#'your stance is sloppy' thanks for confirming snow

[chemicalbrew]

women

women

[imaginedhaven]

Rules of Engagement: Chapter Six

Link to Masterpost

So when I said this “might even come out Thursday” yesterday I had completely mangled my understanding of days and weeks and didn’t realize that at the time “Thursday” and “tomorrow” were synonymous. Whoops! But it was as ready as it was going to get anyway soooo...

Enjoy!

~*~*~

After her birthday, Aelin’s days settled into something resembling a routine. In the mornings, she would train with Aedion and his men. Sometimes she would bring her knives, and more rarely she convinced Aedion to give her another lesson in hand-to-hand fighting. During these morning lessons she retained her human features and senses, in part out of fairness to the men and in part to make certain that if for some reason she was unable to shift, she would not be defenseless.

Her afternoons were filled with training in magic. Though it wasn’t strictly required in order to wield her power, Rowan required her to shift at the start of every lesson.

“Is it because you enjoy seeing someone else with pointy ears?” she had dared to ask once. “It can’t be because of the magic, there are plenty of humans without a drop of Fae blood who can use magic.”

Rowan had simply bared his fangs and growled in response, and she had decided that it wasn’t yet worth pressing her luck. Their newfound lack of animosity was tenuous enough already.

They hadn’t yet discussed any further what had been shared between them that night he had chased her down. Aelin wasn’t certain there was much point in bringing it up. For all of his posturing during their lessons, now that she knew she could see the glimmer of pain that would likely always reside in those pine-green eyes, but he never once acted as though he was in any way affected. If she asked directly, she was only likely to get a barked command to try to light yet another candle.

Perhaps it was a shield, the casual air of cool distance he kept about him so often. If it was, Aelin knew better than to press past it unnecessarily. If he wanted to talk, he would.

Instead, Rowan had crafted what seemed to be an increasingly infuriating series of challenges for her to overcome. Their first lesson after she had finally shifted he had set a candle in front of her on the ground and ordered her to light it. Instead, she had exploded it, and Rowan had needed to quickly smother a ring of fire two feet around where it had once been.

Several weeks and countless lectures about control later, it had become evident that bigger tasks came to her more easily. Of course, Rowan hadn’t allowed her to remain content with that. One candle became two, and two became four, and she would have to focus her entire will on only lighting one of them at a time.

She attempted to practice when she could outside of their lessons as well, but it was difficult to find a place within the palace to work. Most of the inhabitants got understandably nervous while she was playing with fire beside them. And so she settled for the slow improvement she was seeing under Rowan’s training.

She knew she had grown complacent when she felt a glimmer of surprise as she watched the Fae warrior striding toward where she was warming up for another session with Aedion. “I thought we weren’t meeting until after lunch,” she called in place of a greeting.

“You thought wrong,” he replied. “You focus better during your combat lessons. Today, we combine them.”

“You want me to throw fire at you,” Aelin deadpanned as she fought yet another wave of shock.

He grinned in response, chin lifting. Do you think I can’t handle a little heat, Aelin Fireheart? his posture screamed.

Her eyes narrowed. As long as you remember that you asked for it, she thought as she settled into a more open stance and shifted.

Before she could do anything else, a cool breeze blew around them both. A shield, she realized, and this time the surprise she felt was more pleasant.

He nodded, eyes gleaming with satisfaction at her recognition. Nothing will get through that, she read in his expression. Do your worst.

She glanced down at her hands, remembering the feel of a knife against her palm. If she could create fire, and if Rowan was so convinced that she could influence its shape as well, perhaps she could…

A dagger of flame appeared in her right hand, and she grinned as she inspected it more closely. It was light, almost impossibly so, but the fire did not burn her hand. She took a chance and flicked her wrist in a motion that would’ve sent an actual knife into the targets Aedion had set up, focusing all her will on recalling how the blade would fly and slice through the air.

