Page 13 of Thorns of Frost

“My gut.”

“Good, very good. Identifying your magic and where it resides is the first step. Now, I’m going to run you through a series of tests to determine your strength and ability to connect with your magic. Learning one’s magic and mastering it are vital for powerful fae. Without true control, you’re a threat to everyone around you should your magic become so powerful that you’re unable to control it.”

I snuck a glance over my shoulder to where the prince was still doing chin-ups. My mouth grew dry. He’d removed his tunic. Muscles, beaded with sweat, bunched and moved every time he lifted himself.Blessed Mother. Not an inch of fat was on the male. With each flex of his arms, sinewy tendons rippled, transfixing me.

A smack to the back of my head jolted me forward.

“Enough of that salivating, Lady Seary. We are here to work!”

My cheeks flamed, even more so when the prince cast a knowing look over his shoulder. Embarrassment tumbled through me.Bastard. He’d probably removed his shirt just because he knew it would catch my attention.

Clenching my jaw, I firmly ignored him and concentrated on what Matron Olsander was telling me.

She sat straighter, her no-nonsense aura piercing. “Now, as I was saying, we’ll start with a series of tests.”

* * *

My new tutorspent the next hour going through a multitude of magical assessments that I neither understood nor could explain, but from what I could deduce, my tutor’s affinity was an unusual one. Every time Matron Olsander began a new test, I felt something foreign probing inside me, and after working up the courage to ask her what it was she was doing, she finally told me I was feelingheraffinity.

Apparently, her affinity was a mental one and lay in her ability to sense, stoke, and call out others’ magic while helping them learn to master it. It was what made her such an excellent tutor.

When she finally finished, she sat back and rubbed her chin. “You’re strong, very strong indeed, but I sense other things in you. Slumbering abilities perhaps that haven’t fully manifested.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I don’t believe you’re fully manifested yet, Lady Seary. I believe there’s more to come.”

My hands fluttered. “Are you serious?”

“Do I look like the joking type?”

“No, I mean, it’s just that—” I stumbled with what to say. To have more affinities manifest, ascrazyas that would be, meant that the king could take an even stronger interest in me.Not good.

Matron Olsander shook her head. “You’re an unusual one, Ilara Seary, daughter of Mervalee Territory. Your magic feels unique. I can’t say I’ve encountered another like you before, but something feels deeper in you. Perhaps yet untouched, or maybe not. I could be wrong.”

Please be wrong.“What about the queen? Isn’t she like me?”

“She’s also an unusual one, although she’s unique in her own way. You and she may share the same hair color, but your magic...” She shook her head. “While comparable in strength, your affinities are too different to be considered similar.”

I could sense the prince’s interest from across the room. He’d stopped doing chin-ups a while ago and now stood by the wall, watching and waiting. But since he hadn’t put his shirt back on, I’d refused to look at him again.

But now, after Matron Olsander had revealed what she had, his aura strengthened, brushing around us, demanding my attention. I shivered, trying to dispel the feelings he so easily provoked in me.

The matron cut him a sharp look. “Prince Norivun, if you insist on observing us, I am going to request that you either suppress your Outlets or go elsewhere to expel them.”

The prince dipped his head. “Apologies, Matron Olsander.”

I frowned. “Outlets?”

The matron sighed. “Blessed, I forget how new you are to all of this. Outlets are a learned control of one’s magic, something you shall have to master as well, lest you suffer the consequences. When a fairy is as powerful as the prince andyou, magic can begin to build up in one’s system. It’s imperative that you let steady streams of it out, otherwise it can fester, building inside and resulting in harm to oneself or those around you.”

“Oh.” I sat back, stunned and embarrassed that I literally knew nothing about magic. Since I’d never formed an affinity during maturing age, I’d been labeled a defective, which meant I’d bypassed that part of secondary school. Instead of learning about my magical affinity and how to control it, I’d been sent to the fields to learn about the crops several winters before the other village children.

“Tell me,” my tutor continued, ignoring my blush. “Have you been experiencing any unusual symptoms lately? Perhaps intense aches, electrical jolts, severe stomach cramps, or moments of amnesia?”

I frowned, then thought about the strange reactions I’d had last night at the Betrothed Ball when the king and crown prince had been speaking of me. Several times, it’d felt as though lightning coursed through my veins, and then while dancing with Nuwin, I’d experienced something similar.

“Perhaps the electric one?” I explained in more detail what had occurred last night.

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