Page 20 of Lakesedge

“Arien!”

Arien looks up, startled. His eyes are as black as the lake. I’m about to reach him when Rowan rounds on me and catches my arm. He wrenches me sharply backward. I fall against him with a thud that pushes out all my breath. He grips me tightly, his gloved hands around the tops of my arms, and pulls me away from the water. Away from Arien.

“Let me go, let me go!” I hit him. Scratch him. He hisses when my fingers scrape his throat.

“Itoldyou!” His eyes are narrowed, his face flushed. He’sfurious. “I told you to stay away!”

He drags me back across the shore. I fight him and fight him. I’m strong, my strength built on buckets of well water, on baskets carried to the village, on the ax chopped into firewood. I’m strong, but Rowan is stronger. I may as well be fighting against the rocks or the trees.

At the edge of the forest, he stops. We’re face-to-face for a moment; then he spins me around with a frustrated growl and pulls me tight against him. My back is pressed hard to his chest and I can feel his heartbeat; it’s racing as fast as mine, perhaps faster.

His breath is rough and unsteady. “You shouldn’t be here. Itoldyou—”

“Get your hands off me!” I dig my fingers into Rowan’s arms. I can’t reach his skin because he’s covered by his gloves and his cloak, so I drive my elbow sharp against his ribs.

“Stop clawing at me, you little beast!”

I twist against him. I have to get away; I have to get back to Arien. “Let me go!”

At the sound of my voice, Arien looks up. He wavers for a moment, biting his lip uncertainly. Then he squares his shoulders, and his face sets into a determined expression. “Leta, get away from here! Leave me alone!”

His voice carries clearly over the flat shore. The shock of his words takes all the fight from me, and I go still. He turns away and walks down to the water.

Clover gives me a sympathetic look; then she and Arien begin to move together with slow, ritualistic steps. Five paces—I count them. Their footsteps make a disjointed circle, which Clover connects into a single shape by dragging her fingers through the mud. She leads Arien into the center of the circle. They kneel together. Arien presses his hands against the ground.

I start to struggle against Rowan again, my stomach tight with fear. A terrified confusion of images rushes through my mind. The blackened lake, the dead bodies of his family. His voice, rough, when he spoke to me beside the forest.I can’t promise you safety.“You told me you wouldn’t hurt him!”

“I’m not trying to hurt him. He’smendingit.” Rowan makes a derisive sound. “Haven’t you ever seen anyone use alchemy before?”

“Alchemy? But Arien, he isn’t…”

I watch Arien as he goes very still and the air around him begins to darken. Shadows—his shadows—spill out from his hands like water poured from a rapid stream.

Clover rolls her sleeves back. The symbols on her arms are glowing, and light gleams from her palms. She touches thesigil, and magic illuminates the carved lines in a wash of gold. Then she puts her hands over Arien’s and pushes down, until the earth begins to close over their fingers.

“Now!” Her teeth are set into a determined grimace. She shoves his hands farther into the mud. “Now, Arien!”

“This is what you wanted?” My eyes start to blur, and I blink, hard. I refuse to cry. Not here, not in front of Rowan. I owe so many tears that if I start now, I won’t be able to stop. “You wanted to use him against this—against this—”

“Corruption.”

“Corruption?”The weight of the word stays in my mouth. He has anamefor the darkness. When I swallow, I can taste it, heavy as the thickened air in the forest clearing, where the trees dripped shadows.

I shake my head, a disbelieving cry caught in my throat. “Arien isn’t—he’s not the same as this terrible darkness!”

Arien turns, and we look at each other across the shore. His face is filled with the same wide-eyed hurt as when Mother put his hands above the candles. His mouth opens, but he doesn’t speak.

“Is that really what you think of him?” Rowan asks. His grip on my arms loosens, and he fixes me with a scathing look. “No wonder he’s so afraid of his power, the way you made him lie and hide. How long were you going to pretend his magic was just bad dreams?”

I wrench free from Rowan’s grasp and slap him, hard, across his face. He stumbles back, his hand to the brightening mark on his cheek. Before he can react, I shove past him andrun toward the water. Clover and Arien are hidden now, circled by shadows. I take a breath and plunge into the darkness.

I fall to my knees, into the cold, black mud. Distantly I hear Rowan’s angry voice as he calls for me. “Get back, damn you—get out of their way!”

I reach out and find Arien’s hand.

“No, Leta!” He tries to shake himself loose. “You’re going to mess everything up!”

A jolt slams through me, and heat sears across my skin. I feel as if all my bones are lit up. At the center of my chest, there’s a swift, taut pull, and my fingers grip tight. The space between our hands hums and hums andburns. And the shadows—they calm. They soften.

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