The blade of fire collided with the hard air of Rowan’s shield and dissipated, just over the bullseye of the target.

The pleasure she felt at her success was matched by the brightness of his eyes as he looked on. Before she could say anything, though, he had crafted a blade of ice and was deftly twirling it around his fingers. “You handled a blade well enough,” he called. “But what is the first lesson of any competent combat instructor?”

Before she could open her mouth to reply the ice dagger was sailing through the air, directly toward her face.

Aelin growled, and her flames sprung up around her, clinging like a second skin. The blade Rowan had thrown spluttered and melted a scant fraction of an inch from slicing her cheek.

She glared up at him, only to see he was smirking. “Sloppy,” he said dismissively, “and wasteful. You’ll burn out too quickly if you don’t control your shielding. Small, precise, and controlled, like an actual shield you would wield.”

With a snarl she sent a blade of her fire at him, growling when he didn’t even lift a hand to alter its path just enough to miss him entirely. Please, he seemed to say. I’ve been doing this for centuries, and you started a few short weeks ago.

Two more knives of ice hurtled in her direction, and she thought several foul names for him as loudly as she could as she rushed to summon a shield. This one was smaller, but the edges were frayed and ragged, and she began to sweat from a combination of the effort of maintaining it and the heat. Better?

He lifted a single silver eyebrow in response. Keep trying. You might get somewhere eventually.

She threw the whole shield at him this time, taking advantage of his surprise to throw herself along the path the circle of fire had cleared. He blocked her first swing, but flames kissed the edges of her boots as she swept her foot across his legs and knocked him down for the first time since the day she’d first shifted for him.

Aelin pressed her advantage and pinned him down, fire twining around his wrists before she gasped at the feel of an icy breeze running along the back of her neck. With a smirk he threw her off of himself and froze manacles of ice around her forearms. She grinned back, melting the ice with nothing more than a thought, and launched herself back at him with a shout.

~*~*~

They sparred for another hour or so before Rowan called a halt to it, picking himself up off the ground and then extending a hand down for her. As she took it, the shield around them dissipated and the sound of a whistle pierced the air. A glance around revealed Aedion as the offender, having obviously gathered with several of his men to observe.

Aelin took one step toward him and gasped as her knees buckled. Before she could hit the ground, though, something solid and warm wrapped around her and pressed her into something even more solid and warm, and she dimly realized that Rowan must have caught her before she could fall.

The slight chill still lingering at his fingertips and the scent of snow on the air despite the relatively warm late spring day confirmed her suspicions, and she glanced up at him. “Thanks,” she muttered.

“You’re not used to expending that much energy over an extended period of time,” he said rather than directly responding. “And you didn’t have time to pull it out properly. Honestly, I shouldn’t have let it go on as long as I did. You’ll be fine once you eat something, but if we’d gone too much longer you would’ve risked burning out.”

“That sounds… painful,” she managed as he led her back toward the palace.

“If you extend yourself that far, it will kill you,” he replied. “It will tear you apart inside, and then kill you. If you had prepared in advance of this, tunneled into your power, you could have lasted longer. This is far from the limit of your power.”

“Careful, now,” she teased. “Did it hurt, to compliment me like that?”

His silence was answer enough for Aelin as he pulled her into the kitchen and sat her down, thrusting a bowl of broth into her hands with a wordless command to eat. Still, though, she tried one more time to provoke a reaction out of him. “It’s lucky no one else is around,” she said. “If someone were to see this, they might almost think that you care, and we can’t have that. It’ll ruin your image as a soulless Fae bastard.”

A single silver eyebrow quirked up, but Aelin cheered internally as she saw the faintest glimmer of a grin on his face. “I’ve told you before,” he replied, “I haven’t lost a student during their training yet. It’s a point of personal pride. Nothing to do with you, though I appreciate your concern for my image.”

