Page 61 of Guardian's Dilemma

“No. Let me see what magic I can use thatdoeswork on you.”

We each tried several things: I used darts of magic to attack, I used misdirection spells to confuse his eye so I could hit him, and I layered protections over me while he tested their strength against his claws. The one time he did draw blood, we stopped. I didn’t mind because it was barely a scratch – it was like my arm had been scratched by a rose thorn – but the drop of blood that welled up out of it and ran slowly down my forearm made Glimmer’s eyes turn dark and stormy. He wouldn’t try and claw me again, no matter how much I insisted that I’d just been experimenting with the thickness of the protections I needed.

In the end, I humoured him and we moved on.

Glimmer tried to disappear into the edges of the garden but I could see him no matter what he did. At first, I thought it was pointless but then I began to notice the particular shade of his magic when he did that, and I spent a long time learning to identify when he was hiding and when he wasn’t. Even though I could see him all the time, I could tell when I would be the only one.

“It’s a shame we can’t get Dane to train us.”

“Who’s Dane?”

“He’s my old trainer. He’s the best.”

“Oh yeah?” Was it me or was there a tart jealousy in those words?

Glimmer noticed and grinned. Bastard.

“He’s got a talent for finding other people’s talents. He saw mine and taught me how to draw on it. Without him, I wouldn’t be the Guardian.”

Since I wasn’t exactly pleased that Glimmer was the guardian of the clan vault, I didn’t comment on that. Instead, I asked, “If he’s already trained you, why do you need him now?”

“Because I’m not training alone any longer. We’re training together.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that. I’d assumed we were just messing around. Not training. Training sounded… actually, it sounded good.

And I could see the sense of it. If two people were going to fight together, they needed to be in sync. Two people fighting independently were actually more likely to do damage to each other than whoever they were fighting against, unless they worked efficiently and were aware of each other.

It was one of the excuses Douglas had used to keep me from the hunting teams. I hadn’t been out with them before, I hadn’t trained with them, he didn’t want me to join them for the first time while they were on a mission…

Now, I was grateful for those excuses Douglas had made.

At the time, though, I’d been furious. How was I meant to train with the hunting parties if I didn’t go out with them, but I wasn’t allowed to join them until Ihadtrained with them?

Glimmer’s aura of magic softened and he walked over to me, his eyes searching my face.

“Was that the wrong thing to say?”

“No. I was just thinking, that was all.”

“You smell unhappy.”

It was still weird that he could smell my emotions. It gave him an advantage I didn’t have.

Pushing that aside, I focused on what I was feeling and tried to articulate it.

“I was just realising how restrictive my training with theridirehas been.”

Glimmer growled and it was a low sound. Comforting. I wanted to press against him and feel those vibrations through my body.

I cleared my throat, trying to think of something to say that wasn’t ‘hold me’ and blurted out, “I always hated that I wasn’t given proper training but now I’m grateful for it.”

“What do you mean by ‘proper’ training? You just held your own against a dragon, so I’d say you were doing pretty well.”

That man was going to make my head big, if he kept on saying things like that.

“I wasn’t allowed to train with the hunting parties.”

“Good.”

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