I gawked at him, uncomprehending.  The idea of me having any kind of exceptional power was foreign to me, it may as well have come from another world.

Andreas’ hand was still on my shoulder and he made no move to take it away. “Those who possess the most power experience this phenomenon when they practice the strongest spells. It’s a bit of extra help that some have.”

“Do you have it?” I asked in an attempt to take the attention off me.

“Yes.”

“But your eyes are already blue,” I remarked meekly.

He chuckled and removed his hand from my shoulder. “Indeed. Not everyone’s eyes turn the same color. Just like everyone doesn’t start off with the same color. Mine turn gold.”

My eyes drifted away as I began to imagine how eerie that sight must seem. “If it only happens when one practices the strongest spells, why does it keep happening to me?”

“I don’t know. You’ve never been instructed in the practice of magic.  Perhaps it’s an involuntary expression of something that has been suppressed too long.”

I looked at him again. He had turned away from me and didn’t see me watching his profile.  There was something about his expression, like he was giving me a glimpse behind his walls because he didn’t know I was watching.

It felt like the right time to ask something I had really wanted to know. “You were taught as a child?”

He smiled softly, but slammed his walls back up when he noticed my attention had shifted onto him once again. “I’ve always known that I had magic. Everyone in my family has it. I was raised with it as a natural part of me, practicing spells as other children practiced walking.”

“So you were never afraid of what you are?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Growing up, no. These days, I’m no longer so sure.” There was a distance in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. I doubted he ever gave much thought to his past.

I got to my feet and this time offered my hand to him. For a split second I thought I saw a hint of vulnerability, but it was gone before I could decide if it had been there at all. He took my hand without words, but didn’t use me as support to stand up.

“Why are you afraid of yourself?” I asked once we were standing face-to-face.

“I’m not afraid of myself. I’m afraid of what I’m capable of, what I may be driven to do. I don’t have a conscience, little witch,” he said almost sadly.

“That can’t be true. Why would you save me if you had no conscience?”

He shrugged, dismissing the topic. “We should continue moving or we’re never going to get there.”

“You never told me where we’re going.”

The smirk I had grown familiar with lit up his features again. “My home, and from there you can decide where you want to go. I will not keep you against your will. That is, if you don’t stay for more than a couple of nights.”

I gave him an odd expression. “What does that matter?”

“I might get used to having you around.”

His statement baffled me. It made me consider my earlier question again. Does he ever let anyone in? He had snapped at me, insulted. Maybe there was more to it than that. Perhaps I had struck a nerve and he lashed out. Perhaps in that direction was the answer to the question of what he wanted with me.  It was very different than anything I had thought to this point… but still unnerving.  If this was what uncertainty brought, I was no longer sure how much of it I actually wanted. 

“You know,” I said, in a show of assertion, “if you are going to keep me around, you’ll have to get used to talking to me.”

He burst out laughing. “You really think you are in any position to make demands? You are very amusing, little witch.”

I pouted. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, but I couldn’t help myself.  He had a point. There was nothing I could make him do. On the contrary, he’d be able to make me do things very easily.

 “I don’t see what the big deal is about telling me a couple of things about yourself. I would like to know who it is I would be staying with if I do decide to stay.” I was already getting bolder than I had ever remembered being. He seemed to bring out those qualities in me, whether I knew I had them or not.

“The big deal is that it’s none of your business and irrelevant to the current situation. Maybe I’ll tell you, maybe I won’t but only if the situation seems appropriate. And, little witch, do not fool yourself into thinking you will not stay. Where will you go? How will you keep yourself from being caught without any guidance?” With his bravado, his smugness returned in force, but he had a point. Without him I had nothing, and that was still no less scary than was Andreas Grigoli.

I groped for the right words, which only amused him more. No good retort came to mind, and I was left with only trying to save my pride.

“Are you offering to teach me then?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see how things turn out. I’m not so sure you will want the kind of instruction I can offer. You reek of light, and I can only supply darkness.”

After that we fell into a silence again, but it was more comfortable than before. I caught myself sneaking glances at him as we walked, and he noticed several times, causing my cheeks to warm against my will.

 After a while my mind started to wander to John. If none of this had happened, I would be with him at this moment instead of Andreas. Our engagement would have been announced and I would officially have become his possession. No matter how confusing and frightening Andreas had seemed so far, that future with John had begun to hold as great a terror all its own.

A few days ago, I would have been hard pressed to believe I would prefer this feared sorcerer’s company to my intended’s, even with how John had treated me.  Now, with just the smallest push, I was here wondering how I could have ever thought that a future with a man like John – respected though he may be – was something to believe in.  Whatever else good or bad Andreas may be, he had already done that.  I guessed that might be a kind of magic all its own. I wanted to believe Andreas was actually good, but every now and then I would see the darkness he claimed was part of him swirling around him like an aura. He put on a good act.

I just wondered how long it would be before he showed me the part of him that everyone feared.

***

“I was supposed to be engaged today.”

Twilight had begun making its appearance around us, but we were still walking. He had disappeared hours earlier to get us food, but we hadn’t stopped for very long. The silence, while had been more comfortable than before, had grown awkward again after we ate. I was desperate for conversation, any conversation.

The corners of his lips quirked up. “Arranged marriage.  You must’ve been from an important family.”

“I was. The house of Eleanor.”

He stopped in his tracks and eyed me with a new kind of curiosity. “The house of Eleanor? One of the oldest noble lines?” he snorted. “Family used to be so important to those houses. I’m surprised they could so easily toss you aside, magic or not.”

“I’m not.” This simple statement came to me in a burst, making plain thoughts I had never dared say aloud before. I turned toward Andreas, whose eyes were still curiously drawn in a way that suggested doubt. 

