Silver Hollow (24 page)
“If you believe this, you do not know me at all, Jessamiene.”
“I never said I
wanted
to know you,” she bit back. His eyes widened a fraction before dulling into their usual grim irony. “Look, I get that Uncle Henry assigned you to me. I’m grateful, really. You saved my life once…and I’ll do these lessons because I owe you for that.
But no one else around here trusts you, so don’t expect me to start.” Pulling apart from his grip, she escaped his hold. Emrys let his hands fall to his sides as she turned on her heel and ran away.
A letter came to her the following day by mail. The parchment was resting on her breakfast tray and Amie ripped the seal the instant she recognized Uncle Henry’s handwriting. Her spirits fell after she devoured its contents.
“I am delayed by my visit to the Lowetide and Belletine residences, and regret to tell you not to expect me for another two evenings. Trouble has been brewing between the lesser houses and I am taxed with trying to mend the old alliances. We must stand united or we fall as one.
I hope you are well cared for. Perhaps I shouldn’t relay to you the threats I made were I to learn otherwise upon my return.
Emrys the Merlin I have sent to you only out of necessity. He shall teach you in ways I cannot. Visit the Hall of Portraits and take heart, remembering the legacy you have been born to. My faith in your promise is unparalleled.
Love,
Uncle Henry”
…
Lessons with Emrys were tense after their confrontation in the weapon room. With Henry’s return postponed, and Amie forced to deal with his replacement coach, she was too close to losing it. She hadn’t forgotten Emrys’ condescending views of her or her uncle. He m
ight
be Henry’s guest, but
this
didn’t mean she had to enjoy her time with him. As Henry said in his letter, she only needed to view her stalker as a necessity. Once again he stole one of her senses, made her rely on other ways of knowing, rely on
him
. Every time his dark orbs met hers they grew harder, more determined. For whatever reason he seemed hell bent on turning her into an enchantress, and she would have loved to know why. Every time she broached the subject he put her off with some snarky comment and proceeded to torture her with impossible tasks.
When Amie questioned his methods, Emrys threw up his hands and said, “Ye want them to steal your
nixy
, be my guest. Let those addled fools pamper and primp ye into their little princess and they’ll bleed ye in the first five minutes.”
“Sorry I asked…So what else are we doing today? I think I know enough about being blind and deaf already.” Amie picked the dirt from her fingernails to keep her hands from trembling.
Wringing his hands at his side, flexing and clenching them into fists again, he shot her a grim visage. “Give a man room to breathe, would you?”
Amie shrugged, wrapped her arms round her middle. “Sorry I asked.” The moment he turned his back she frowned and wondered why he seemed so nervous. From what she knew of Emrys
Bane of the Vale
, there was little that could shatter his pessimistic view of both worlds, in and outside Silver Hollow. A lack of emotion dulled his features as he slowly paced round her. It unnerved her, though she did her best to steel her knees and clench her fingers and above all things
not
to twist her father’s magically shrunken ring like she was wont to do.
“When you are faced with an impossible enemy you have thr
ee
times to
nix
him
,
Jessamiene, only once to
blither
him to the pitch.”
Amie bit her lip to contain her laughter, found the task simple when his black eyes narrowed darkly. With a feather
-
light touch he pressed his fingers to her chest and said, “You will have no time to laugh with the world burning to ashes around you, no time for anything but your instincts in the end.”
“Sure thing, Obi-Wan,” she replied.
Amie was unprepared for the leg that swept her off her feet and onto the hard turf. “O
w
!” Amie shouted, about to protest until she saw he wasn’t finished. Following her descent by straddling her waist and throwing himself over her, he grabbed her arm, clutched it and pulled it till it was primed to break. She winced when he turned to meet her eye. Their breath collided with the air between them until she forgot to struggle.
“Metal is what the enemy trains with in these dark years of forgetting, not their souls. The weakest have forgotten how to harness their inner
nixy
. When the time comes, Jessamiene, ye must be willing to use
anything
to stop them.” A flicker of hesitation washed his features, softened them to tempered emotion. Sitting up, he released her arms, eyes hardening as he added, “Now, fight back.”
“You’re kidding me?” She laughed. “Not saying I wouldn’t mind socking you in the jaw, but you’re a lot stronger than me.”
“And my physical strength has little to do with all you are capable of within. Now fight back!”
Amie struggled to push him away, went Catwoman on him by scratching with her nails when this failed. Kicking her legs and bashing her knees only made his eyes narrow. Faster than she could catch him, Emrys flipped her so she lay on her stomach, his legs locking hers from behind. With their cheeks now pressed tightly together, it was all she could do to scream.
“What am I supposed to do? I don’t know how to fight!”
“Ye have to be better than them! Use your inner
nixy
, Jessamiene! Unleash it!” His words were familiar, echoed those of the old cabb
ie
whose carriage carried her here.
Unleash the beast…
Amie had no clue how to unleash her
nixy
, didn’t understand what the
nixy
was
,
though the meaning was hinted at by the servants and in pieces in the forgotten library. Thus far she gathered it was like magic
,
except it went deeper, more like harnessing the energy trapped within a person. And she hadn’t a clue how to tap into it. All she knew was the morning was fading to afternoon already and she was losing her patience.
“Do it!”
h
is voice, hoarse with inflections, shouted roughly into her ear.
“I heard you the first time! I don’t know how!”
