Page 10 of Her Cruel Redemption

Pain split my head. I smacked a still-hot palm to my forehead, gritting my teeth against it. I was sure I could feel one particular vein pulsing away angrily, pumping agony throughout my skull.

‘Fuck, fuck,fuck,’ I growled, squeezing my eyes shut against my failure. My stomach was churning and there were bright lights bursting behind the dark of my eyelids. I couldn’t aim magic, I couldn’t aim knives, I couldn’t get anyone to trust me enough to give me any real help and I couldn’t leave this infernal place and I was so sick of beingstuckhere.

My ears were ringing with the aftermath of the strike, but I heard the footsteps crunching through the leaves behind me. I opened my eyes to find Mae settling down beside me on the sand. For a moment, neither of us said anything. I massaged my brow, teeth gritted against the sluggishly receding pain as I waited for her to begin.

‘Are you ready to learn to shield?’ she asked, stretching her legs out in front and leaning back on her hands, face turned to the sun as she basked in its morning warmth. I wondered at how she could look so comfortable, so at ease. The ground was still damp with dew, the moisture quickly soaking through the thin fabric of my skirt. I was cold and fed up with the sight of this stupid lake.

‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘What do I have to do?’

‘It’s a layered technique,’ she explained. ‘It involves some complicated visualisation and a lot of focus, so you likely won’t be able to do anything other than sit while you do it to begin with, but if you practice, it’ll take less concentration and you’ll be able to shield while you do other things.’

‘Like fight?’ I asked. There was a challenge in the question. I wanted to know how helpful this wouldreallybe to me.

‘If you get really good at it, I don’t see why not,’ she replied mildly. ‘You can get there if you practice with the commitment you’re dedicating to throwing knives.’ She didn’t need to addand trying to work magic.The implication was clear enough, sitting here on the pock-marked banks of a lake I’d been terrorising with my efforts at self-teaching. I wondered if she thought my attempts were hopeless.

I adjusted my seat, trying to find the sort of comfort she seemed to be able to summon at will. ‘What do I do first?’

‘Close your eyes.’

Of course. I resisted the urge to groan. ‘So, I’ll be fighting with my eyes closed?’

‘Stop thinking about how this is going to serve you in a fight and just try it. You need to close your eyes until you know your mind, which I suspect is going to take you a while so you’d better not waste time complaining.’

I did as I was told, staring at the backs of my eyelids as she told me to visualise my mind as a dark lake with a calm surface.

‘Just like the one you’ve been spending so much time staring at,’ she said, her tone teasing. ‘It should come to mind easily enough.’

‘It isn’t very calm when I’m throwing lightning at it,’ I muttered, but she shushed me and bid me to focus. Every thought was a ripple, she told me. The goal was to have my lake as ripple-free as possible. After a few minutes of this, she asked me if I was ready for step two.

‘Yes,’ I said, though I wasn’t. The lake of my mind was as choppy as a turbulent sea, but how long was I supposed to sit here trying to calm it?

‘Then build a dome around it. A dome of thick, mirrored glass that will reflect out anything trying to get in. You have to believe in its strength all the way to your bones. Believe it’s impenetrable, that nothing can breach it or break it.’

But the wordmirroronly made me think of magic turning my face cold. Of staring at my reflection and remembering the scent of smoke, the clawing burn of flames. Of shattered glass falling around me.

‘Have you got that nice and clear in your mind?’

‘Mm hm.’ I tried to focus, visualising a dome forming over my stormy lake.

‘Reach out. Imagine feeling the glass beneath your fingers.’

I could visualise the dome easily enough. But reaching out to touch it meant I was in the scene beside it. There I was in my mind, reaching out my hand to touch cold glass, panic building in my throat as I took in my scarred face. No glamour to hide behind now. The truth would be revealed in every mirror I encountered, every reflective surface. A swirling mass of shiny, raised burn scars stretching over the left side of my face, warping my expression.

I only ever saw your scars.

‘Rhiandra? Are you alright?’

I opened my eyes to find Mae sitting up straighter, looking at me with concern. I was gasping, I realised. My breathing sawing in and out of me. I folded forwards, hands going to my stomach as I tried to reign in the panic, and Mae gently rubbed my back. When I managed a few deeper breaths, I settled back into my body, into this moment on the grass in the warmth of the morning sun.

‘You’re here too, Mae.’ I started as Gwinellyn dropped to the ground on my other side, mirroring the posture Mae had so recently adopted, seeming for all the world completely at ease in a way I rarely saw her. But when her gaze flickered to me, there was worry in it. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m teaching Rhi to shield her mind,’ Mae explained. ‘but she—’

‘—is fine,’ I said firmly. I didn’t need Gwin worrying about me any more than she already did. ‘Lake, dome, then what?’ I saw the look they shared, shooting past me as I leaned back and tried to affect a manner as peaceful as theirs.

‘It’ll be more effective to attempt the later steps once you’ve mastered the others,’ Mae said.

‘And I will master them. What do I do after I’ve visualised the dome?’

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