Page 116 of Storm of Shadows
She fidgets on her seat and then begins. Her reading is a little stilted and I can’t decide if that’s because she’s nervous or because the education system back in our Quarter is horseshit.
She describes the means by which a shadow weaver can use their powers to capture and restrain another person. The different ways it can be done and how it can be used.
When she finishes the section, she looks up at me.
I fold my arms over my chest. “Any questions, Miss Storm?” She shakes her head. “Then give it a try.”
“There’s no point.”
“Do you really want to argue with me? This punishment is a light one. I can make it tougher if you’d prefer.”
She glances towards the chains hanging from the walls and for the first time in forever I nearly burst into laughter. Is that what she thinks I would do? Chain her to the wall?
The idea has my stomach growling and I close my eyes and focus on breathing through my mouth.
When I open them again, she’s staring at me with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity.
“Did you discover your abilities in one of these classes?” she asks me.
“No.”
“So you already knew you had them?” I stare at her, unblinking. “I don’t have the ability. I’d know if I did. I’m just an ordinary girl. There is nothing special about me.”
The way she smells, the way that anticipation gurgles in my gut, tells me otherwise. She is special.
“Stand up, Miss Storm.”
Reluctantly, and with some obvious discomfort, she rolls up onto her feet.
“Lift your hands and search for the shadows, beckon them forward like you’ve been told.”
I watch her try. Nothing happens. I am not surprised. She’s special but not like that. No one is. Not even me. All the crap they have me teach is bullshit. In the years I’ve been here, not one of my students from another Quarter has possessed the shadow-weaving ability.
It’s just something they say. To give them hope.
I can’t tell her any of this and my own frustration has me picking at the girl instead.
“You’re not trying hard enough, Miss Storm,” I taunt.
She drops her arms and glares at me. “I am.”
“You’re not. All you have to do is reach for the power and …”
I raise my hand and the shadows slip from my fingers, racing across the space towards her. I couldn’t stop them even if I wanted – and I don’t. I want the excuse to touch her – even if it is only like this. My magic curls around her wrists, twines aroundher waist, slithers around her throat. The binds hold her in place and her emerald eyes widen in horror.
It would be so easy to close the distance between us, to close the distance and …
But I’m not like her. I refuse to be.
“See,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. Her skin against my magic is soft and smooth. I can feel her pulse. I can feel how very alive she is. “It’s easy.”
“For you,” she says, holding as still as she can and refusing to struggle against my binds, that passive expression falling over her face.
She’s so obviously a fighter, always champing at the bit to argue every opportunity she can. And then every so often she sees she is beat, that she is too weak to win, and that curtain falls over her face, all that fight hidden behind it.
It’s the very opposite of provocative. It has shame creeping through me and my shadows retreating.
Where did she learn to do that? And more to the point, why?
