Holding her breath, she slowly loosens the leash—not too much, never too much—until a plume of flame blooms to life in her palm. She looks to Galos, but he says nothing.
Her eyes narrow as a bead of sweat trickles down her forehead. Pushing her hand forward, she tries to launch the fire out of her hand, aiming for a crooked tree that leans out over the water. It flies in a lazy, shallow arc before landing with a hiss into the water.
Galos looks appropriately unimpressed. “Magic,” he says slowly, “is both part of you and separate from you. It’s part of you in the sense that its power is directly connected to your body. It takes something from you to fuel itself. But it can also sense and respond to your emotions.” He pauses to study her face, then says, “You’ve felt as much.”
“Yes,” she says quietly. “When I’m angry or frightened, it’s . . . it can be hard to control.”
He nods. “Are you frightened often, Rhyssa?” When she hesitates, he adds, “You can be honest. I promise nothing you’ve done with your magic I haven’t done myself. Or worse.”
There’s no remorse in his tone, but somehow that only makes her believe him more.
“I’m scared,” she admits. “All the time.”
“Of what?”
“It’s dangerous to be a mage in Messahna,” she replies.
He tilts his head. “But that’s not what you’re afraid of.”
She looks away.
There’s a long silence, broken only by the faint trickle of the water and the crackle of creatures moving through the brush.
“I’m afraid of the magic,” she finally says.
“Ah.” He doesn’t sound surprised.
“I’ve hurt people. Unintentionally. I’ve—killed some.” She wiggles her toes beneath the water, burrowing them deeper into the silty riverbed before looking up. “I don’t want it to happen again.”
Galos nods, then walks toward a clump of reeds a few feet away, pulling one out by the root before popping the end of the stem in his mouth. “I had a horse once,” he says. “Big brute of a beast. He was a wild thing, had a reputation for kicking first, asking questions later. The stable hands were scared half to death of him, and no one would ride him.” Lowering himself down to the ground, he stretches his left leg out in front of him and starts gently massaging the knee. “Thing about horses, though, is they’re smart. And they sense fear. My horse master back then used to say they could smell it on you. This horse was no different.
“Anytime one of those stable hands came near him, he went wild. Bucking, biting, screaming, acting like the gods themselves were beating him. Anyone brave enough to try to ride him got bucked off in seconds. Eventually, the horse master said we should put the beast down.”
“But you disagreed?” Rhyssa guesses, teeth starting to chatter from standing in the creek.
“I went out to the stables one night. Went straight to that horse’s stall. Said to him, ‘I know what you’re doing. You know all those boys are scared of you, and you’re exploiting that. But not me. I’m not afraid of you. And I’m the only one left to keep them from killing you. So I’m going to ride you, and you’re going to behave yourself, and we’re going to prove you’re not a lost cause.’ Then I tossed a saddle onto his back and climbed up.”
“Did that work?”
“Gods no,” Galos says with a laugh. “Took me an hour to get him to stop bucking. But when you spend that long clinging to a horse’s back, you run out of energy to be afraid. And when you run out of fear, that horse gets a lot easier to control.” He points at her with the half-chewed reed. “Magic is a lot like horses. When it knows you’re scared of it, it’s going to try to break your hold.”
Rhyssa snorts, kicking her right foot to make the water splash. “So that’s your solution? Just stop being scared?” As if she hasn’t been trying just that her entire life.
Humming thoughtfully, Galos stands with surprising grace and dusts his hands off on his patchwork trousers before wading into the water toward her. “You’re right, of course. We can’t undo years of conditioning in a day. Use your magic.”
“Why?” she asks, taking a step back, hot agitation stirring in her chest. The water deepens the farther back she goes, rising to just above her hips.
He presses forward. “Unleash it. Just for a moment.”
“I don’t want to.” This was a bad idea. She shouldn’t be out here alone with him, shouldn’t have asked Kaith to leave. Her skin feels hot, her flames begging for the chance to rise up and protect her.
“Rhyssa, let go.”
“I can’t!”
“Let. Go.” Galos reaches for her.
“I can’t!” It’s instinct that brings her hands up between them, and it’s panic that pushes the flames from her palms toward his chest, panic that rips a scream from her throat as she realizes what’s about to happen.
