She Rises, page 7
She peeks over at Ned, who’s standing in one corner pouting. “What? How are you supposed to get her ready before then? I believe you can turn her into a warrior but in two weeks? That’ll require a miracle.”
“Hey!” I shout. My pride is seriously taking a hit today, first the Commander and now Raven.
Ned turns around to answer Raven, ignoring my outburst. “You’re right, I know, but he put his neck out for us to do this and he needs to show some results. I understand his reasoning. I know she can do it; we can do it. Besides, I know him, and he won’t make the first mission impossible for us. Hopefully, we’ll just be getting supplies.”
Ned turns to me, his brow furrowed and his jaw set with a hard, serious look on his face. “But this means we’re going to have to train a lot harder immediately. I’d planned to ease you into this, get you stronger and faster, but we don’t have that luxury now.”
As soon as those last words leave his lips, he punches me square in the mouth, knocking me hard to the ground, my back cracking on the padded floor.
I cover my mouth and a wet liquid covers my palm. I pull my hand away and gaze down at it, seeing red. A warmth trickles down my chin, and I know it’s blood.
“What the hell?! You punched me in the mouth!”
Ned just shrugs his shoulders. “Always have your guard up! I told you this would be tough, now get up, it’s time to spar.”
I begrudgingly pull myself up off of the ground cursing him under my breath.
The rest of the day is spent sparring almost nonstop. Now I know my father was softer on me than I realized. Ned doesn’t pull any of his punches, and we fight at full force and speed. We spar until I can’t throw one more punch, and that’s when Ned finally calls it a night. We did make some progress today, though. By the end of the session, I even managed to knock Ned's legs out from under him.
Ned hands me a glass of Restore before saying goodnight. I down it before I throw Raven some food, give her a hug, and head to bed.
By the time I make it back into my room, my lip aches so badly I don’t even want to eat dinner. I feel like tenderized meat. Sometime during our “training session”, I’m not sure it wasn’t simply a way for Ned to get out his anger, Ned hit me in the eye, and I can tell it's swelling as I walk to my room. When I make it to my room, I don’t even change into my nightgown before I fall into bed and drift off into a deep sleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I hear someone knock on my door, but I just roll over, ignoring the rapping. The knocking lasts for a while before I hear James call to me.
“Attina, please, I need to talk to you.”
I pull my covers up over my head and go back to sleep. His begging may have worked on me back when we were living at home and everything was simple, but I’m not that innocent girl anymore. When he finally leaves my door, I close my eyes and drift off.
10
Allister
I’ve been searching for an entrance into this place for three days straight and all I’ve managed to do is get hopelessly lost over and over. I can sense where Attina is. It’s like a strand connecting from my heart to hers is pulling me to her, but somehow I still can’t get to her.
I would normally be okay with that; I have no doubt in my mind she can take care of herself against another human, but since I got here, every once in a while fear springs out of her. That same string connecting us shoots her emotions into me like a beacon. The fear coming from her isn’t true terror, but there is an element of helplessness behind it and it angers me beyond measure. It’s taking everything I have in me not to just rip this place apart and drag her away from here.
No one is allowed to make her feel like that. Not Henrik and definitely not some lowly human.
No one.
I’ve been racking my brain since I left Henrik’s throne room a week ago. What could be so special about Attina? She’s the first half-breed I’ve ever heard of but I’d think the human part of one would make them weaker than a normal Fae. Maybe they wouldn't even have Fae powers. So why would Henrik be this afraid of something weaker than him?
He wouldn't be.
I’ve analyzed it over and over, and the one thing I keep coming back to is Titania.
Henrik told everyone she died on the Day of Destruction, but anyone who knew her or fought beside her didn’t believe it. She was too good of a fighter to be killed by any human.
Which leaves us with the question; what actually happened to Titania?
Some people think she ran away from her father, but others say she would never leave her people in the diabolical hands of Henrik. Those others say Henrik saw how much their people loved her, was threatened by her, and had her killed.
What if the truth was somewhere in the middle, though? What if, for some reason, beyond her control, she had to leave? I agree she would never leave her people unless she had no other choice. But in the end, all we really know for sure is she disappeared during the fight on the Day of Destruction.
Now that I've met Attina, though, I can see she bears a striking resemblance to Titania. So much so that when I first laid eyes on her, I had to do a double take, which gives me a theory.
What if Titania met someone on that fateful night? What if that someone was her mate, and what if her mate was a human? She would have no choice but to run away with him unless she wanted to be parted from him forever.
Then what if the two of them had a child together? That child, half-breed or not, would become the heir to the Fae throne. What if the half-breed heir could lead us out of an age of pain and fear and into an age of peace and harmony. She could be the balance between human and Fae.
If my theory is correct, Henrik would definitely have a reason to be threatened by someone like her, the daughter of someone the Fae already respected. The only problem is the Fae will only respect Attina if she can defeat Henrik, which will not be easy.
