Bitter Brambles (The Ivy Institute #2)

Chapter 8

brIAR

T ank leads the group to what I’m assuming is the training field. It doesn’t seem all that different from the arena at the Ivy, only smaller. After a quick scan of the space, I spot Hawk standing in the center of a ring as if he’s been waiting for my arrival. Great.

My breakfast churns in my gut, but I don’t look away. I hoped what happened last night would keep me safe from him for a few days at least, but now I’m not so sure.

I don’t have to look to my left to know Oshea is standing next to me. I’m not sure if she’s here for silent support, or if she’s just here to watch the shit show that seems inevitable.

A male walks toward Hawk, blocking him from my view, and I take the chance to get the hell out of his direct line of sight. “What are we supposed to be doing?” I question Oshea while moving closer to our group.

“Training,” she answers without giving me any real information.

“I kind of figured that part,” I snap. “Do we just do anything we want?”

“Pretty much. It’s just warm-ups until the elites get here, then we break up into groups and work on our discipline while the tutors watch.”

We’re mingled in with our bunkmates, but I swear I can feel eyes on me again. Hawk probably already found me. I choose to ignore the crawling feeling up my back. “How do we know what discipline we’re assigned to?”

“You mean what tutor you’re assigned to?”

Not really, but we can go with that. “Yeah.”

“What’s your power?”

I would really like to avoid answering, but I also need to know who I’m supposed to be working with. “Mental?” I sound completely unsure, but Oshea doesn’t seem to pick up on it. She actually smiles.

“Oh, then you’ll be with me! I’m a kinetic, but I’m still working on consistency,” she says quickly as if she’s worried I’m going to ask her for a demonstration.

“Great.” I fake a smile. I doubt very much she will be happy to train with me when she finds out I don’t have any ability, let alone a mental one. “So what’s it like? How do we train?”

“No need to worry about that, Briar. You’ll be training with me,” Mick pipes up. You’d think I’d be more aware of my surroundings, but it appears I’m just as clueless as I am challenged when it comes to directions.

“Oh wow,” Oshea whispers in awe. I can’t tell if her wide-eyed stare is for Mick or the fact that he’s personally training me.

I want to argue with him for some reason and make the case that I’m better off with Oshea and her instructor, but I don’t. Mick knows what I am, and while I don’t have any real hope he’ll be able to train me at using my magic, there is other knowledge I can benefit from, and I would be stupid to deny it.

I take my eyes off Mick long enough to see Hawk is indeed still staring at me. Mick looks over his shoulder, where my gaze is trained, and says, “It doesn’t look like he’s ready to forgive and forget.”

“Nope. What are the rules about challenges?”

“He can’t—” Oshea stops mid-answer, sealing her lips together, and I realize it’s because Mick is scowling at her.

“There’s a three-day healing period,” Mick supplies, and Oshea nods quickly. It bothers me that he cut her off, but it doesn’t surprise me. Hierarchies are a way of life, even if I don’t like it.

“That’s good to know.” I breathe a little easier—for now anyway.

“Hawk’s not known for following the rules,” Mick supplies.

“Great,” I mutter and focus on my new tutor. At least he isn’t as big as Ziv. The unintentional thought of him hurts, especially after the incident in the hall when I thought he was near. “Let’s get to work.”

“Eager to show off?” He misses the mark entirely, but I don’t bother telling him that. “Why don’t we start with your friend here.” Mick motions to Oshea, who seems to go pale with the attention. “What can you do?” It’s clear they have never interacted before by his lack of knowledge.

“I can move things with my mind,” she answers.

“Interesting.” He stares at me, probably wondering how that will work against me. I lick my lips, coming up with an idea on the fly. This may work in my favor—I hope anyway. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

“Shouldn’t we warm up?” Oshea glances between me and Mick as if I’m part of the decision making.

“Do you think you’ll have time to warm up at the Undertaking?” Mick’s demeanor shifts, becoming much more serious as he probes.

“No.” Oshea doesn’t meet his eyes when she answers.

“No, you won’t. Now find an open spot on the field,” he instructs.

