Page 121 of Season Warriors & Wolves

The one thing I still was trying to master.

The wind halted wherever the strands of darkness pouring out of him touched the space of air. Little by little, it crawled to me, spreading around, doubling and tripling, while it rose and engulfed me under it.

My own magic formed a shield around me, both keeping it under control and away from reaching me. I jerked when a cold hand wrapped at the back of my neck. But there was no cold hand on my neck no matter how many times I searched. My skin was still warm at the touch. The same cold hand then wrapped around my ankle, wrists and throat, feeling like chains.

Lightning blasted around me, panicked and uncontrollably.

A black blade cut right through the thick black mist in my direction, and I managed to lean back, narrowly avoiding being cut by it. My heart pounded hard against my chest while I spun round to grasp a presence in the darkness.

Mal’s laughter echoed around me though I couldn’t see or feel him.

“If concentrating on keeping your magic steady takes this much of your attention off,” Kilian’s voice slipped through as if he was speaking in my ear, “then what is the point of doing this if you are going to lose control of it still. Concentrate.”

Everything grew louder when I tried to focus on my surroundings and so did my magic, suddenly drawing more than I was willing it to. Loud. So loud. Every noise in the distance, below and above. My magic grew its own mind the more mine slipped away.

Kilian’s voice whispered in my ear again, “It’s part of you, stop treating it like its own creature.”

But it was its own creature.

A prisoned creature who’d just gotten a taste of freedom.

“Snow,” he warned, feeling the seal on my back start to slip open more than usual.

Shaking my head, I shut my eyes and just listened to the movement, letting the wind guide me until someone knocked me from behind, causing me to greet the gravel with my face.

“Mal, I am going to cut your fucking hands,” came Kilian’s sleek voice from around the blinding darkness.

The younger brother chuckled somewhere in the distance while I hoisted myself up. Too much noise. Too much of everything. The wind. The birds. My own thoughts. Especially them. Why—why was I letting myself be haunted again?

Darkness vanished, revealing the white snow flowers and the panic I had hid in it.

My husband looked between Mal and I, whatever he could not read in me, he read on his brother because hurt flashed through his cold face.

Kilian picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. “Change of plans.”

“What?”

He faded us in the middle of the Amaris castle gardens and lowered me down on a bench before disappearing to return with a bunch of garden tools in his hands. “I know you don’t mind getting those hands dirty, so come here,” he said, pointing his chin to where he was.

I picked up a glove. “You want me to…garden?”

“Mhm.”

The moment I saw a worm writhe in the fresh soil, I gagged. “Darling, I can’t possibly.”

He chuckled, lowering me beside him in front of a little square patch already half planted with some daffodils. “They don’t bite,” he said, picking the disgusting creature in his palm and moving it further away from us. “And they’re good guys. They help the soil breathe.”

“Doesn’t make them less disgusting.”

He nudged my shoulder. “Come on, woman, they are adorable.”

I gaped, offended. “You’ve called me adorable before. Do we fall in the same category?”

The look of shock in his face told me much. “No?”

“You’re lucky I’m not wearing a dress,” I mumbled, putting the bloody gloves on a bit too angrily. “What now?”

He took a small pot planted with a daffodil and turned it upside down, shaking it until the flower came out along with the slab of soil. “They’ve been growing in the greenhouse for a little while, we can now plant them in the soil. Atlas has already spread fertiliser on it, so we just make room,” he explained, digging a little hole in the soil with his hand and placing the plant in it. “That’s it. Now we do it a few hundred times.”