“If you don’t, then I will
,
”
h
e warned, his lips brushing her earlobe as he tightened his hold. Amie gasped at the foreign feeling. It had been ages since she had been
held
or felt anything akin to this.
Feelings make you weak
,
chica! Come on
,
he’s not that hot! In fact he’s kind of a jerk.
Growling
,
she struggled to claw at his face. He made the mistake of not holding her arms down this time. Cursing the moment her nail caught the skin of his cheek, he reclaimed his hold then pulled until she felt her shoulder would burst from its socket any second.
“Fight me
,
” he hissed.
“Stop, you’re hurting me!”
“Good
.
In your pain, in your emotion, in your
soul
, you will find the will to fight, Jessamiene. Now use it!”
“I can’t!” She trembled, began to shake against the inferno of her emotions and all the fears she fought. His words invoked sensory images she
would
rather forget, the touch of her mother’s hand smoothing her fevered brow,
her
father’s caress at the tip of her nose, strong
hands reaching deep within her chest as Emrys sewed her back together from the inside out. She was brought back by the sound of his voice.
“You’re afraid to give in
,
aren’t you? You’ve lived your whole life afraid of the dark rather than face it! Ye aren’t worthy of Iudicael’s favor
,
Jessamiene, not worthy of the
Emerald Eyes
!”
She screamed and the trembling turned to violent shakes. Her skin felt on fire, alive. The silver blood she had seen coursing through her veins pulsed faster
,
sent sharp shivers of unmaking through the barriers. Amie flung her head back into his, stretched out her limbs with a cry of defiance and watched the world illuminate with bursting sheens of lavender light.
Emrys was thrown off her back and sent crashing into the stone bleachers behind them. Struggling to stand on her feet, she clenched her fists, sought to reclaim the pure energy escaping her pores. Turning on Emrys
,
she found him already recovered and rushing her. An inky light surrounded him, seeped from a shadow that should not have been there, until it turned murky bronze. His darker light crashed into hers as he lifted a fist and pushed an invisible rippling force against her power.
Throwing her hands up to stop it, Amie gasped when the sickly black tendrils pierced her hands and flushed up her arms, into her heart and beat in time with each rapid breath. She blinked, saw him laughing and shouting incoherently over the dull roar
filling
their pit.
Son of a nutcracker!
Just to spite him, Amie thrust her hand towards his chest and watched in disbelief as a stream of violet light escaped her, raced through a swirling stream
that
pierced his chest. Throwing his head back
,
he smiled and drew his fists to either side of his chest, unaffected. Emrys controlled the chaos somehow, knew how to warp it snugly back inside of him, like sweeping dust under a rug. It made the shadows around him bolder, lurking beneath the power in his steps.
Ripples of their inner
nixies
met and melded together to create a dome above the amphitheater, bouncing back to reconnect with the earth below. Flowers and plants sprouted up wherever the magical aftershocks touched.
Amie had never felt more drained in her life. Drustan’s ring burned a cold fire on her finger and she fell to her knees, found relief the moment her fingers slipped through the tangle of
grass. Shedding silent tears, Amie watched flowers she had only seen in her dreams sprout from her fingertips.
Emrys sat down on the other side of the lavender flora, drew his knees
up
to rest his long arms
on them
and
tore a
blade of grass between his fingertips. “
I should say it went
better than expected
,
”
h
e mused and spontaneously stretched out, crossed his arms behind his head and with a satisfied grin watch
ed
the last traces of power fizzle to cloudy skies above them.
Bitterly, tucking her wonder and fear aside, she asked, “What did you do to me?” It
couldn’t
have been her. One thing she knew for certain, whatever Emrys had made her do wasn’t happening ever again.
“I only taught ye how to open the door
,
Jessamiene. You’ll be able to tap into it whenever you want now
.
”
H
e chuckled
.
“
A
nd sometimes when you least desire.”
Amie rounded on him. “Just stop! This is insane! None of this makes sense! There is no way on earth I should be able to do any of what I just did!” She wrung her hands furiously the moment she caught the aim of his amused orbs. Freshly sprouted vines broke from their earthy ties and clung to her hands until she shook them free.
Emrys seemed unperturbed with the fact vines were also curling amid her flowers and tearing at his clothes with prickly thorns. Capturing her attention with the potency of a snake charmer’s he said, matter-of-factly, “Unless you belong here,” supplanting what she was too afraid to admit. Emrys laughed while she denied it. “Amie, sooner or later you’re going to have to start accepting you believe more than you’re allowing yourself to see.”
“Right, next thing you’ll be telling me I have a real talent for catching
flobbergidits
!” She rubbed her hands together to contain the last waves of power pushing through her unconscious defenses.
“Would you be open to suggestion? Periwinkle could make use of as much help in the garden as he can get.”
Amie stared amazed at his unflinching gaze, mouth parting then snapping shut as she flung her fists at him and shouted, “I’m being serious!”
“So am I
.
” Emrys laughed, teetered back
,
and the clouds above parted to allow slivers of light to peek and illuminate his dark features into something foreign. His smile was blinding beneath the full weight of the sun. No set of features made Emrys devastating to look at, she then realized. Rather it was the set of his coal
-
black eyes, the sensitive twist of his mouth and all its
hidden hints of expression. Deeper still ran the danger of his person, echoing of an affinity for his dark past. What disturbed her was the sense that the tightly bound danger in him might choose to unleash at any second.