Hiding from the Coven

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

ONCE WE REACHED A TRAINING area in the woods, Horlow stopped. It was simply a cleared, flat area, with an earth floor and trees all around.

It was beautiful, serene and calm. I couldn’t imagine a better place to tap into my magical powers.

“Today, I would like to work on several protection spells,” Horlow said, his rich voice vibrating in the air around me.

“Several?” I repeated, surprised he wanted to spend so much time with me.

Usually we got in a single lesson, physical, magical, or spiritual, then Horlow was off doing whatever it was he did for the rest of the day. He was always busy.

He nodded very matter of factly. “Yes. I believe you will be leaving us soon, so you need to be as prepared as possible for the onslaught of magic coming your way.”

My eyebrows shot up my forehead. Leaving soon?

“How do you know this?” I asked. I hoped I wasn’t disrespectful with my tone, but this was news to me.

Had he heard from Tavlor as well?

Horlow shook his head.

“Call it intuition,” he murmured, and I knew that would be my only explanation.

I swallowed down my angry response. I loosened the fists at my sides. This powerful man was teaching me things that no Witch or Warlock could or would, so I needed to stay respectful of his gift. He was doing this for my own good. He wasn’t like my mother, who purposefully hid things from me in order to keep me from asking questions and discovering who I really was. There was a reason for his avoidance.

“All right.”

Horlow actually laughed, which surprised me. The Fae were not the ‘laughing’ kind of people, especially not Horlow.

“I know you want to know everything, Ava, but you are young, and powerful and need to learn patience,” he said.

I snorted through my nose.

“Yeah, I agree with you there,” I said, although waiting twenty-three years to escape my mother’s realm showed I was plenty patient. And respectful.

“What you need to know for yourself is that you’re capable of anything,” he said. “Your emotions, your reactions, also dictate how you handle your magic. It’s why I like practicing outside. It’s peaceful out here. It’s hard to get angry about anything when you’re here.”

I nodded.

“When you get distracted, when you get emotional, that’s where you make the most mistakes,” he said. “It’s okay. You are like most. But you need to get a handle on it, or it will be a detriment to your education.”

I chose to wait, and not ask more questions. He would tell me when he thought I was ready. What he was already telling me was more than he usually did.

“What sort of mental barriers do you have up at the moment?” he asked as he walked around the area slowly.

My mouth dropped open.

“Ahh... I’m not sure what you mean,” I replied. The breeze tickled the back of my neck. The leaves of the trees whispered around us, singing a soothing song. If my guard was up, I didn’t realize it.

I’d been told by Tavlor that I had decent mental shields in place, but I wouldn’t know how to describe them to Horlow. They were natural, not particularly curated. I tried to call them up on my own, but I wasn’t sure if the magic listened to me or not. I couldn’t feel anything either way.

“Perhaps it is better that I show you.” Horlow spoke casting words and tilted his head forward, keeping eye contact with me.

My mind filled with the image of people dying from mortal wounds, all around me. The clang of metal blades meeting rang in the air like bells.

I twirled around, pressing the palms of my hands to my temples, aghast to watch the horror before my eyes.

And then it was all gone, and I was back in the forest, the coolness of the air wrapping around my heated skin.

I gasped loudly, needing to catch my balance. My head spun. I put a hand to my chest, feeling the pounding of my heart within my breast. I swallowed; my mouth was dry. I took a breath, then another, trying to steady myself.

“Oh, my God,” I said. “What did you do?”

I struggled to breathe. Was this some kind of vision? Or was this all Horlow?

I conjured a bench seat. My knees gave way and I dropped down, staring up at Horlow in dismay.

He tsked and shook his head as though disappointed. “How could your mother not teach you any mental barrier techniques?”

Even though he was referring to me, it sounded as though he was muttering to himself.

“She didn’t teach it, so to speak. We had natural barriers, she said,” I said, feeling compelled to answer. “But I don’t seem to have any defenses against your particular skills.”

The locket around my neck began to vibrate with heat but I ignored my mother’s call. More than likely she would be shouting back some defense.

“What was that in my head, Horlow?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “Some of my memories,” he said. “Nothing too personal or offensive to you.”

I gaped at him. “Seriously?”

He clearly must not have realized what he had just shown me.

He’d lived through wars like that? Poor man.

He seemed to dismiss my concerns and instead, looked at me with pity in his eyes. “We Fae are taught this technique from very young, Ava. You must guard your mind at all times from spells that would seek to harm you in the worst ways. I could have projected any image into your mind and taken away your ability to think, to see. You wouldn’t have known if those images were real, or not.”

I nodded, swallowing hard. Obviously, this was an area of training that my mother had neglected, or it wasn’t a tool our kind used so she hadn’t known to teach us.

Either way, I needed to learn.

“Will you teach me how?” I asked as I stood up and waved my hand, making my park bench disappear into the ether from whence it came.

“Yes, of course. And I will also do a physical training session with you, guarding against offensive spells that I know witches like to use.”

These words brought a smile to my face. I liked the physicality lessons. They made me feel like I was making a real difference in my arsenal.

“Thank you. I would love that.”

Horlow began to talk, explaining everything I needed to know about this new technique and how to apply it.

We spent hours together and by the end of the afternoon, my head pounded with new knowledge and my muscles ached from the spell-casting work-out he’d given me. I wanted nothing more than to take a long, hot bath.

When I staggered toward my accommodations, I was strangely happy, yet a low whisper of unease worked its way through me.

Horlow had ramped up his lessons for a reason, and that meant that only too soon, he expected me to have to use them.

***