11
Attina
I wake up early the next morning. Well, I don’t exactly know it’s early until I light my lantern and peek at the clock. Ned told me we’d have to start practice early every day until our mission to make me as ready as humanly possible. Six in the morning should be early enough, right?
As I pad across my room to my wardrobe, I glance down at another letter James pushed under my door last night and huff. I can’t believe he thinks that will fix what’s broken between us. I step on the letter as I make my way to grab the sweats I’ll be wearing for the day.
After I grab a quick breakfast at the cafeteria, I head down three levels to meet Ned in our training room. I only grab a piece of toast and throw a fried egg on top of it, grabbing a glass of water as I go. I want to be early for our training session and have some time to talk to Raven in private. I’m not sure what to do about James, maybe Raven will be able to help me get my thoughts straight about him.
As I walk to the training area, I notice Raven has her head sticking into the room already.
That’s weird, I wonder what she’s looking at.
I hurriedly shove the last of my breakfast in my mouth as I walk through the short hall and into our room. Now that I’m closer I can hear something that sounds distinctly like huffing. I turn the corner and see Ned doing pushups in the middle of the room.
I walk inside, and Ned gazes up at me but says nothing, just continues doing pushups. I’m not sure if he’s simply in a groove or ignoring me on purpose.
Instead of interrupting him, I walk over to Raven and give her some pats on the neck.
“Hey, girl, how’s it going?”
Raven doesn’t even glance at me. We just sit there in awkward silence, when she does answer, she doesn’t even turn her head to look at me and her voice is reproachful.
“Why are you late? We’ve had this conversation before back at camp. I don’t know how to get it through your head, this is something to be taken seriously.”
I walk in front of her, forcing her to look at me. “What are you talking about? I’m here for early training.”
“You think this is early, girl?” Her voice hardening with each word.
I glance behind me at Ned, who’s barely finished doing pushups and is now walking toward the back corner of the room, where a small table sits with two towels, two cups, and a pitcher of water. As he wipes the sweat off of his forehead, I notice his shirt is soaked through like someone threw a bucket of water on him. Even his skin must be closer to how it must have looked the day of whatever accident he was in. The sweat glistening off of his skin has brightened the pinkened skin on the right side of his body.
Fuck.
He must have been here for hours to be so incredibly sweaty. My shoulders fall and I stare at my feet, defeated.
“How long has he been here?”
Raven snaps her head away from me and gazes at Ned. “Since about four this morning and this is the first break he’s taken.”
“Shit,” slips out of my mouth.
“Shit is right, girl!” Ned shouts at me from across the room, making me jump. “This will not happen again or this,” he gestures between me and him as he walks toward us, “is done. I know your parents wanted you to take your rightful place on the throne, but it can’t be your only reason for doing this. You have to want this for you. You have to want it here,” he says as he points to his heart.
My eyes widen and my stomach drops. “I do! I… I didn’t mean to be late. I really thought this was early enough.” My eyes drop to the floor and I fidget with my hands in front of me. “I’m sorry, Ned.”
He stops his advance when he makes it to the middle of the room and he crosses his arms over his chest, annoyance radiating off of him.
“Sorry, doesn’t cut it when it comes to what we’re doing. Either you’re going to put your all into this or we’re not training. If you want to have any chance of beating Henrik you need to be a well-oiled machine; anything less than that and you will die. If you die, all those Fae living under his rule will still be stuck as his subjects for centuries to come. You will have changed nothing and got yourself killed along the way. There is no point sending the lamb to slaughter, so either you put your all into this or we stop your training right here and now.”
I trot over to him. “Ned, I promise I have my all in this. I will put my heart and soul into this. If it’s required, I will gladly give my life to stop Henrik's evil from gripping this world any further.”
Ned nods his head slowly like that was the answer he was searching for. “Okay, then let’s get started, you have a few hours to catch up on, so move your ass.”
* * *
He must be trying to kill me for my transgressions this morning. We’ve run all over this damn place. We started off on the bottom level and ran up and around all five levels. Since I was unconscious when I got here I didn’t get to see all the other levels before. I’ve really only stuck to my room, the cafeteria, and the livestock level, so seeing everything else today was extremely interesting. I'm again reminded this place is massive.
We didn’t stop at running, though. After we ran back to our training room, he made me do pushups until my arms wouldn’t physically lift me anymore. It got to the point where I would push up and just fall back down, smacking my face hard on the mat, but I kept trying. After face planting about eight times, Ned says the first words I’ve heard from him since our exchange this morning.
“All right, even though I find this incredibly amusing, you can stop the pushups.”
I lay there on my stomach with my cheek pressed against the mat, relishing in the coolness of it. The last thing I want right now is to hear another word from Ned, but he obviously insists on making my day a living hell.
“That’s enough of a break. I assume you know how to do sit-ups?”
“Well, I’ve seen James do them in the past…”
“Okay then, turn over on your back and get to it.” He gestures at the floor,
Then he strides over to where Raven’s cubby hole is. I flip on my back and begin the grueling work of doing sit-ups after all the workout I've already done. Raven must have been laying down because I hear some shuffling right before her head pops in to talk to Ned.