“My mother was—is obsessed with keeping our bloodline pure. It was why I was to be engaged to John Argeno. They kept me shielded and ‘pure’ just for him so the houses could be merged.”

“John Argeno? I’ve had the displeasure of meeting him before. He’s an arrogant prick. You should be glad all of this happened and got you out of that arrangement,” he said, oddly deep in thought, his words sharp.

“Are you suggesting that you are a better option than John?” My damned heart sped up again, and I didn’t like the thought of why.

Andreas’ expression didn’t change. “No, that is not what I’m suggesting. You have no commitment to me, but you would’ve had one to him. Although, in a way you could say that he is worse than I am. I admit that I’m as far from good as you can get. He does not. He pretends to be good only to strike from the back. He is a coward and he better hope that I never run into him again.”  His tone became more inquisitive.  “It’s very interesting that I happened upon his betrothed.”

His words resonated within me. He was right; John was worse in a way. Andreas didn’t try to hide what he was while John put up and act to appear noble and true.

“Have you ever been engaged?” My cheeks reddened slightly at the thought that I was in any way curious about his emotional life.

“No. I haven’t. I have yet to meet a woman who makes that thought seem in any way appealing,” he stated flatly.

“No arranged marriages then?” I asked, slightly teasing.

The telltale signs of his smirk appeared on his lips. “My parents tried, but quickly realized it wasn’t going to happen. I would always send the girl running as far away from me as possible. That just wasn’t my personality or my path.”

Without breaking the mood, he cocked his head at me.

“How old are you?” he asked, catching me completely off guard.

“What?” I asked, my eyes wide from his strange question. “Why do you want to know my age?”

He shrugged. “I get curious sometimes, too.”

I looked away. “I’m seventeen, eighteen in a couple of days, if my sense of time is correct.”

He didn’t say anything but rather moved over to a tree and sat down. He gestured for me to join him, and I reluctantly took a seat next to him. “So very young,” he remarked to no one in particular and then fixed his dark gaze on me. “It wasn’t too long ago that I was your age. Only about nine years ago I think,” he said and my ears pricked up. He was offering something about himself, and I had not even had to ask.   “I don’t have fond memories of that time, and it appears that you might not have many either. Perhaps it’s a trend with the universe: make seventeen an unforgettable and terrible age.”

“What happened to you at seventeen?” I asked, my tone cautious.

“My brother was killed by a knight,” he answered nonchalantly as if he was just telling me the sun was shining. He showed no hint of emotion. Nothing in his demeanor indicated that he was at all affected by his brother’s death.

“Oh—I—I’m--,” I said, my voice cracking. When I finally collected myself, “Was he a sorcerer, too?”

   Andreas surprised me with an explosive laugh.  “Hardly!  He wasn’t killed for having magic; he didn’t develop much of it yet.  He was only five years old.”

He turned off whatever amusement he felt like a spigot, and made sure to bore directly into me with his magnificent blue eyes.

“He was killed because your John Argeno was bored, and my brother was a curious boy.”

I was at a loss for words. I couldn’t say anything. I always knew John was cruel at heart, but this… this was beyond what I had ever imagined of him. Even though I couldn’t be sure whether to believe the sorcerer, tears, which I desperately wanted to hide, were forming in my eyes. Killing an innocent boy? Could he really have been capable of that? It was almost too much to believe. Amidst of all this feeling, the cruel realization: Andreas had only opened up about himself so that he could hurt me. He had been unhappy about me asking so many questions, so he was going to make sure to cause me pain. For the first time, he showed hints of the man so many others thought him to be.

“John wouldn’t kill an innocent boy,” I argued, but even I didn’t believe my words.

“I was there, I saw it with my own eyes. Are you calling me a liar?” Something in his words chilled the very essence of my soul and I was desperate to look away.

Andreas wouldn’t let me avert my gaze or hide my tears. He kept his eyes on mine as he leaned closer. His lips nearly grazed my ears, finally breaking our gazes.

 “How does it make you feel to know you almost married a murderer?” he whispered, his breath tickling my neck. “Your life up until this point has been nothing but sunshine and roses. How does it feel to know your perfect intended husband is a cold-blooded killer?”

I pushed him away with as much force as I could muster, suddenly very angry. I got to my feet and walked over to the tree opposite the one where he was still sitting.  For several moments, I was silent, trying to decide what I would say next, and whether it would be standing up for myself, or playing into Andreas’ hands, or both.  I crossed my arms in front of me, turned away from the sorcerer, trying to make myself as small and protected as I could, and finally just forged ahead. “He tried to rape me when I was sixteen, and no one believed me.”  My attempt to match his matter-of-fact tone, to try to show he was not hurting me, was failing miserably.  “So they allowed him to spend more time alone with me.” A short, quick, breath of disbelief.  “He acted like it had been nothing, like it was the most natural thing in the world.  Everyone acted like I was the one who had done something wrong, him most of all.  And all I could do was take it.”

I quickly turned my head to fix Andreas again with a stare, and mustered all the resolve I could find… but my voice still broke.  “So, you see, I never thought he was perfect or good. If you think you have made some kind of point that I’ve been missing, you are gravely mistaken. My life may not have been the worst or most difficult, but it was very far from ‘sunshine and roses’,” I snapped.  I just as quickly looked away, trying to hammer home the point. But tears from the memory and these new revelations were threatening in the corners of my eyes.

I didn’t even try to judge Andreas’ reaction. Everything was starting to be too much. I didn’t hear him come over to me, didn’t even registered his proximity until he placed his arm around my shoulders.