Oshea springs into action, hustling over to an area that has boxes and a bunch of other objects lying around like some sort of junkyard. Some of the items are as small as my palm, and others are as big as a horse. After hearing what her ability is, I know what to expect, but it doesn’t mean I like it. I hate the thought of being put on display, and I can pretty much bet everyone is going to be watching, especially after last night.

I follow Oshea, feeling a little bad that she got roped into my problem, but also relieved that her ability may allow me to hide what I am a little longer. I face off with the female, familiar with how these things usually play out, and she doesn’t waste any time sending a rock, about the size of a small cat, sailing toward me.

I’m a little slow on the uptake, but I manage to get my arm up and shift it to the side, pretending as if I am controlling the rock and diverting it from hitting me when in reality it’s what would have happened no matter what. It’s almost like there’s a force field around me in some ways.

Oshea reacts to the rock shifting paths and retakes control, but when she directs it back at me, the same thing happens—it gets deflected. Frustration shows on her face when she scrunches up her nose and bares her teeth. Seeing her standing still gives me the confidence to do the same and stop pretending to use my hands to ward off her magic.

It’s only when someone screams behind me that I look over my shoulder to see another object, this one littler, soaring over a small group that ducks to avoid being hit with it. I didn’t even realize she was sending another attack. Thankfully, she’s still working on that consistency, or I might not have even been aware.

She huffs. “How are you doing that? I can’t even feel you pulling it away from me.”

“I’m not. I’m just making sure it doesn’t hit me,” I answer just before a metal box flips through the air and crashes to the ground ten feet before reaching me.

Oshea is breathing heavily. Clearly, she’s straining herself, but her magic is barely affecting me. I would have to do this all day, maybe even longer, before I felt the drain I usually do with more direct magic.

“You need to work on your endurance,” Mick tells Oshea, whose face goes red at the censure, but she nods in agreement anyway. To me, he questions, “Is that how it always works?”

I peer around, wishing there weren’t so many eyes and ears on us. “Pretty much,” I hedge.

Mick searches our immediate vicinity, and I know he’s looking for someone else to test me against. The heaviness of defeat lands on my shoulders. If I could let it crush me, I would.

“David,” he calls to someone in the crowd.

A male shoulders through the group. He’s tall and lean with dark hair and a nose that looks like it’s been broken a time or two. I really hope Mick isn’t expecting me to physically fight this guy. His reach alone would make it hard to evade him.

“This is Briar. She’s new to Frostburn, and I’d like to see if she really deserves to be here.” I hate that he’s speaking about me as if I’m not present. You’d think I’d get over the blatant dismissal, but it’s always hard to ignore.

David pushes his fist against the palm of his other hand. I don’t know if it’s my imagination working overtime or not, but I swear I hear his knuckles pop. “Surrender or death?” he questions as if he already knows it will be one or the other in his favor.

“Don’t break her yet, she’s still new.” Mick grins before turning his attention back to me.

“Is this my assessment? If I don’t surrender, will this be enough testing for today?” I might go insane if I’m vetted against half the population of an institute again.

“I don’t know if I’m impressed with your confidence or pissed that you have the nerve to question me.” Mick’s tone is hard, proving it would have been smarter to keep my mouth shut. He tips his head to the right, sending a signal to David, who steps forward and throws out his arm without any further prompting.

A stream of freezing water jets from his hand, heading straight for me. I take a step back on instinct, but the frozen stream melts just before reaching me, splashing into a useless puddle at my feet.

The entire arena is silent, making the whooshing in my ears seem loud in comparison. I don’t look around to see all the eyes on me, but I don’t need to. I can feel them just as easily as I can feel my heart racing in my chest. I hate everything about this, hate feeling like a spectacle.

Anger fills all the emptiness inside me where only fear and sadness lived before. A deep hunger like nothing I’ve ever experienced hollows out my bones, demanding to be sated as rage boils within me. I’m tired of being used, tired of taking everything they throw at me, and tired of being their victim.

David flicks his arm again and sends another torrent of ice straight for me. The hollowness inside me lashes out like a physical thing, reaching for the icy magic. Fear grips my chest at the first chilly brush, and the emptiness snaps back inside me, making my bones ache.

