ELIA

"Time to wake up, love.

"

Elia startled out of sleep and sucked in, blinking. But she couldn't see anything. It was still pitch black in the cave.

"What time is it?

"

"Early. Get up. Quickly. Put your leathers on. We need to stretch.

"

"Wha—oh, right.

" She smiled grimly and pushed the warm furs back, shivering when the chill night hair hit her skin. Reth growled approvingly, but she shook her head, assuming he could see it.

"Nope. Training time, mister discipline.

"

Reth muttered something about discipline being thoroughly enjoyable and she laughed, but she had to literally feel her way to the closet to find her thickest leathers. She was dressed in seconds and turned to find her way blocked by a massive, warm wall of man.

"Reth! I almost stood on you.

"

"I need my leathers too. Unless of course you want me to go naked?

"

"Don't tempt me,

" she growled and he chuckled.

A minute later he led her out of the room and through the cave. But instead of heading for the door as she'd expected, he turned them to the bathing pools.

"Reth, what?

"

"You'll see.

" When he opened the door into the cavern, there was moonlight shining from the hole in the roof, where the water fell through. He dropped her hand and let her navigate herself through the space, across the water, complaining about her wet feet, to the space beside the water fall, where he'd tugged that ladder off the space where he pulled it behind the water and hooked it on a crag of rock high on the wall.

The vine ladder tumbled down to the shallow water, then hung there, waving.

She looked at Reth and he stood on the bottom of it to keep it steady, then held the side with one hand. He tipped his head towards and smiled.

"Climb it.

"

Elia grinned. She'd wanted to try this.

Rubbing her hands together to warm them, she grabbed the rung of the ladder that was at head height, then stepped onto the bottom and began to climb.

It all went great until she'd climbed above Reth's head, then he took hold of it and started to follow her, and suddenly there was no anchor for the ladder. It tipped underneath her and her feet almost slid out. She shrieked and threw an arm over the rung she was holding until she got her feet settled.

The ladder bent from where she held it with her arms, to where her feet were placed, with most of her body weight, which meant she was hanging slightly backwards. And with Reth below her, the angle wasn't as bad as it would have been if she'd been on it alone.

"Reth!

" she gasped.

"I might fall.

"

"The warrior is afraid already?

" he asked thoughtfully.

"No, I just…

"

In the event that you lose your footing, I'll grab you, Don't worry. But my advice is to keep climbing, because this isn't going to get easier the longer you hang here.

"

Elia was horrified to realize she wanted to tell him never mind. To back out. To say she wasn't going to do this.

She really was soft.

She hung there another few seconds, breathing and reminding herself that the only way to get stronger was to work. Then she sent up a hurried prayer to this creator Reth was forever talking about, that she wouldn't fall and crack her head open on the rocks below. Then she began to climb.

At first it was tricky, but once she got the hang of the rhythm, how to balance her weight, the only problem she saw was that her arms were already beginning to ache and she was only about a quarter of way up the one hundred foot (or more) drop.

Reth, she noticed, didn't say anything, but the further she climbed, and the more her arms began to shake, the closer her got to her—which helped balance out the weight so she was a little more upright, but it also made the ladder swing and quiver a lot more.

"Reth,

" she panted when she was about seventy feet up.

"I'm truly uncertain that I'm not going to—

"

"She'd reached for the next rung and braced against her arm and it just… gave. She gave a true scream as one of her legs swung free of the ladder and the other felt extremely shaky.

"You're fine. I have you,

" he murmured, crawling up the ladder behind her, his chest to her back, bracing her so she could get her hand and foot back onto the ladder. Her heart pounded mercilessly and she had to swallow tears. But she didn't miss that Reth wasn't comforting her. No stroking, no encouragement. He simply waited for her to get her balance back, then urged her forward again.

Slowly, slowly, she continued to climb. Reth stayed right behind her, his arms veined and popping with the strain of not only climbing the ladder with his weight, but also holding himself far enough from it that she would drop into his lap if she fell.

But eventually, Elia's heart spun for an entirely different reason. She was almost there!

"I'm going to do it!

" she whispered.

"Yes, you are,

" he said, and she could tell he was pleased.

When she finally crawled up the last feet of the ladder and was able to grab the stump at the top that the ladder was tied to, she groaned in relief. She almost lost her footing again, crawling over the lip of the hole, but she made it and stumbled forward, panting, to sprawl on the grass to the right of the stump, her arms and legs spread and shaking.

"That was insane!

" she gasped, her chest heaving.

Reth—breathing harder than usual, but not sweating, curse him—stood over her with his hands on his hips. The moon was low and bright, dawn about to begin, but the blue-white light from above cast him in silver and shadows.

"You have 50 breaths to recover, then you'll be on your feet,

" he said flatly.

"Reth. I can't do anything else. That was… look, my arms and legs are shaking!

"

He glared at her.

"45 breaths.

"

"Reth!

"

He raised an eyebrow, the shadows made his face look so stark and fierce that she shut her mouth and concentrated on taking deep, slow breaths.

*****

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