Page 13 of By the Orchid and the Owl
And he mimicked breathing for me, such a simple task I’d taken for granted before now.
Still gasping, I copied him, pretending he was my mirror image, pushing out the pain and reeling the power back in. In and out. In and out.
After a few minutes—or maybe it was an eternity—the nameless terror faded. Like a monster dissolving back into my blood.
I leaned my head back against the wall of the mansion behind me.
“What was that?” I asked weakly.
Coen didn’t answer. He only stood and crossed his arms, and even in my exhausted state, my eyes caught on those muscles folded over such a broad chest. This man could snap my neck in half a second, if he wanted to. He was a fifth-year, meaning he had to be around twenty-three years old, and here I was, barely eighteen and ready to puke on his shoes at any moment.
Yet he’d helped me through it. Had seemed to know whatitwas. So I clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering and repeated, “Whatwasthat?”
Coen clucked his tongue. In the dim light cast by the dusting of stars overhead, I could see a vague smirk returning to his tan face. “Well, well, well, aren’tyoudemanding, for someone who owes me her life?”
“My life?” I repeated, trembling to a stand, if only so I didn’t feel so much smaller than him. My knees quaked, but I locked them in place.
“Yes, yourlife.” Coen narrowed his eyes at me, as if unsure whether to take me seriously or not. “That right there was raw power, without shape or form or container, triggered by the bascite in that stupid ale you drank. And it could have blasted you to bits thatIwould have had to clean up if you hadn’t gotten hold of it like you did.”
“That’s why you saved me, then? So that you didn’t have to clean up bits of my literal flesh?”
I don’t know where my anger was sprouting from, but that little half-smile tugging at the edge of his mouth, the way he continued to stand there with his arms folded as if I were a naughty child… it heated me.
He only fed that heat when he said, all trace of gentleness gone, “More or less. Now.” He rummaged in his pants pocket and brought out a pearl-sized pill pinched between his forefinger and thumb. “Luckily for you, I had this on me tonight. Take it.”
“I don’t need a pain reliever,” I said, even though an ache still touched the back of my neck. “My head is—”
“This isn’t a pain reliever.”
I stared at him.Don’t eat any funny mushrooms, Don had told me jokingly before I’d left. This wasn’t a mushroom, but it might as well have derived from one, for all I knew. What the hell was happening to me right now? I just… wanted to go to sleep, not face… this.
Coen sighed at my silence.
“It’s a power inhibitor. It’ll prevent that—” he swirled his free finger in my direction “—from happening tomorrow when they brand you. Because when they brand you,” he pushed on before I could retort, “that same bascite that triggered your innate power tonight? It will be permanently infused in your blood, and in a higher dose. So you won’t just have one of the sanctioned magics in your system. You’ll have that monster, too. Constantly triggered. Constantly raging.”
That monster. I blew out a puff of shaky air.
“Maybe I should find an instructor. Tell them what happened. Maybe someone can help me harness it, or get it to go away, or—”
“No. Listen to me.” Coen dropped his folded arms. “What’s your name?”
My voice was a jumbled murmur as I said, “Rayna Drey,” for the third time tonight, suddenly so, so weary.
Coen pinched his brow together. “Rainy Days?”
“No.” My voice rose now. “Rayna Drey.”
“I see. Rainy Days doesn’t make much sense anyway, does it? You’re not a soft little drizzle.” His lips tilted up. “You’re more like a raging hurricane.”
“No, I’m not.” I didn’t want to be a hurricane. I didn’t want to be destructive.
Coen ignored me. “What village are you from… Rayna?”
“Alderwick.” I kept my eyes on the pill still between his finger and thumb.
“Pretty repressed village? Full of frightened, branded adults who conceal their magic unless it’s for a Good Council-sanctioned job?”
My eyes snapped from the pill to his face.