“Speaking of your image, perhaps you can answer something for me,” Aelin said as she stirred the broth he’d given her. “Aedion’s the one who heard all the storied before you arrived, and there’s one I simply couldn’t believe. He says you once killed a man with a table.”

“Of all the stories your cousin could’ve shared, that’s the one you didn’t believe?” he asked incredulously.

“It just seems so unlikely. What did you do, squash him like a grape?”

His expression turned into a feral grin, one that reminded Aelin very suddenly that she was speaking with someone who had been honing warrior skills and instincts for centuries. “No,” he said, pine-green eyes gleaming. “I tore off the leg of the table and stabbed him with it.”

Aelin deliberately yawned into her broth. “Oh,” she said lightly. “That sounds much less exciting. I think I prefer the way Aedion told it.”

As Rowan sat beside her at last, his posture seemed to say the truth is rarely as glamorous as the stories that are told. Surely you know this.

Aelin shrugged and finally turned her attention fully to the broth, letting out a soft sound of surprise as she realized how hungry she truly was.

Though he didn’t overtly react, the warrior’s eyes were full of laughter. I told you you needed to eat.

Overprotective Fae male bastard, she thought with a scoff. It’s lucky for you I know you’re all like this.

If he responded to her play at nonchalance, or even considered responding, she missed it entirely as she devoured the broth before her. Finally, his voice filtered into her awareness. “You’ll need to eat more than you have been, as we begin working with your magic,” he was saying. “Although your magical ability isn’t decided by your physical strength, how you take care of yourself does have an impact. As you drain your magic, you’ll likely feel a drain on your energy as well.”

“Great. Just wonderful. So I can expect to have two overprotective males hovering instead of one,” she teased.

Rowan stiffened beside her, and she could tell she had unintentionally touched on a point of discomfort. “It is… instinctive, for many Fae—yes, mostly males, stop giving me that look—to be on edge around someone they perceive to be vulnerable to threat, real or imagined. There’s also a cultural element to it, at least where I come from. With you, it helps that you seem to know how to handle yourself even when your magic is drained. That said, it is very difficult—”

“No,” Aelin interrupted.

“No?” he repeated, obviously confused.

“If you’re about to apologize to me for something so deep in your nature, I’m not interested in hearing it,” she explained. “You certainly haven’t apologized for being a bastard, why should I ask or expect you to apologize for being a hovering buzzard?”

He opened his mouth to say something else, but she continued before he could. “You’re not human, Rowan. Anyone who expected you to act like one would be in for a surprise. That being said, I absolutely reserve the right to be annoyed if this keeps up, because it’s in my nature to take care of myself. But I won’t apologize for that, and you don’t apologize for your own nature. Am I clear?”

Pine-green eyes gleamed within his tan face, though with what she couldn’t say. She narrowed her own eyes at his continued silence until he managed a nod in reply. “Good,” she smiled. “Because things were going to be terribly awkward if we went on our trip with you still acting like this.”

She realized her mistake as soon as the light in those eyes turned into ice. “What trip?” he growled.

Aelin laughed, buying herself more time to gauge his reaction. “Trip? Did I say trip?”

He snarled. “Aelin. What. Trip?”

One of the most important lessons for warriors and assassins and rulers alike was knowing when one was outmatched. Sometimes a tactful retreat was the correct response, rather than pressing onward into certain defeat.

At least, that was what Aelin told herself as she fled up the stairs of the palace, followed closely by a Fae male snarling curses at her all the way.

~*~*~

Several days later the formal invitation from Adarlan arrived, and before Aelin knew it they were riding toward the border at a brisk pace. She surveyed the small clearing they’d found with a grin as the sun began to set. “Do you remember the last time we were allowed to go camping, cousin?” she asked.

“I’m surprised you remember it, as young as you were,” he grinned as he began to gather wood for a fire.

“Please, you’re only five years older than me.”

“That matters a lot more when one of you is five,” he retorted.