It takes me a while to get frustrated with the situation, but it happens. After about ten minutes of doing sit-up after sit-up and after about the sixth time Ned and Raven have chuckled about something, I blow up.
I stop working out, sit up, and wrap my arms around my knees. “What the hell is so damn funny? I notice I’m the only one working here while you two just yuck it up over there.”
Ned and Raven both turn and glance at me. Ned crosses his arms over his chest and opens his mouth to say something, but Raven nudges him, “Let me handle this.”
Ned uncrosses his arms and makes a dramatic sweeping gesture, obviously giving Raven the floor to talk.
“Attina, you were late today. Remember, Ned was already working out this morning when you finally showed up? You, girl, are catching up to what he already did.”
I stare at the ground, my shoulders already curling in on themselves.
“By the way,” Raven continues, “if you must know what we were laughing about, one of his lazier workers fell in the poo pile yesterday. So no, contrary to what you must be thinking, we were not talking about you and how miserable you are at sit-ups.”
I fall further into myself, my body almost curling into a ball.
“Besides, he’s not the one who needs the training. He was already a warrior once, whereas you’ve been a hunter, but a hunter and a warrior are very different things. He’s going to push you to your limits. It won’t be fun, and you will hate both of us at some point by the time we are done molding you into a warrior. If that sounds like too much for you, you better quit now, instead of putting us through all this grueling work and predictably quitting later.”
I feel like her words physically punch me in the gut. A knot built in my stomach, reaching all the way up to my chest during her speech. With every word that fell from her mouth, the tension grew bigger. Like something foreign is going to burst through my chest, splitting me in two at any moment.
I have to do something to release the tension keeping this knot inside of me. Screaming is the only thing I can think of to release the tension.
“No!” I close my eyes and shout, praying it will help.
12
Attina
Before I open my eyes, I hear the wood of our training room creak and sway. When I open my eyes again, I see Ned leaning against the wall of the room. His hands aren’t crossed anymore and he’s pushing himself up off of the wall like he’s fallen back into it. When he raises his eyes to meet mine, they’re blown wide open in shock.
“What the hell was that?”
I cock my head in confusion, “What was what?” My hand goes to my rose necklace.
“You’re joking, right?”
I blankly stare at him, I’m completely confused, and he must see it because, after a couple seconds of silently staring at me, he continues.
“You almost knocked this room down!”
“How?" My brows draw together. "I only yelled.”
“You really don’t know, do you?”
Still in my sitting position, I throw my hands up in frustration. “No, I don’t know what the hell is happening.” I’m so frustrated and annoyed with this conversation that after a breath, I snottily add, “Obviously.”
“You just used some of your magic. Your powers are incredible. You barely went through your Awakening a couple of weeks ago, right?”
“Yes, about a week before we showed up here.” I shift my eyes over to Raven, who’s uncharacteristically quiet. She’s staring at the ground, her eyes big as saucers.
Now I am starting to worry. I’ve never seen Raven act like this. She’s always had some snarky remark. Even after all we’ve been through and how our relationship has grown and evolved, she should have something, anything, to say. But she just sits there and continues to stare wide-eyed at the ground.
I slowly get up to my feet and walk over to her. Before I realize what I’m doing, I have my arms wrapped around her with her head pressed hard into my chest like maybe we can meld into each other and all will be all right. Like we can transport back to a simpler time, when both our fathers were safe and sound at home.
But this isn’t a fairytale and that kind of magic doesn’t exist in any world.
Eventually, we pull away and gaze at each other. Her drooped head and empty, sad look in her eyes tells me everything I need to know. Ned just stood there quietly throughout our exchange, but now he stands up next to me, turning me to him, and places his hands lightly but firmly on my shoulders. His eyes bore into me, but he doesn’t utter a word. I spin my head back and forth between Ned and Raven. Raven with her sad, broken, gray eyes and Ned with his determined, green-colored eyes.
“This isn’t a good thing, is it?”
They glance at each other before gazing back at me. Then they do the weirdest thing I’ve seen two almost strangers do in my life. Without saying anything to the other, they simultaneously shake their heads and answer as one.
“No, Attina. This isn’t good.”
I glance between them confused. “What’s so wrong about me having powers?”
Ned takes his hands off of my shoulders and places them behind his back. As he answers he stalks around me like a predator. And like a predator, he scans me up and down while he walks, sizing me up.
“There's nothing’s wrong with you having powers. You’re half-Fae, you should have powers, but not like this.”
I throw my hands up in defeat and turn so my back is flush with the wall by Raven’s cutout. I’m done with all this cryptic talk and being stalked like prey. Now he stops and stares me straight in the eye as I speak.
“I’m done with this. Tell me what the hell is going on. No more pussyfooting around the question. Just flat out tell me what’s happening!” I wrap my arms in front of my chest. I rub my hands up and down my arms, the motion comforting, and wait for his answer. I don’t have to wait long though, Ned clears his throat and dives right in.
