“I didn’t poison it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’m not thinking anything.”
“Suit yourself.”
Quick as a flash, his hand darts out and he plucks a particularly plump strawberry off the top of the pile. His eyes hold mine as he takes a bite. I tamp down an unwelcome flutter of envy as I watch him chew, his chiseled jaw working with taunting slowness. The pink tip of his tongue darts out to lick the juice from his bottom lip.
“Delicious,” he murmurs, still looking at me long after the strawberry is gone.
“I’m glad one of us is enjoying himself.”
“Am I not charming you with my delightful company?” His eyes narrow. “I doubt you’d like my less charming side. Trust me.”
“But I don’t trust you.”
“That may be the wisest decision you’ve made so far.”
My pulse’s patter becomes a pound.
He takes another sip of his wine. “Speaking of decisions…perhaps you could explain to me why you thought it wise to summon a power you are blatantly unprepared to wield. Do you have a death wish?”
“No, I have a survival instinct,” I rebut. “I couldn’t breathe. I had to push back the smoke somehow. I didn’t have any other choice.”
“There is always a choice.”
“When the alternatives were giving myself a little nosebleed or being scorched to death…” I shrug. “Things seemed rather clear-cut.”
“A little nosebleed? Is that all you think it was?”
He drains the final sip from his goblet and refills it once more—not with wine, but water from a sturdy stoneware pitcher. He does not drink. He slowly spins the goblet stem between two fingers. Light refracts through the glass, dappling a dozen tiny round diamonds of sunshine across the table’s surface as the liquid begins to swirl.
His voice is low. “Think of every breeze that has ever stirred between every blade of grass in every corner of this world. Think of every ripping squall that has ever filled the sails of every ship in every far-off sea. Think of every soaring current that has carried every bird that dared spread its wings in every distant sky…”
His hand is no longer touching the goblet, yet the liquid in his glass still spins—not slowing but speeding up, faster and faster, a tiny vortex under his command. I taste the tinge of maegic in the air, the faintest whisper of it threading into every breath I take. And beneath it, deep inside my chest, the answering stir of power as my mark blinks awake after a long slumber.
Transfixed, I cannot tear my eyes away as the water rises past the rim of the goblet, stretching toward the sky like a waterspout in the center of an ocean gale. Several globules the size of fat raindrops break off and start to orbit around the glass, a delicate waltz of water and air that mesmerizes me.
I swallow a gasp and force myself to look at the man responsible. He is watching me, paying no attention at all to what is occurring in his water glass, as though the dazzling display costs him so little effort, it is beneath his notice.
“Every gust. Every gale,” he continues. “From a whisper to a scream, from the lightest puff to the wildest tempest…All that resides within you. All that and still more.”
I cannot speak. It is all I can do to keep from gaping at him as the spinning liquid abruptly drops back into his goblet. There is no splash, no messy overflow as it is released from his control. Not even a ripple disturbs the surface. The water is utterly still.
Heart pounding, I tear my eyes from it. He is still watching me. If he sees how rattled I am, he feels no urge to quell my unease. His tone is a light caress; his words are anything but.
“Left unchecked, untrained…you have no idea how easily your own power can break you. It will crack your mind like the shell of an egg if you are not careful. And everything that makes you who you are will spill out onto the pavestones of your skull, a useless puddle of wasted potential.”
Chapter
Sixteen
I pretend not to notice the way my hand shakes as I reach out, snatch my own goblet off the table, and lift the wine to my lips. It is finer than anything I’ve ever consumed, but as I swallow deeply, all I can taste is my own terror.
At what he said.
At what it means for me.
It will crack your mind like the shell of an egg…