Aelin sighed and laid back against her bedroll. All right, so it had been a long time since she was allowed to go on a trip like this. Likely, Darrow assumed they would be staying in hotels most of the way, and he was right for the most part. However, at the pace they intended to set it was impossible to completely avoid camping as they cut through the wilderness between Orynth and Rifthold.

A pair of knee high leather boots entered her vision, and she frowned as she looked up to meet Rowan’s gaze. “Did you need something, Buzzard?” she asked.

Either he had still been upset with her for the way she had told him about their journey or he had missed stretching his wings, for Rowan had spent the majority of the day flying ahead of them as the white-tailed hawk whose form he could take. Aedion had joked about her driving the male into an animal form until Lysandra had grinned and shifted into a ghost leopard. He had been noticeably paler and quieter after that.

As she sat up, Rowan inclined his head toward the pile of wood Aedion had gathered. “Light a fire.”

Aelin frowned. “Are you certain that’s a good idea?”

A cool breeze scented with the pine and snow she associated with her homeland blew around them, and Rowan met her gaze with a fierce grin. “I think we’ll be safe enough,” he replied.

She sighed and reached a hand out toward the pile of logs, only to have it smacked away. When she glared at him, he only smirked. “It’s a crutch. You don’t need it,” he declared.

“Maybe I like the dramatic effect,” she huffed, but obediently she wrapped her arm around her knees instead and began to focus on the logs.

“Easy,” he muttered by her ear. “Control. Only take as much as you need, and no more.”

Aelin gasped in a breath of the cool air that was still flowing around them and examined the well of power that was slowly becoming more familiar to her. Surely it would only take a little to start the fire, and so she imagined just a small thread coming out of that well…

The fire lit, and she grinned in satisfaction.

“Good,” came Rowan’s voice beside her. “Keep it going.”

“How long?” she asked, already beginning to sweat with the effort needed to restrain the rest of that well.

“For as long as I say,” he smirked.

Aelin grumbled at his typical lack of a specific guideline, but focused on the flames regardless. They were almost hypnotic, with the way the reds and oranges and yellows swirled and with the way the individual flames danced and swayed together. With Rowan around to contain her should something go terribly wrong, she was able to let go of some of her fear of the power she wielded and appreciate the beauty of it all.

As she watched, she idly wondered if she would be able to create fire that did not burn. Perhaps another time, though, as this fire needed to be able to cook the fish Lysandra was busy catching from the nearby stream. Instead, she worked to manipulate the height of the flames, first coaxing it down nearly to embers and then working up a bonfire nearly as tall as Aedion.

“Easy,” Rowan hissed as the flames licked higher, but Aelin was lost to the beauty, mesmerized by the rhythms she could see in the movements. She swayed with them until a cool arm wrapped around her, pulling her into a body that was equally cool, and she suddenly realized that she was burning like her fire. No, she was her fire, and he was his ice, and she nestled closer with a contented moan at the temporary relief from the heat.

“Aelin, that’s enough,” she heard distantly. “Let go.”

Why should she let go? She was one with the flames, and they were beautiful, swirling together in a stunning and glimmering dance. As she watched they danced higher, and she shifted to work out a twinge in her lower back before going back to swaying with the fire.

Aelin. Was the voice in her imagination now, or was Rowan actually speaking? Aelin, stop this now. Let go. He sounded so worried, but she couldn’t find the words to tell him to stop fussing. Couldn’t find any words at all, actually. All she could do was hold on.

A distant sigh carried the scent of pine and snow to her, and she sighed in relief at its familiarity but still couldn’t look away from the beauty of her creation. “Forgive me,” said a voice beside her, though she could hardly focus on it.

Before long, she couldn’t focus on anything but gasping as the air was pulled away from her. She choked on nothing, hands going to her throat, but still she clung to the tether between herself and the fire. Why it seemed so important, she couldn’t say, she just knew that all would be lost if she let go now.

