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Something was different between us. Something had changed. Me seeing that small part of him might have been the trigger, but I think it all began long before that.
His body was right against mine as we moved, his hands cradling mine as he led me through the motions. Or, at least that’s what I thought we were doing. It was suddenly very hard to think. His chest shook against my back as he breathed, his hands gentle as they cupped my own, his body fluid as together we moved.
It was the same motions as before, but it felt different somehow. Feeling him against me, feeling his strength made all of those tingles become a whirlwind. All of that fear and trepidation vanished.
I had seen the light explode from my hand before, I could do it again. I didn’t know what about the Boy made that possible, but he was the trigger.
I pushed my hand forward in a faux attack, this time expecting something to press from me. There was no explosion, no attack, only a dull white glow that spread around us in an orb, trapping us in a globe of light amidst the pitch of the arena.
I had never seen anything like this, even from my brother who brandished his power of lðt any chance he could. Besides, this was gentler, kinder.
Beautiful.
Gasping, I stopped moving, stepping away from the light and right into the firm weight of the Boy who was frozen behind me.
“Did you see that?” I knew he had. He was stiff, his breathing near frantic as he continued to gaze up to the stars that twinkled brighter than they had before.
“How?” I couldn’t form words. I couldn’t form thoughts. I only stared at the line of the light before the night devoured it.
“Again.” I was already in place, hands already out, but he hadn’t moved. He stood there, that black shroud angled toward me.
“B–” I really didn’t want to use that name again. “Are you alright?”
He jerked as I stepped to him, grabbing his hand. I guess he hadn’t been looking at me at all. My heart thundered in my chest as his breathing rattled against the shroud. He was scared. Panicked.
Ice plunged over the heat that had been rattling through me.
“Don’t worry. It’s still me. I’m not–” He shook his head, cutting me off as he cleared the distance between us in one step.
His breathing continued to erupt in short bursts, his panic matching my own as he grabbed my hand, his one gloved hand reaching up to my face again only to freeze in place as it fluttered above my skin.
I was frozen below him as he moved his hand back, his other hand dropping mine. But he didn’t step back. He didn’t move. That length of black fabric didn’t deviate from its intense focus on me.
I didn’t even realize what he had done until his hand grabbed mine.
His hand.
Not the soft leather I was so used to. Not the cotton gloves he wore at night. His hand. His skin, so hot against mine. The world froze, the slight ice of the air shimmering over everything. His touch, there was something about his touch that was more like magic than anything that was buzzing through me. He entwined his fingers with mine again, that other hot palm reaching up to my face only to stop in the exact same place.
This time it was his skin, his hand so calloused and soft, his skin that soft tanned shade. The heat of his skin radiated toward me; it buzzed through the air as though something was pulling him closer.
All of the buzzing heat exploded over my skin the second his soft and rough fingers pressed against my jaw. The touch was so soft, so light. I may not have even felt it if not for the way it sucked the air from my chest. The way it radiated over everything as his palm pressed to my jaw.
I had turned eighteen many moons ago. So many my age would be married with bellies swollen with child. But there I was, standing in the dark, the touch of a man’s hand against my jaw the first of its kind I had ever felt.
His touch lingered there for only a second before he moved behind me again, his hands still pressed against mine, his chest against my back. His breath shook in my ear as we moved, his bare hands softly cradling mine.
It was hard to think past the swirl of emotion in my mind, hard to breathe past the tangle of excitement in my throat. Rampaging starlight was fluttering over my arms with each motion, the heat of him radiating through me and mixing with heat from the hair, that feeling of nothing and everything making my head spin.
I pressed my hands forward in the attack motion and the arena erupted in light.
It wasn’t the glow of before. It was a pillar of gold and white that spun from my hand, that blazed through the darkness in the light of a sun.
The ribbons of white and gold twisted one over another before slamming into the base of the turret in the middle of the arena. Fingers of light spread over the surface, twisting through the cracks of the bricks before they hardened into something I knew all too well.
“Ice.” The word was a whisper as I stepped forward, the Boy still holding tightly to my hand as we watched the gold burst into a tower of flame right where my attack had impacted against the stone.
“Fire.” The blaze extinguished itself, the ice melting to the sand and leaving behind a trail of green vines. “Soil.”
