Gathering Storm (The Salvation of Tempestria Book 2) - Gary Stringer (read e book TXT) 📗

didn’t know that would happen. Maybe if it had a natural cotton lining or something?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Cat shook her head. “I wouldn’t wear it, anyway.”

“Well, you can’t train in your robes,” Daelen insisted.

Cat shrugged and turned to walk away.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I can’t train in my robes, apparently,” she shot back. “Therefore, I can’t train, which is fine because I’ve no intention of doing it anyway.”

“I do,” Mandalee volunteered. “If it helps.”

“There you go,” Cat declared. “You’ve got one willing victim – I mean student – you don’t need two.”

“But if you want to help save your world, you have to train.”

“Not your way,” Cat countered.

“But my way is better!” Daelen insisted.

“No, it is not better, it is simply different. In many ways, it is inferior because it is crude and predictable, as I have tried to point out before, though I don’t know why I waste my breath. Our ways of doing things will always be different, and in that diversity, there lies strength. Do not presume to make me your pupil because I will have no part of that.”

So saying, she planted her feet and folded her arms, as a silent challenge of ‘move me if you dare.’

“What are you talking about, Cat?” Daelen demanded. “This is why I brought you here. To train you to fight properly! To help you be more powerful! What’s your problem?”

Cat stepped close and faced him with feral ferocity.

“My problem is you!” she yelled, pushing him back a step. “The way you just assume I will be training your way. Fighting your way. I already fight ‘properly,’” she pushed him back another step, “I just don’t fight the way you do. I will not fight the way you do. I fight my way. You keep forgetting, I am not a shadow warrior,” another step, “and I have no desire to act like one. I keep telling you I have no interest in fighting power with power,” and another, “but you don’t listen!” One more. “You never listen!” She kept pushing, her voice growing louder and louder with every sentence. “For the last time: I don’t like your training, I don’t like your world, I don’t like your weapons, I don’t like your rules, I don’t like your decor and I DON’T LIKE YOU!” With her last push, she stormed off, running away from the training centre.

She re-entered the house, darted around a corner and almost collided with Sara, but the Chetsuan girl flattened herself against the wall beside the old grandfather clock, out of Cat’s way, in an impressive display of agility. A little way further on, and Jessica, rummaging in the large linen cupboard, stuck her head around the door to see what was going on, just in time to see Catriona collapse in a heap on the floor.

*****

Catriona Redfletching woke up in a bed in the portal room. Mandalee by her bedside. Cat could tell she’d been crying.

“What— What’s going on?” the druidess croaked.

The smile on her best friend’s face was like the sun bursting out from behind the clouds. She stood over Cat’s bed and gave her a gentle hug before returning to her bedside seat.

“Oh, Cat!” she gasped. “I’ve been so worried about you. You’ve been out for hours.”

“What’s wrong with me?” asked the half-Faery. She felt so drained of energy.

“It’s my fault,” Mandalee asserted.

“I bet it’s not,” Cat returned. She knew that doubting herself was a well-worn Mandalee trait.

“It is,” she insisted. “I got so caught up in how much I’m enjoying it here, I never gave enough thought to why my best friend was so miserable. I’m a Cleric of Nature – it should have been obvious.”

“If it helps,” Cat replied, “I’m a druid, and it’s not obvious to me, so why not just explain?”

“You’re half-Faery,” Mandalee stated, as if that explained everything.

Cat made an effort to give a wry smile. “Thanks for the confirmation of my species, but I already knew that.”

The assassin shook her head in a self-deprecating way. “Sorry, explanations aren’t really my area. I generally leave them to Shyleen.”

Cat reached out a hand to touch Mandalee’s. “I wish you’d give yourself more credit.”

“I’ll try,” Mandalee promised. “OK, well, you know how you told me your father couldn’t leave the forests without becoming ill?”

Cat nodded. The one time he’d tried to visit her mother’s city home, he’d collapsed.

“As with anything else, some Faery are more affected than others. Add your human half, and you’re less affected than most full Faery. In the time I’ve known you, the most you’ve ever really got is a kind of homesickness for the wildlands. Spend a few nights sleeping under the stars, and you’re right as rain.”

“Do I detect another Jessica expression there?” Cat wondered. Mandalee nodded. “I like it. Rain is good; water is life. So, what, you’re saying I’m homesick?”

“Literally sick from being away from home, yes. I guess even a half-Faery doesn’t fare too well away from her world. You haven’t just been cut off from your druid magic – you’ve been cut off from everything your Faery half needs to survive. In short, being here is killing you. Your reaction to synthetic fabrics was an acute symptom of a wider problem. I wanted to take you home, but Daelen was worried about the time difference between the two worlds and the possible stress of transition. Then I remembered that when we were chatting to Sara and Jessica, here in the portal room this morning, you quickly healed up, so I hoped letting you rest right next to the portal home would help you recover.”

Mandalee had refused to leave her friend’s side until she showed signs of improvement.

“Well, it’s working,” Cat assured her, “but I’m still a bit shaky.”

“You just need time, and the one advantage we have in being away from Tempestria is that it does buy time.”

“Yeah, that’s weird, the time thing,” Cat pondered with a puzzled frown.

“Well, don’t waste your energy trying to figure out how the cosmos