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He spoke with such unwavering faith that my knot of anxiety loosened a little.

“Are you always this optimistic?” I asked.

“No. But I believe new paths can always be forged, even to impossible destinations.”

I took my turn to study him. “Did you learn that from your time at war?”

He shook his head and stopped before me, his expression turning fond. “I learned that from my father.”

This was the first time he’d mentioned his father since I’d learned that Keil was the grandchild of the former emperor. Though I wanted to hear more, I wouldn’t press him. Not when my own parents’ story felt so tender and fragile and mine.

So I asked instead, “What made you think I would win?”

“The night on the riverbank when you used your power on Goren. You tore through his specter, didn’t you?”

I startled. “How did you know?”

“The look on Goren’s face. Most Wielders fight with specter-on-specter strikes, the equivalent of hard punches. The amount of control it takes to shred through another person’s power, the amount of strength . . .” Keil shook his head, awed. “It’s remarkable.”

He’d looked at me with this same wonder on the riverbank, I remembered. Even the others had seemed shocked at my display. I’ve seen her Wield, Lye had said in the carriage. Because he must have known, from that night, exactly what my specter could achieve.

Keil’s brow twitched. “Yet you didn’t use that attack method today.”

I looked away, feeling like a fraud. Yes, I knew in some vague, dissociated way that my specter was powerful. Even if Erik hadn’t told me so in the dungeons, I would’ve realized afterward, trying to navigate its sheer vastness.

It was because of that vastness that I hadn’t been able to Wield in tendrils over these last few weeks.

“My power,” I said quietly. “It hasn’t felt the same for a while.”

I waited for Keil to tell me how foolish I’d been in accepting today’s challenge.

Instead, his specter wound around my fingers. I twitched, my gaze flicking to his. It was the first time I’d felt his power since the night we’d said goodbye, and the warm, familiar ripples sent my own specter tingling as he guided my palm up to face him.

“Try now,” he said softly, spreading his power against my hand. Indicating, I realized, that he’d erected a wall between us.

And that he meant for me to tear through it.

My specter abruptly shriveled. “I could hurt you,” I said, pulling back.

But those ripples tensed around my fingers, gripping me like a clasped hand.

“For you?” Keil smiled, playful yet sincere. “I’m willing to take the pain.”

He loosened his grasp on my hand, but I didn’t withdraw. Instead, I breathed deeply, trying to grip the mass of my power. Trying to mold a tendril from it, as I always had.

But as my frustration simmered, and my specter began pushing too fluidly past the surface, I whipped my hand away, exhaling sharply. Not wanting Keil to know just how poorly I’d performed.

Mercifully, he didn’t look at me in pity. He just inhaled, drawing the power back into himself, and leaned his shoulder against the wall. “I heard you turned down Goren’s offer of training,” he said lightly.

“And you want to persuade me to change my mind?”

His smile turned roguish. “My lady, if I could miraculously persuade you to spend time with anyone, it would not be for Goren’s benefit. But,” he said, just as my cheeks warmed, “Goren is, unfortunately, good at this.”

“Bossing people around?” I asked tartly.

Keil’s smile softened. “Wielding again after a great trauma.”

A great trauma. Was that why I’d been struggling to Wield? Why it felt like I was choking on too much air when, after years of painful stifling, I should have been able to breathe comfortably?