“Core strengthening. I assume you’ve done a plank before?”
I hadn’t, but I knew what it was. “Obviously.”
I settled on a grassy spot a few feet away from the lake and positioned myself on my forearms and the balls of my feet. It was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be. “How long do I have to stay like this?”
“Hmm, let’s say, the length of time it took for you to warm up.” There was amusement in his voice. “And you’re doing it wrong. Your back needs to be lower. Lower.”
Kilian groaned in frustration, and I could see his boots striding toward me. He dropped one knee to the ground beside my head, his hands tracing the curve of my lower back, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the feel of his hands on my body. He pushed gently, leveling me until I was perfectly parallel with the ground.
That’s when I realized that planks were the most torturous exercise on the planet.
“Keep your core tight,” Kilian’s voice was a whisper at my ear, and I trembled.
I blew a steady breath from my lips, holding the position for as long as I could. But with each passing second, my muscles vibrated harder, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I flopped onto my back, my chest heaving as I stared up at the cloudless sky.
Kilian sat on the ground beside me, shaking his head. “One minute. That’s pathetic, Lirah.”
“Fuck off.”
He chuckled. The sound was rich and dark, and I angled my head to look at him.
The meeting with Augustine still weighed heavily on me. One run and a plank was not enough to shake off the feeling of hopelessness left from that conversation.
“We thought… We thought Augustine might be able to help us prepare for the Rite. But he basically told us we were going to die. I’ve known about the Trials nearly my entire life and how supremely unlikely it is for anyone to survive, but… I don’t know.” I blew out a breath. I didn’t even know why I was telling him all this when he didn’t care. “I guess I was just hopeful. Not even just for me. I want to survive, but I want Lana and Moric, the other candidates, to live as well.”
“Augustine didn’t tell you anything about the Rite?”
“He said there were methods to equip our bodies. He didn’t bother explaining, basically said we won’t master them in our remaining time here. Quite honestly, I’m wondering at the point of competing in the third Trial if I’m just going to die during the Rite.” It was morbid and depressing, but true.
“Augustine is right,” Kilian said. “There are things you can do to prepare for the Rite, to increase your odds of survival, but even then, it’s not guaranteed. And it takes a lot of practice.”
I raised up on my elbows to look at him better. “How do you do it?”
“The current that passes through you during the Rite can be managed if you have an adequate outlet for the excess. It’ll be a different method for everyone, depending on the power they’ve been gifted, but in theory, if you have a good grasp on the magic drawn from the link, you can use it to expel the surplus current. You’d have to let some of the current throughin order to effect the change from mortal to elven, but the rest would need to be expelled before it kills you. That’s the general principle.”
“If it’s a current…” I thought out loud. “Will it affect me? I’ve wielded your lightning before and it hasn’t majorly harmed me.”
“The current during the Rite is vastly different to mine, and a far higher voltage than anything you’ve managed. It will be too damaging for your body, unless you’re able to expel some of it.”
“Why isn’t this more widely known?” I asked. “If there’s something we can do to prepare for the Rite, we should have been told from the start.”
“You weren’t told because it’s not a guaranteed way to pass the Rite. The type of skill required to discharge the extra current takes more practice than you or anyone else will have time for. We try to train you in both magic and combat. It’s never enough,” Kilian said. “You think we haven’t tried training mortals on how to expel the surplus current? For the first few decades, all we did was train them. And you know what happened? Everyone still died. We don’t tell you because hope is dangerous, Lirah. When you hope, the disappointment is even more heartbreaking.”
“But there’s a chance, right?” I pressed. “Minute, but still possible. Right?”
“Yes,” he murmured. “There’s a chance. I want to train you. I insist on it. But you need to understand that there’s an even higher chance that the preparation still won’t be enough.”
“I understand that.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Show me what to do.”
He took my hand. Warmth radiated from the point of contact and my stomach somersaulted like I was in free fall.
“Septimus taught you how to clear your mind?” he asked.
“Yeah. I was able to summon a ball of darkness for a few moments.”