Darkness encroached on her vision, though, and without the air she couldn’t hold on. Distant shouts rang in her ears as the tether slipped away from her and she fell away into the shadows.

She must have only been gone for a moment, as when she opened her eyes the fire was merrily crackling without her aid, but she realized with horror that something must have gone terribly wrong.

She was burning inside, and not even the cool of Rowan’s wind was enough to stop it.

~*~*~

Rowan let out several curses in both the common tongue and the Old Language as Aelin collapsed into him. She was burning up, overly hot to the touch, and dimly he realized she must have overextended herself. She had lost control of her magic, to the point where words had been unable to reach her and he’d had to forcibly break her connection to their campfire. Who knew how much power she had let flow into the flames?

It was too much, that much was evident from the flush of her cheeks and the arch of her back in combination with the heat emanating from her.

Quickly, he worked to remove the leather jerkin she’d worn for their ride, not stopping as her cousin let out a startled cough. “What are you doing?” Aedion demanded, torn between confusion and anger.

“She’s burning up,” Rowan snapped. “She lost control and used too much, and she needs to get cool now or…” He didn’t let himself think of the possible consequences.

Not even the removal of the heavy leather from her frame was enough, he realized, nor was the breeze. He didn’t dare remove the cotton tunic and trousers she wore, not with her demi-Fae cousin looking on and already on edge. But there was a stream nearby, and if he could freeze the water around her… Yes. That was their best chance at getting her through this.

Without a second thought he scooped her into his arms, gritting his teeth as she moaned and buried her face against his chest. How had he let this happen? One moment she was leaned against him, face upturned into the breeze he was directing to blow past them, and the next…

He should have been keeping a closer eye on her, he admonished himself as he ran for the stream. He knew she was largely untrained, and liable to lose control, and he hadn’t been watching closely enough for the signs.

The stream had been near the camp to begin with and he was quick to reach it as she burned in his arms, wading in with her without a moment’s hesitation and hissing as steam began to rise around them. Before she could raise the temperature of the water dangerously high he quickly froze what was coming into contact with her, only for her to melt his ice almost immediately.

He growled in frustration and froze the area again. This was his fault, and it was up to him to help her through this. He would not—could not—fail now.

Once they got through this—for she would come through this and be all right, he would not accept any other option—he would give her the lecture of her mortal life about control and recognizing the signs of a burnout. Gods, they had just talked about this potentiality a few short days ago, only for her to be in this position now. He knew, though, that it was ultimately his fault. He could’ve better explained the signs, he could’ve watched more closely, he could’ve cut her off before she reached this point…

A litany of his own shortcomings as a teacher raced through his mind as he struggled against the heat she was generating, freezing the water again and again before she could boil them both. A crashing noise emanated from the bank—her cousin or his mate, no doubt, come to observe. He didn’t even glance in their direction as he growled a warning. He couldn’t be certain if his growl or the steam she was still generating was what decided it, but whoever had joined them remained blessedly silent as he continued to work.

Sweat gathered on his brow as he continued to focus as much as he could on bringing her temperature down, nearly-blind panic lending him strength. The extreme shifts in temperature she was experiencing would likely be deeply unpleasant for her, and she would hurt the next day, but he was no healer and had only limited resources at his disposal. She could hate him later, as long as she survived this.

Each time he froze the water his ice lasted a little longer before melting away, and finally the water stayed cool around them. Aelin remained flushed, eyes unfocused and overly bright, but she was no longer burning in her own skin. She wasn’t all the way back to a normal temperature, likely wouldn’t be for several more minutes at least, but she was no longer in immediate peril and so Rowan allowed himself a single moment of relief.

Her turquoise-and-gold gaze finally landed on her face. “What…?” she began to ask, voice hoarse.

“You almost burned out,” he managed, carefully not allowing himself to wonder just how close she had come to the edge of her power. “How are you feeling?”

