A Court of Heritance and Destiny

Chapter 12 She

She was sweating like crazy as Orion took her on the paths deep in the forest. The backpack was heavy with equipment, but she didn't complain. No she needed to do this, to build her body up.

After that fiasco with the logs, he had started to train her physically. They ran among the trees, he made her hit padded blocks of wood, other exercises that made her body wet with sweat. But it also made her magic stronger. That feeling of holding back eased with each passing day. As if the magic in her veins started to get the room it needed inside of her. But today was not anything like that.

Instead of a run and some exercises, he gave her a backpack and told her to walk with him.

"We will work on your stamina." He explained, "We don't stop until nightfall."

Even if winter was around the corner, the day was warm, a clear blue sky and a burning sun high above them. The ground under them started to tilt up, and she looked forward, seeing the steep climb that came before them.

Can I do that? She asked herself, doubting her shaking legs ability to take her up there. I can do it. She swallowed, having no intentions of giving up too early again.

"We will take a quick rest after this climb." Orion called over his shoulder, she nodded and forced herself forward.

Keep on going, keep on going... Her foot slipped one time and then another, for a while she was on her hands and feet climbing up the slope. Her body started to give out, how long had they been out walking? Five, six hours? She came to the top and almost fell to the ground again. Something she refused to do anymore. No more falling, no more failing.

"How long have we been walking?" She asked, placing down her backpack. The sun stood low, almost disappearing behind the mountains.

"Six hours." Orion started to unpack his own bag, "I think this is a good place to set up camp for the night." She nodded and lifted her hand, ready to call to her powers to aid. She had started to learn how to manipulate other objects without damaging them, and this seemed like a good place to practise that.

"Let your powers rest." Orion told her, his hand came down over her wrist. "I will set things up, just rest."

"But I want to help." She told him, but the Darkbringer just shook his head in response.

"I am asking you to rest, it is just as important as training. And this hike was a long one." She stayed still, trying to find a way to argue back, but her shaking legs and exhausted body accepted the command. So she sat there, looking on as he prepared everything.

After that day with her training, something had changed between them. He stayed on the sofa with her at night, sleeping next to her. The two were closer, but nothing more, nothing to close. A part of her wanted more, and another was scared. Scared that they would cross a line impossible to go back from. So she just accepted it to be as it was. Close, but not to close, friends, and still something more.

"My father used to take me out hiking like this." Orion said once he had a fire started, "A tradition among the Illyrians."

"You are Illyrian too?" She asked, a Darkbringer, and Illyrian?

"No..." Orion sat back on his feet, pulling up some dried meat for food. "Azriel and Gwyn adopted me when I was two, they raised me with some of the Illyrian traditions, but not all."

"Which ones?" She asked, trying to understand what part of her history she had missed.

"The training, of course, I learned about the wind's songs. But I don't hear them." He sighed. "Traditions, well, I learned about them, but we only followed a few." She nodded, trying to see what that could be. What traditions did she not know about, here or even back in spring.