Mageborn The Line of Illeniel by Michael Manning (interesting novels to read .txt) 📕

down from her horse, the she remounted with a standing jump. The action delighted her so much she repeated it several times. She was about to try vaulting completely over the horse before she had to stop. Her poor mare had spooked at her strange antics and nearly started bucking. She spent several minutes talking to her to calm her down.

“You’re enjoying this entirely too much,” I said a few minutes later as we ate our bread and cheese.

“And you my sweet man are jealous,” she shot back.

“Hardly, I could make the horse fly over you just as easily, but I am too concerned for the poor mare’s feelings to put her through that,” I replied grumpily.

“If you two are done eating, it’s time for my pupil’s next lesson. She obviously needs to burn off some excess energy,” Cyhan interjected.

The two of them squared off in a small clearing beside the road. I was interested to see the outcome. Penny showed every sign of having far more strength and agility now than any person, man or woman, had a right to possess. My bets were still on the older warrior though, there’s something to be said for experience and his constant training had made him just about as strong as any normal human could hope to be.

They were sparring barehanded. Cyhan felt it would be far too dangerous to do any weapons training until she had acclimated to her new abilities. That was as much as an admission that he feared she might injure him, or perhaps that he might be forced to go too far in defending himself. I wasn’t too sure which.

As soon as he said, ‘ready’ she went after him, faster than a jungle cat. She moved almost too quickly for me to follow but a moment later she was sailing past him to land sprawling in the grass. I thought she might pause for a moment after that, but I was wrong. She had barely struck the earth before she bounded up again and headed for him. He was ready for her, and seconds later she was flying off in another direction.

“Pay attention damnit!” he shouted at her. “In a real fight you or Mordecai could wind up dead with all the time you waste charging about and landing on your ass!”

That got her goat; she came off the ground as if it were a trampoline. She twisted as she came up, perhaps she planned to somersault as she came up but she overdid it. She nearly flipped all the way over again, to land face first, but her reflexes saved her. Putting out both hands she caught herself and pushed off again. The end result was a combination tumble and somersault that sent her flying over his head. She landed lightly behind him, but before she could swing at him his back kick caught her squarely in the stomach. I winced as I heard the air driven forcibly from her stomach. She flew back several feet and collapsed, choking and gagging for air.

Cyhan was ‘hopping’ mad. That would have been a great joke to make, but he truly was angry, and she was in no shape to appreciate my humor either. He took two quick strides and jerked her to her feet by her hair, “That was the dumbest shit I have ever had the misfortune to witness!”

Penny tried to say something but she wound up vomiting on him instead, a nasty concoction of bread and cheese. If I hadn’t been so worried about her I might have laughed then too, instead I ran over to help her.

“Goddammit!” he shouted at her. A long string of expletives followed and I wish I had paid better attention, some of them I had never heard before. I was surer than ever that he must have spent some time as a sailor, or perhaps a marine. Quite a bit of his swearing was pure nautical genius.

“Maybe we should take a break from our break...” I suggested.

“You stay out of it!” he roared at me. He looked as if he were ready to beat her and call it ‘training’ just to get vengeance for the noxious substance she had spewed all over him. Instead he stomped off toward the horses looking for a towel.

“Are you ok Penny?” I tried to help her stand up straight.

“Get away from me!” she shouted, pushing me back. I don’t think she intended to push me quite that hard but I wound up flying back several feet to land on my ass. “I don’t want your help Mort! I can handle this on my own.” She went in a different direction and soon I was left alone, sitting in the clearing.

“What the hell did I do?” I said to myself. Some days it just doesn’t pay to try and help your homicidal girlfriend after she’s been hurt. Honestly, homicidal isn’t too strong a word either. By her own admission she’s committed murder before. Granted the circumstances were exceptional.

Marc walked over, he had been watching silently during the bout. “She’s always been proud Mort. The best thing to do when someone’s pride is injured is to give them space,” he commented.

“I only wanted to help.”

He sighed, “Listen, ever since you turned up with your magical talents everything has been about you. Then you discovered you were the heir to not just one, but two fortunes; not to mention being a nobleman. How do you think that makes her feel?”

“Happy?” I ventured.

“No, dumbass... inferior. She went from being your equal, to being the girl that just got lucky enough to have her claws in you first,” he replied sharply.

“I can’t help my birth... or any of the rest of it. None of it matters to me anyway, not without her,” I said emphatically. “You know that!”

“Sometimes knowing isn’t enough. People think with their heads, but they live by their hearts. This is the first thing she’s had to call her own... to make her special. It