Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

R osa was nearing the training room to meet Eli when she found Nimue hovering outside the doors.

"Morning! You're up obscenely early," Rosa yawned.

Everyone else tended to sleep until midday, but Eli had insisted on 8 a.m. training sessions.

"I need to speak with Eli without Eldon or any of the others," she said, looking more nervous than the day she arrived.

Rosa put a hand on her arm. "Whatever it is, we can work it out."

The training room door opened, and Eli was looking down at them, his sword blade resting against his bare shoulder.

"What's wrong, Nimue?" he asked.

"For God's sake, Eli, put the sword down and let us in," Rosa said, moving inside. "Can't you see she's scared enough as it is?"

"I need to show you something," Nimue said once they were inside and the door was closed once more. She unzipped the hoodie she liked to train in. "Eldon is still suspicious, and maybe I deserve it, but you need to know the glamour I'm using isn't hiding anything."

"Nim, you don't have to do this," Rosa insisted.

"I do , Rosa."

"Show me, Nimue," Eli said. Nimue turned her back to him and dropped her glamour. Even though her singlet only revealed her arms and the top of her back, it still took all of Rosa's self control to swallow the lump in her throat.

"Why are you showing me this and not Eldon?" Eli asked.

"I'd rather him remember me as I was." Nimue turned to him to show the crisscrossing of scars on her chest and one that ran from her right eye, down her neck to her collarbone. "You thought that I had betrayed you, but you saw my truth when it was revealed to you. Eldon doesn't want to see the truth, and I don't want him to see me as this damaged and twisted thing the queen turned me into. You and Zalan understand her capacity for cruelty. I pray that Eldon never does."

Nimue stood still as if waiting for Eli's judgment. Instead, he passed his sword to Rosa and took an astonished Nimue in his arms. He said something softly to her in a language Rosa couldn't understand, and Nimue hugged him back, murmuring in reply as she let herself be comforted.

The tension in the room finally broke, and Rosa breathed a sigh of relief. Nimue had been Eli's adopted daughter long before Rosa, but she couldn't imagine what it would be like to have him angry with her.

"I'm so, so sorry about Deryn," Nimue said in English. "I never would've wished her harm. You know how much I loved her, Eli."

"I know," Eli replied as he stroked her hair. "She wouldn't want us to be angry with each other anymore. Let's have peace between us again. I don't have the heart to hate you for Ryn's actions."

"Thank you. I promise I'll defend Gwaed Lyn until my heart stops beating," Nimue said when they broke apart. "Eldon healed so much of my mind, but I need to make sure that she's gone for good. I need you to check for her again. I don't want there to be any chance that she might be able to control me."

"Eldon would have made sure, Nimue. No matter how conflicted his feelings are toward you, he'd never risk Gwaed Lyn," Eli replied.

"Please, check everything. I don't care what you see."

Eli placed a hand on the top of her head and goosebumps broke out on Rosa's skin as his power filled the room. Nimue whimpered but stood tall until he was finished.

"There is nothing left, Nimue. Rest easy, you are well protected here," he said.

Nimue's smile was sunshine as she rolled her shoulders and the glamour fell back over her. Rosa shook her head. She didn't think she'd ever get used to magic.

"I don't know why you are letting the scars bother you. They tell the story of your survival," Eli said.

"Maybe one day I won't feel like I need it, but it's not today.

"So, what are we learning this morning? Bows, blades, or fists?" Rosa asked.

They had only been working on their sword technique for twenty minutes before Saul burst through the door at full speed.

"What is it? You look like you're sweating," Rosa said.

"You better get downstairs, Eli," he panted. "I think Eldon just challenged the entire cohort of Midnight Warriors to a duel."

"What on earth is he thinking?" Eli demanded, and they hurried out of the room.

"I have no clue, but he turned up at their training pissed off and loud mouthed," Saul replied. "He's throwing about a lot of magic."

"This is my fault," Nimue murmured to Rosa. "I made him angry last night, and now he's taking it out on everyone else."

"Lord above! Not every stupid thing Eldon does is your fault," Rosa replied. "He liked to act plenty stupid before you arrived."

"He's behaving like a damn child," Eli said and opened the doors outside.