Aelin shivered, though the flush remained high on her cheeks. “Awful,” she admitted.

“That’s to be expected, I’m afraid.” Rowan carefully directed a cool breeze to blow across her face, eyes closing for a moment as it wafted the scent of hot embers and floral jasmine into his awareness. “Are you in danger of flaring up again?” he asked as he redirected his attention to watching her face.

Aelin’s eyes fluttered shut, obviously taking stock of her own state of being. “No,” she managed, another hint of steam escaping from her as she breathed. “No, it’s still… but it’s getting better.”

Carefully, Rowan pulled her further into the stream, enough to tilt her head back and allow the cold water to flow into her hair for one more point of contact with something cool. His chest and arms cried out at the sudden cold, and he dimly realized she must have burned him while he was getting her to the water. It was much milder than the first time she had burned him, though. He would have endured far worse if it meant getting her to safety. “You’re still too warm, and you’re going to feel this tomorrow,” he warned her. Already he could feel the urge to take her away somewhere safe, keep her comfortable and protected while she recovered. She would be largely useless for another day or two as her magic replenished, likely too weak and sore to even hold one of the knives she loved so well.

Rowan quickly did his best to tamp down on the instincts now screaming at him to bundle her into a cave or whatever small room they could find on the road. It’s not my place, he reminded himself, though the words rang hollow even in his own mind.

Aelin sighed and shivered again, the flush of her cheeks finally fading to something more normal. “Thank you,” she breathed. “If you hadn’t cut me off from the fire, I…”

He hissed softly. “I pushed you too far. You should’ve told me you were so close to your limits, though.”

She grimaced. “I’m in for one hell of a lecture tomorrow, aren’t I?”

He gave her a glare in response that he hoped said something along the lines of you’d better believe you’re in for a lecture. 

Aelin sighed, curling around herself. “I suppose I deserve that. I thought everything was fine, it all happened so fast.”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” he said quietly. “Right now, I just want you focused on recovering. Let me know when this gets too cold, and we’ll get you out of the water.”

A moment of discomfort crossed her face, then. Before he could ask her what was wrong, she fisted a hand in his shirt. “Aedion,” she managed. “If I go back to the camp like this, if he sees me struggling into dry clothes, he’ll panic. I’ve already got you to deal with, I want him to be as calm as we can keep him.”

He nodded. It was a reasonable enough worry, after all, for this girl who was surrounded by males with Fae ancestry. “I’ll head back first, then, bring your bag back here.” He carefully didn’t tell her that her cousin was likely already on edge, instead moving her closer to the shore and making sure she would stay put before climbing out of the water himself.

He grimaced as the wind of his own shield around the camp came into contact with his shirt, before calling a stronger wind to dry his own clothing out as much as possible. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do for now.

As he’d suspected, Aedion was impatiently awaiting their return, pacing around the fire. “Where is she?” he demanded.

“In the stream, cooling off,” Rowan replied. “She asked me bring her bag to the shore. Something about overprotective Fae males.”

It was clearly something he had heard her say before, judging by his laugh and the hand that carded through his own golden hair. “She’s been telling me off for it since we were children,” Aedion said, confirming his suspicions. “If she’s good enough to yell at you about it, that’s good enough for me. We should reach the next town tomorrow, unless…”

Rowan shook his head. “She’s not going to move anywhere fast tomorrow. It’ll likely be the day after.”

Aedion nodded slowly. “I’d rather spend less time out in the open, but if she can’t make it she can’t make it. We’ll adapt.”

Rowan nodded and grabbed Aelin’s bag. As he headed back toward the stream, he took a deep breath and allowed a part of himself to sink into the well of wind and ice at his core.

If they were to be on the road for longer than expected, with Aelin almost entirely defenseless, they would need all the help they could get.

~*~*~

Tagging:

@ireallyshouldsleeprn @queen-of-glass @fangirlprincess09