Page 51 of The Daughter of the Scarred Elf

Training with Joran was tiresome.As she manipulated stones in the rocky basement with the male fae, she couldn’t meet his gaze. She didn’t really want anything to do with Joran. Her anger toward him had sizzled out days ago, when she realized that he probably wasn’t any more involved in Sijur’s mess than she was, and that he probably had no choice like she did, but that still didn’t change that she didn’t particularly like Joran.

Joran wasn’t actually doing anything wrong, per se. He was just trying to survive. No other fae in their right mind would reveal they were fae, since the current society wouldn’t allow them to. They’d be hunted down, Kolfinna reasoned. Which was especially true since the Hunter’s Association was reinstated. So it wasn’t his fault that he was acting out of survival like the rest of their race. But it still bothered her. She hated that he could pretend to be human and she couldn’t. And that he didn’t have to face the criticism and hatred like she did.

But if Kolfinna wanted to find out what he knew about rune magic and how he had learned about it, she needed to befriend him. It also helped that she saw him almost every day for their stone magic training.

Joran had her mainly practice three things every training session. One, aim her stones at immovable statues he erected. He would make her practice hitting them with multiple rocks, with her eyes closed, and while running laps around the training room. Second, carving into stone to make intricate patterns. Apparently, it helped with mana manipulation, and she had to agree because it wasn’t as easy as it looked. Thirdly and lastly, he made her try to levitate the stones without throwing them anywhere. That was probably the hardest part of her training. She could make rocks float for five seconds, and that seemed about all she could do at her current level.

That was what she was doing right now. Kolfinna kept trying to raise her current rock—which she had carved into a very crudely cut mushroom—but holding it in place was straining her already drained mana. Joran sat cross-legged on the floor a few feet away from her, watching her with meadow-like green eyes.

The rock fell to the floor after five seconds and she blew out air. Sweat trickled down the nape of her neck and she could feel it uncomfortably collect down her itchy spine.

“You’re not focusing too much on control,” Joran said in that soft, soft voice of his.

She pushed a sweaty tendril of hair off her damp face. “How would you know that?

He winced at her harsh tone as if she had struck him. “I can’t know for sure, but I can sort of tell.”

“Really? Can you tell what I’m thinking then?” She almost rolled her eyes. Not everything came to her effortlessly. Raising this stupid rock up in the air was one of them. How Joran—spineless little Joran—could raise a dozen rocks and keep them afloat for minutes at a time was beyond her comprehension. And it irked her.

“You’re probably thinking that you want to punch me.”

“Close.”

Joran sighed. “Kolfinna, I’m not your enemy …”

“Mhm.” She wrapped her mana around the rock once more and lifted it up. Her mana naturally wanted to let go and launch it somewhere, but she held on to it tighter and poured more mana over it. Just a bit more. Just a bit?—

It slipped and fell once again.

Kolfinna muttered a curse and tried again.

“You’re focusing too much on adding your mana to the stone and too little on controlling your mana. You don’t need much. You only need a thread of mana to keep it afloat. Smothering it with heaps of mana isn’t going to make it float.”

Kolfinna hesitated and released her hold on the stone. “What do you mean? I’m exerting a normal amount of mana over it.”

“I suspect …” He traced a circle on the floor. “I suspect you use too much mana when you use your stone magic. You shouldn’t be that drained by the end of our training sessions, but you are. So I think … use less.”

She blinked back.Use less? Was he being serious? Did he really think that she wasn’t using her mana efficiently? Whatever annoyance she was feeling earlier, flared and spread down to her toes.

“You don’t know that—” she started.

Joran raised his hands. “I know. I know. I’m just saying what I think.”

She pursed her lips together. When she trained with Inkeri, it didn’t bother her when the young woman told her where and how to improve, since she knew her combat skills were lacking. But hearing the same thing from another fae concerning her magic? It angered her. She knew how to use her magic. She knew how to fight. She knew how to manipulate her mana and didn’t need him to tell her she was doing a bad job.

The flash of emotions crossing her face made Joran shrink back; it wasn’t enough to pacify her annoyance. Because this sniveling, flinching man was better than her at stone magic.

Kolfinna breathed out deeply from her nose.

She wasn’t one to lose control over her emotions. She had endured Edwin’s bullying. She had endured the Royal Guards’ nasty words and mean stares. She had endured endless criticism from the denizens of the capital, the royal family, and the nobility. She could handle her emotions here too, even if she was facing criticism.

He only wanted to make her stronger, she told herself. Sijur needed her to be strong for the rune magic they’d be doing, so it was Joran’s duty to ensure she got to that point. Everything he was saying was for her benefit—and Sijur’s.

With that in mind, Kolfinna pushed her ego aside and focused on the rock in front of her. She usually used a good amount of mana to wrap around stones and rocks, but instead of using what she would normally use to get a good grip, she used less than half.

To no one’s surprise, the rock barely lifted an inch before falling.

“See?” She thrust a hand at her rock. “It went nowhere.”

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