Page 74 of Clash of Storms
To ignite her power felt like wrestling with a boulder twice her size. Malin gritted her teeth together as she tried to coax that stubborn little coal of magic to life.
Smoke drifted from the thatch of dry grass and twigs she'd set. Malin's heart beat faster. She forced the friction faster and a hot orange flame erupted, licking at her tinder.
Fire.
The closest she'd ever come to touching herdrekiheritage.
Malin slumped onto a log, breathing hard. It felt like she'd run twenty miles with a weight strapped to her back.
It never grew any bloody easier.
When she looked up, Sirius stared at her.
"What?" she demanded in mortification, feeding twigs into the flames. "Did you think I had no magic? Even drekling can use the elements. Sometimes."
His lashes fanned down over his cheeks. "I know. I've just never seen you use magic."
It wasn't something she shared. Even her father had never seen her wield it.
"Why do you fight it so?" he asked, crossing to her side and dumping his pack.
The urge to shield—or flee—came so strongly the muscles in her thighs bunched. She'd been vastly aware of her deficiencies ever since she arrived at the court, but she'd never spoken of them. Not even with Elin.
Still....
Sirius's question aroused her curiosity. She'd never dared ask questions ofdreki. But what if she was doing something wrong? What if there was another way and her stubbornness was thwarting her?
This was the onedrekiwho might answer her.
"What do you mean?" Malin asked stiffly. "It's the only way I can wield Fire."
"You force your magic to work with pure willpower alone. You don't allow the Fire to fill you. You don't embrace it. You give it no oxygen, no fuel, nothing of yourself, but starve it of everything it requires, until pure force provides enough energy for the kindling to catch."
She'd never felt so inadequate. "We're not all born with the gifts of the Goddess, like you. Some of us are weighed down with disadvantages you could never dream of."
"Malin, I'm not chiding you. I'm trying to explain. Who taught you this way to wield your magic?"
"No one. I practiced in my rooms for years until I could summon a small flame."
Sirius grunted under his breath.
"What?" she demanded. "What doesurmphmean?"
"It means,I'm not surprised. You're as stubborn as a rock. It all makes a certain sort of sense. Did your father not explain how the elements work? Did he not try to teach you? He's the lore master." Sirius sounded bewildered.
"He tried. I'm not— When my mother first brought me to the edges of Krafla, he recognized me as his own. He tested me that night to see if there was any magic within me, but I failed. There was nothing within me." The weight of it still sat heavy on her shoulders. Her father had loved her, regardless, but she'd seen the look of disappointment in his eyes that night. She couldn't forget it. And he'd never asked again.
"I was never going to bedreki, like him. But I could see other drekling wield their small magics. I wanted that for me too. So every night I tried to make the fire in my grate burn." She suddenly flushed. "I made this pact with myself: if I couldn't use my magic to light my hearth, then I was not allowed to use flint. I went cold instead."
Sirius gave her a strange look. "Did he know you were trying?"
"Of course not. I wanted to surprise him."
And if she failed, then she didn't want anyone else to see it.
"Ah. So you froze every night because you were too bloody stubborn to ask for help."
"Stubbornness had nothing to do with it."