"A damn child that's tearing through Zalan's finest." Balthasar joined them on the outskirts of the crowd of warriors surrounding the section of the parklands they had allocated for training grounds.

"It's a good thing they are all Gwaed Gam," Rosa said numbly as she saw the carnage that Eldon was wreaking. Everywhere she looked, Gam regrowing limbs and healing long gashes. Eldon's torso and arms were covered in blood as he fought off three warriors who were no longer simply training. He'd embarrassed them and they were out for his blood.

"If this is the best Zalan's finest has to offer, then we might as well fall to our knees and offer our necks to the Seelie fucks coming for us," he shouted, disarming two soldiers before plunging a spear through the thigh of another.

"We must stop this," Rosa said urgently.

Eli raised a brow. "Must we? He makes a valid point."

"They aren't going to want to fight with someone who despises them," Balthasar argued. "He will make enemies of them all, and we don't need that right now."

"Seren Du, with your permission?" Nimue asked formally.

"Do it," Eli replied, a vicious kind of mischief glowing in his eyes.

Before Eli could change his mind, Nimue stepped into the ring. Eldon paused as she rested her hands on the two long knives on her belt and looked him over. Balthasar's hand clamped down on Rosa's arm as she moved forward.

"Leave it, Rosa. This doesn't concern you."

"As Eldon demonstrates, the Seelie are much harder to kill than you could imagine," Nimue said, her voice carrying through the tense crowd. "Those Seelie the queen sent in the last attack were undisciplined raiders. You had victory over them because they were not trained for warfare. The army she will bring with her will be her finest warrior magicians, and you must be ready for whatever attack they will devise, whether it be swords or magic." She pulled her knives from their sheaths and stared Eldon down. "If you are so eager to show off, come and fight me ."

"I beat you when we were children, so what makes you think you have a chance now?" Eldon asked, unable to back down from a challenge in front of so many people.

Nimue's magic shot out at him in two golden whips of light that he barely dodged before they took off his head.

"Oh, you are going to regret that, half-breed," he growled.

"Takes one to know one, mongrel ."

Blades and magic cut the air as they clashed and clashed again. The Gwaed Gam shuffled backward as roots shot out of the earth seeking to snag Nimue's feet. Her knives slashed through them, and her power shielded her from the bolt of light aimed at her heart.

The wind picked her up in the air, and she dropped with uncanny speed onto Eldon's shoulders and flipped him backward, his sword flying out his hand as they hit the mud. Nimue rolled and Eldon twisted to grab hold of her.

"You still fight with no brains. Brute force can't win everything," Nimue mocked.

"We can't all have a mind as twisted as a Seelie's," Eldon muttered. He got back to his feet and retrieved his sword.

"Or as dark as an Unseelie's," she counted. "Are you ready to go again?"

Fire rolled out of him towards her so hot that Rosa's magic instinctively threw up a shield of its own. Nimue reacted with a wall of ice that exploded in a wave of water that doused them all as the fire brought it down.

When the steam cleared, Eldon and Nimue were both drenched with a blade pressed tight to each other's throats. Nobody on the field dared to move or speak as they stared each other down, silently daring the other to cut.

"Eli should have left you in that damn tree, and then you would've had time to grow the hell up," Nimue sneered.

"Over a thousand years in a lake didn't do much to cool you down. Perhaps, I'll dump you in ours and see how long it takes," he spat, and his grip on the front of her shirt tightened.

"Try it, and I'll stop pretending to miss," she threatened, her lips close enough to touch his. "You have no idea what I have gone through."

"Perhaps we could go out for a drink tonight, and you can tell me all about it," Eldon said, and Nimue's eyes widened.

"What?"

"You heard me, witch."

In one swift movement, Nimue dropped her knife from his throat as her left palm drove up into his sternum.

Eldon collapsed in the freezing mud, fighting to get air into his lungs.

"I accept." Nimue plucked the knife from his hand, sheathed it safely into her belt and stepped over him. The silence broke as the soldiers erupted in cheers as Nimue walked back to where Eli was standing.

"Did they just agree to go on a date?" Saul asked Rosa. She looked over to where Eldon was trying to drag himself up.

"I think so," she replied, amazed as the rest of them.