The male’s features shift as his confidence erodes. There’s no doubt he sensed something changed just as I did, and it scared both of us. “Don’t,” I hiss out in warning, my breath foggy as if the tiny bit of cold magic I touched needs a path to escape.

The puddle of water around my feet is even larger, but what surprises me are the ice crystals forming near the toes of my boots, spreading toward David, and not from him. The male tries to keep me in his sights while simultaneously looking over at Mick for direction.

It’s clear I shocked him, but if he’s shocked, I’m fucking astonished. I can’t even wrap my head around what I think just happened, or if I would be able to do it again if I tried.

Mick’s lips are set in a hard line. I don’t know him, but I can guess the expression isn’t a happy one. “You just get more and more interesting,” he mutters under his breath, yet the room is so quiet I have little doubt many of the onlookers heard him just fine.

“Not by choice,” I admit, unsure if this new development is going to get me put down. I’m already second-guessing what really happened. Maybe it was a fluke. I don’t know which is worse—realizing I may be capable of more and having to deal with the consequences, or coming to terms with the fact that I’m still the same punching bag I’ve always been.

Panic makes my palms feel damp, but I don’t dare show any signs of fear now, not with everyone watching.

The door to the arena swings open, and a new group walks in. They quickly realize that something is off and form a small, tight group. I use the distraction to step back in an effort to blend in with the others, but nobody seems to want to get close to me. Everyone I get near shifts away as if they know something strange just happened. I wish I knew what they saw and felt. Oshea is the only one to stand her ground, even though she’s watching me out of the corner of her eye like I might attack at any moment.

“Everyone needs to get back to work,” Mick bellows, leveling the entire field with a hard stare. The new group, who I’m guessing are the elites, are slow to break apart, and they move like a unit, heading to the far side of the sand while staying clear of the barriers that would block me from their sight.

Several glances get thrown my way, but I pretend to ignore them. “What are we supposed to be doing?” I ask Oshea under my breath.

“Um…” She looks around as if she’s not sure if she should answer me. “We usually just practice with magic for the first half then move on to hand-to-hand.”

I feel kind of bad for making her uncomfortable, so I give her a little space. Hell, I’m not sure if I want to be around myself right now, so I get it.

Slowly, the volume in the room builds until I can’t pick out individual words or phrases spoken across the room. Just as I start to relax, Mick cuts a path through the unfortunate souls who couldn’t get away from me, giving them an excuse to put additional distance between us. “You’ve been holding out on me,” he accuses.

At least I don’t have to worry about the others overhearing him now. I’m not sure how to respond, so I don’t say anything. If I admit that was the first time I was able to touch someone’s magic—if that’s what I really did—then it could be worse than pretending I was hiding the ability to do so.

“I’m having a very hard time understanding why Syrinx would let you go.”

I could tell him she probably doubted I would ever live up to her expectations, but the truth is, I’m not certain myself. I’m sure my lack of advancement had something to do with it, but I feel like there must be more to it. The Undertaking is months away, so why now? “She didn’t like me very much,” I admit. It’s something I’ve known since she accused me of murder. Syrinx tolerated me because she thought she could use me. Something must have changed to make her think otherwise, or someone better came along.

“Somehow, I don’t believe that’s it. You would, however, make the perfect little spy,” he remarks, telling me he doesn’t trust me—not that I thought he did.

“I’m not a spy, but there’s no way for me to prove that to you.”

“Which is rather convenient if you think about it, since no one would know if you’re telling the truth or not.”

“Not right now it’s not,” I reply. It would be much easier if a truth detector could use their ability on me to let him know I’m not Syrinx’s spy.

He steps closer to me and lowers his voice as if he’s worried he’s going to be overheard. “Drawing too much attention to yourself isn’t smart. You’re going to have every elite in the school out for your head.”

“Attention is the last thing I want.” I don’t remind him that he was the one who insisted on the public display.

“Stay out of trouble, Briar. Everyone is watching.” With those parting words, he bumps his shoulder into mine as he brushes past me. I can’t help but look out into the field to see if his words are true, but I already know the answer. Several sets of eyes quickly avert, while many others don’t even try to pretend they aren’t paying attention to my every move. Great, I was already a target, but now it looks like my head will be the top trophy.