But Galos ducks beneath her outstretched arms, flames licking at the top of his wild hair. One arm wraps firmly around her middle and pulls while he sweeps her legs out from under her, plunging her into the icy water. The fire snuffs out as her head crashes through the surface.
She emerges shivering and spluttering, steam rising from her skin. Galos stands a few feet away now, something almost feral in his grin. Her mouth opens, words her grandmother could only describe as unladylike on the tip of her tongue.
Before she can speak, Galos raises a single finger into the air, head tilted like he’s listening to something. “Your distraction is coming.”
“My wha—”
“Rhyssa!” Kaith crashes out of the trees, bow drawn and ready. But one look at Rhyssa, soaking wet in the middle of the creek, makes him hesitate. “Are you alright?” he asks slowly, gaze darting back and forth between them.
“She’s fine,” Galos replies cheerfully. “A little chilled, maybe.”
Ignoring him, Kaith steps closer to the edge of the creek, eyes searching her face. “Are you alright?” he repeats.
Teeth chattering too hard to answer—Gods above, this water is cold—she makes her way back toward the bank. When she’s within reach, Kaith lowers the bow and stretches out to clasp her hand and pull her firmly to his side. His hand is shaking as he brushes a wet tendril of hair out of her face.
“Rhyssa learned a valuable lesson,” Galso replies before she can answer him.
Kaith’s jaw flexes, but he doesn’t look away from her. “And what would that be?”
“That if she loses control of her magic, I can stop her.” Galos pauses until Rhyssa tears her gaze away from Kaith to look at him. “That while we’re practicing, she has nothing to be afraid of.” He dips his head in a shallow bow, but not before she sees the way his eyes glisten.
She thinks Galos might know better than most what it means to be afraid of your own power, how heavy it is to carry with you, and some of her anger drips away with the water on her skin.
Kaith isn’t so easily swayed. Slinging his bow over his shoulder, he strides forward to scoop up her boots. “You’re done for the day,” he says in Galos’s direction, then turns and grabs Rhyssa’s arm to tug her back in the direction of camp.
“Kaith, I’m fine,” she protests, twigs and dry leaves poking at the bottoms of her bare feet.
His pace doesn’t let up, fast enough she’s half jogging to keep up with him. When they reach the camp, he throws her boots to the ground and leans his bow against a tree, then grabs one of their blankets.
“I’ll warm up in a bit,” she continues, rubbing her hands together. “Maybe I can try making a fire—” She cuts off with a squeak as he tosses the blanket over her head and starts rubbing her hair dry. There’s anger in every movement, in the rough way his hands move over her head, and she stumbles away from him to yank the blanket off. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want you to get sick,” he replies, his tone clipped. When he reaches for her again, she bats his hands away.
“You’re angry with me.”
“What reason do I have to be angry?” He spreads his hands wide in a helpless gesture. “Because you decided to run off into the Unclaimed Lands to play at magic with a madman? Who could be angry about that?”
“Not you, I should hope. Considering you’re the one who’s been insisting I ‘play at magic’ for weeks.”
“Yes, so you could protect yourself,” Kaith snaps.
She throws up her hands, not sure if she wants to laugh or scream. “I am protecting myself! Learning how to use my magic can protect both of us.”
“And that’s the problem. I don’t need you to protect me. It’s my job to protect you.”
“You certainly needed me when Amara’s men shot you,” she scoffs.
“No, what I needed,” he hisses, stepping forward to jab a finger into her chest, “was for you to do as you’re told and get out of there!”
A voice in the back of her mind says that she’s in dangerous territory, that she should step back, but instead she presses closer, lifts her chin until she’s close enough to count the flecks of gold in his green eyes. “Get out of there and leave you to die, right? That’s what you wanted?”
“The safest option was to leave me.”
“I won’t let Amara take you back!”
“And I won’t let you die!”
The word falls between them like a brick, and for a moment there is nothing but heavy silence, stillness taut as a bowstring, an ache somewhere deep in her chest that she doesn’t know how to soothe.
She should say something—anything—to make him understand, to explain this need to see them both out of this safely, to do whatever she must to make sure that happens. “Kaith, I—”
But then he takes her face in his hands and kisses her, and any words she had are lost.