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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
KARA
“Okay, admit it,” Circe challenges past her ear-to-ear grin—and the sweat-soaked curls that have escaped her high ponytail. “This is way more fun than you thought it would be.”
I stop to catch my breath in the middle of the wild flower field she and Hecate brought me to a couple of hours ago. “Okay, okay,” I laugh out. “Sure. Happy now?”
She cocks her head and retightens her hair. “Believe it or not, despite how soundly you just kicked my ass, yes.”
I let out a longer chuckle and turn my face up to catch more of the sun. It permeates my skin, blending with my endorphins and kicking back some awesome euphoria.
Admittedly, I wasn’t nuts about the venue change for this morning’s enlightenment. I likelookingat scenes like this, with the gentle slopes covered in sun-drenched daisies and poppies, but not tromping through it all in suede ankle boots and a strangely tied-off skirt in the name of a yet-to-be-clarified sorceress soul quest.
If that’s even what this is.
Or maybe that’s exactly what it is.
Maybe my two teachers have actually lost track of their souls—which would be no surprise, based on the friction darting like crazy electrodes between them. It now has me double-checking the status quo of mine.
Better yet, with the amazing being who’s been entrusted with its safekeeping.
Just a few thoughts of Maximus in, and my day is already brighter and better. He has to be the most aptly named male in history. The syllables don’t just reflect his formidability or sing about his beauty, they declare the strength that permeates both. The truth of who he really is.
But it’s time to jump out of those particular clouds. Very clearly, we’re not done with our training games. We began over an hour ago with an elaborate form of hopscotch, where we leaped fifteen feet between our designated squares. After that, we laughed our way through Pendragon, Hecate’s cool update on Marco Polo, with boulders and tree stumps as safe spaces.
Now, despite Circe’s easygoing acceptance of her defeat in the game’s final round, I grow uneasy again. “Uhhh…what’s she up to now?” I mutter, nodding to Hecate’s tiny figure in the distance. “This is way too big a field for Red Rover, even the witchy version.”
The enchantress tilts her head like a questioning cat. “Meaning what?”
“Ermmm…that if you two expect me to swoop all the way over there…”
“Is that how Red Rover is normally played?” She leans in during my long silence. “In aswoop? Or is the challenge better approached one step at a time?”
“Sure,” I mumble. “I mean, I guess.”
Her scrutiny intensifies. “Come now. You must’ve played as a child.”
I toe the ground. “Our tutors didn’t know those kinds of things. During the few years that Kell and I convinced Mother it would be good for us to have somerealschool memories in order to be more relatable as public figures, I was more into the library over the playground. And when I was coaxed out—”
“You had a lot of fun?” She lifts a sagacious smile. Or so she thinks.
“Not exactly.” I hasten to address her jolt of new confusion. “I mean, it was cool feeling like just another normal kid…at first. That was before the boys realized that reading books didn’t make me as weak as parchment. When they couldn’t bend or break me like they first assumed, they got confused and mad. So did all the girls who had crushes on them.”
I’m gratified to watch a wince take over her face. “Mmmph. I’m sorry about that. Doesn’t sound too different from the peasants who couldn’t decide between burning or worshipping me.”
“At least the frog prince must’ve been grateful.”
“For all of a few days,” she mutters. “Which forced me to recognize what a waste of talent he’d been.”
After a defined nod, she shores up her stance. The prouder demeanor has me doing the same, to the point that I nearly forget the awkward swoops of my skirt and the sweat that makes my tank cling in too many uncomfortable places.
“So, did all that make things difficult for Kell and Jaden too?”
I laugh without mirth. “They were both smarter than that. They simply learned how to blend. Kell got in fast with every member of the fashionista crowd, while Jaden chose not to bother with school at all. That landed him an invitation to a clique all its own.”
“Ah. Yes.” A new nod from her is still confident, though in a new way. “Young Valari and his wild ways crew.”
I throw a fast double take. Though that term was practically vernacular a few years ago with the press’s overuse, it’s been a while since I’ve heard it voiced out loud. Jaden’s crazier dubs died when he decided to upgrade his extreme sports.The wild ways crewdoesn’t carry the same ring when it actually applies to a racing car pit team instead of a Valari on a nightclub floor with kohl-eyed groupies.
