Frayed Ties (Ties, Book 1) | ✓

Chapter 8

By the start of Danya's third day at the camp he felt much less exhausted and his wounds were starting to truly heal. In a few more days there would likely be no sign left he had ever been hurt.

He had already read through his book once, and though he was itching to read it all again from the beginning he couldn't bring himself to touch it until he had done something productive. Maybe Simon didn't care, but the idea of being a useless layabout was abhorrent to Danya. Even if he couldn't truly earn his keep, he would do what he was able to.

And what he was able to do was repair Simon's armour. He took the pieces out of the chest and carefully laid them out in front of him, and then he got stuck into it.

There was a sort of calming rhythm to repairing things. It wasn't difficult or particularly demanding. Danya could do this kind of work for hours without problem.

Fanner had hated it. He hadn't been bad at it, but having to sustain his focus had been a constant struggle for him. Simon should have been gifted him instead. For all he lacked, Fanner at least had the beauty and charms to stand a chance of making something of this situation. Perhaps he even could have convinced Simon that he didn't look so unlike a girl from behind.

Duran was already spoken for, but Danya bet he could have made the situation work for himself as well. He had more sense than sentimentality. He would have already given up on Simon and found his way into Hamish's bed.

Danya ought to be doing the same, if he had any sense. He wasn't nearly as beautiful as Duran, but Hamish didn't seem terribly fussy. But... he couldn't let go of Simon. He wanted more than sex, more than Hamish could offer him... but more than Simon could, either. He knew he would not win this one.

It was afternoon by the time Danya finally felt he had made enough progress on his task to justify going back to his book. He wasn't quite as well balanced as he had been going into the task, but it had drained him very little.

The book Slone had given Danya had already become his new favourite, which perhaps wasn't much of an achievement. They had not been permitted pre-war books at the House, nor much in the way of fiction. This was the first book Danya had ever read where the hero was a mage. It was... odd.

It was almost uncomfortable, in a way, because this was not how Danya had been taught things were before the war. And, certainly, it was fiction, but surely it didn't entirely lack grounding in reality. Had mages really not always been slaves? Had they once been equal to humans — or at least expected to be treated that way, despite tensions between their kinds? That was how the book made it seem. Perhaps Slone would know. Danya would ask him the next time they spoke.

There had been something that had piqued Danya's curiosity on his first read through, but he'd been too tired to really think about it. When the main character was training his young apprentice in shielding, the book went into an awful lot of detail on the methods. Was that really how that was done...?

Danya read through the passage again. He knew he shouldn't try it. He was still recovering and it was illegal and Simon surely wouldn't approve if he knew. But... what if he needed it one day? Maybe if he'd been able to shield, a vampire wouldn't have nearly torn his throat out.

There was no harm in trying, right? Just... to see if he could. Nobody would know and it would be fine.

The first step to creating a shield was to externalise his magic, which Danya thought he was used to doing until he tried it and fire burst out in front of him, narrowly avoiding setting the side of the tent on fire. So... not like that.

He could make fire or he could make light, or he could externally apply his magic to something like repair work... but externalising pure magic? That was new.