Lady Of Lake And Arrow |A Swan Lake Retelling|: Book One

Chapter 8

Hex Cougar - Sweet Dreams

"Are you going to tell me?"

"Tell you what?" Jessa asked Terhen, currently glaring at the fire that he had made in the middle of the clearing. How the hell did he expect her to freeze that?

"That you snuck out of the small tower and was spying on Ryland while perched on that tree," Terhen blatantly answered.

Her concentration faltered.

"I did no such thing." It came out as a sputter.

"No one else saw you, I'll give you credit for that."

Jessa squinted at him through the red and orange flames. His eyes were closed, legs crossed. If she didn't know better, she would've thought he was taking a nap. But making a simple fire was nothing to him. "And how did you see me?"

"So you're admitting you were there when the Prince came."

"I'm not."

Terhen slowly opened his eyes. The fire died down, giving Jessa a clearer view of him.

"Are you mad at me?" She asked.

"No."

"Will you lock me in my tiny room for a week?"

Terhen gave an irritated grunt. "No."

"Then I snuck out of the fortress and saw you with the Young Prince," Jessa admitted nonchalantly. She didn't miss the fact that Terhen seemed to be the only one so far to know she had got out of the fortress tower alone two times.

"Just because I'm not going to do anything to you, you confess to your wrongdoings immediately?" He raised a brow.

She smirked. "It's not all the time I do that. Might as well be lying." He scoffed. His fire flickered to life again.

"Focus," he said, turning back to being expressionless.

Jessa sighed. "For a famous person, you act pretty lazy for a trainer. Who sits around a fire for more than half the day and calls it a class? And I'm going to be here for a year."

"Says the girl who keeps asking questions and can barely keep control of her powers."

"Give me some knives and I'll show you what I can really do."

Terhen narrowed his eyes at her from the other side of the fire. "Tell me that again when I actually think you deserve it."

Without thinking, she stuck out her tongue. She wasn't sure if he could see it with the fire between them, but in a way it made her feel better, childish as it was.

It was already a challenge to freeze small objects. It was harder, though, to freeze an actual moving thing like flames. Fire was energy and life, ready to devour anything in its path. A natural weapon from Klemetra, the Earth Mother, and one that Terhen controlled, not her.

If only . . .

No. That had been taken away from her for years, since she was seven, even before Jessa ran away from her country. It was stupid to think about it, when all she had now was freezing things and creating ice as her powers.

Enough. It was enough. Jessa shuddered, thankful for the blazing fire in front of her to obscure most of it from Terhen.

Her former abilities were gone forever.

In her rage, a cooling sensation filled her body, and ice exploded from her. It froze the fire in front of her–shattered into tiny icicles, then spread to half of the clearing. Terhen was on his feet in an instant, clearly not expecting for Jessa to go that far.