Child of Legend - A Shadow and Bone Fanfic

Chapter 5

When morning came the servants came in earlier than usual, they drew me a warm bath and reluctantly I followed, they then brought me breakfast and as promised, a kefta. The kefta was black in colour with golden and black stitching that was a little bit lighter than the kefta itself, Rena put it on and didn't see how this could be bulletproof, it was light and soft to the touch.

When she was ready two guards came and escorted her to a clearing in the forest by the little palace where the Darkling was waiting, they then left. "I'm afraid that I won't be as much help to you with the light as I am with the shadows, unfortunately," he said to her.

"Why, why are you teaching me to use it, I don't want to, I can't" I questioned him.

"You may not want to, but I also don't want you blinding any more of my soldiers" he answered.

I looked down at my feet, "That was an accident"

"You don't seem very sorry that it happened" he said, the corners of his mouth slightly tugging upwards.

"Probably because I'm not" I muttered to myself, "Can we just get on with this"

"First I have a question for you can you control your gift?" He asked me.

I scoffed "Gift?? You call this a gift, more like a curse, didn't your so called 'gift' give each and every one of you a death sentence only a few years ago, yeah some gift that is."

"Can you control it, yes or no" he pressed.

"No" I answered reluctantly.

"Then we better get started, shall we?"

The training was excruciating, I was forever contradicting myself, my abilities seemed to only show when I was touching the Darkling, and even then whenever I called upon one of them the other would get in the way, causing me to lose focus.

I loathe when I had to let him touch me, his touch made me feel tense and uncomfortable, worst of all when a surge would come from me I would slump back, drained, but he was always behind me, holding me.

"Relax" he would chide me, but that was easy for him to say, he wasn't scared that if he made a wrong move or said the wrong thing that he would be cut down or thrown to the volcra.

Hours past and still we were training, and the Darkling didn't look as if he had any intention of stopping soon, "You're holding back" he said when I was catching my breath.

Crouched over, hands on my knees, I merely just looked at him, not finding the energy to answer.

"Suppressing your abilities doesn't do you any good, it only makes you weaker, and wiery," he told me.

"How would you know," I asked duly, how would a man who had embraced everything I had been thought to hate, know of suppressing his abilities.

"Your mother was the same, didn't embrace her full potential, left her weak and sickly looking" he was staring at the setting sun, careful not to meet my gaze.

The mention of my mother hung in the air, I had never known her, or have anyone mention her before, I had always presumed both my parents dead but now staring at my so-called 'father' I didn't know what to believe, was she also alive? And if so why wasn't she here? I took the opportunity, "Is she-"

"Alive? Probably, here? No"

My head was flooding with questions, but I settled on one, "What was her name?" I asked him.

He looked at me as if I was the stupidest person in the world, "Do they teach you anything in Shu Han? Your mother was Grisha, and a powerful one, that is all you need to know, now again, call the light"