Page 9
He stills. Then he slides the dagger back into its sheath, and the glow dies.
“That’s one drill.”
“It’s an entire teaching philosophy,” I say, and despite his heat still pressing against me, I’m locked in now, building the argument the way I build research frameworks for papers. “A divine affinity doesn’t know that I need to feel a mistake in my body forty times before I’ll stop overthinking it. It doesn’t know that Vera Jackson learns faster through frustration than instruction, or that Nina Aldridge processes spatial combat through mapping instead of repetition. You adapted your methods for every student in our class, and adaptation is learned behavior, not inherited instinct.”
“You can’t separate the two.” His breathing quickens, but the heat’s stopped climbing.
“Then all your students should be failing.” My pulse is hammering, but I take a deep breath and control it, because I think I’m getting through to him, and I refuse to stop now. “But they’re improving. I’m improving.”
“Your magic was amplified by the Crown,” he reminds me—as if I could ever forget.
“That was less than two weeks ago. I walked into your class knowing the textbook mechanics of every standard disarm, but I was losing every sparring match because I was running calculations instead of fighting. Five weeks later—which was three weeks before the Crown—I could beat students with twice my speed, because you taught me to stop thinking and start moving.” I step closer, and his heat pushes back, but I hold my ground. “Did war-blood do that for me? Did Ares reach down and fix my footwork?”
His eyes lock on mine, the green bleeding back through the amber.
“No.” His thumb finds the hilt of his dagger again, tracing the leather in slow circles, and the amber glow leaves his eyes completely. “But which version of me is the real one? The man who made you repeat a disarm forty times, or the one whose blades orbit his body without being asked? Because when that was happening, I didn’t feel like a teacher. I felt like a weapon. And the weapon felt more like me than the teacher ever has.”
The words land in my chest and stay there. Because I don’t have a logical rebuttal for that. I can argue about teaching methodology and student improvement all day long, but I can’t argue with what he felt, and I can’t tell him which version of himself is real. I wish I could, but I can’t.
“Maybe they’re both real,” I finally say, the words coming out slower than I want them to. “Maybe the teacher and the weapon aren’t two different versions of you. Maybe the weapon is what happens when the teacher stops holding himself back.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s not meant to be reassuring. It’s meant to be accurate.” I step closer, and my scanning floods my brain with numbers that have nothing to do with the argument and everything to do with the fact that I’m standing close enough to count his eyelashes. “You told me on Lotus Island that if you go too long without a fight, the violence starts choosing for you. You said you’d rather be a weapon than a monster.”
“That’s true. It’s always been true.” His pulse spikes, and his blade pulses gold. “But the Geryon said the hunger I feel now will seem mild compared to what’s coming. So what happens when it pushes harder than it did just now? I’ve been suppressing it for my entire life, but it’s out now, and it’s here to stay. How do I stop it from getting worse? How do I stop it from consuming me completely?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But the answers are out there. We just need to find them.”
His heat steadies, and the dangerous, fractured energy that’s been pouring off him since the Geryon condenses and focuses. His green eyes sharpen, chaos organizing into the pointed intensity he carries in the Scorched Circles.
“What kind of answers?” he asks, and just like that, I can breathe again without my lungs being burned by his heat.
“Real ones. Primary sources. Not prophecies, and not fate-thread riddles. We need information about what the war-blood actually is, what its hunger looks like, and how to stay ahead of it before it decides for you.”
“And where do we find this information?”
“I want to find people connected to Ares.” I bite my lip, thinking back on anything I’ve ever read about the god of war. “The Amazons are a race of warrior women descended from him. If any of them are alive, they’ll share your blood. Which means they’ll have answers that prophecies and libraries can’t give us.”
His thermal output plunges so fast that goosebumps erupt across my skin, and the sudden cold after all that searing heat makes me gasp.
“Where do we find them?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say again, which is literally the last thing in the world I like to admit. “But I know someone who might.”
4
JADE
Logan drops the barrier.
The black fire collapses, salt air slams against my skin, and my hand finds his. His fingers close around mine, electricity sparking between us as we scan the deck.
Kieran and Evie are by the railing, staring at us with expressions that could kill.
“We’re leaving,” Evie says, and my gut clenches, because the girl looking at me isn’t the shattered, screaming Evie from earlier. She’s cool and composed in a way that makes electricity crackle over my fingers. “Kieran and I have our own mission, and it doesn’t involve Pine Valley.”
“Where are you going?”
