She stared at him, not sure if there was any safe ground to stand on.

Lucivar bared his teeth. “Luthvian. She’s the one who told you.”

“Lady Angelline doesn’t have experience with Eyrien—”

“On her worst day, Jaenelle is a better Healer than Luthvian can ever hope to be.” He shook his head. “You think your wings were damaged? When I came to Kaeleer, mine were so broken, so destroyed by slime mold there was barely enough healthy tissue left to work with. Luthvian wanted to remove them. Jaenelle rebuilt them, healed them. So don’t tell me she doesn’t have experience.”

Marian’s legs trembled. She could have flown? All these months when she’d been afraid to try, she could have soared over Ebon Rih?

Swearing viciously, Lucivar circled the room as if he couldn’t stand still a moment longer. Finally, he stopped in front of her. The hand he held out curled into a fist.

“Don’t let them win, Marian. Don’t let them make you less than you are. Don’t let them take away what means the most to you. Not the family who dismissed your strength and your skills, not the bastards who hurt you—yes, I know about them—and not Luthvian. Don’t let them win. Fight for what you want with everything that’s in you.”

“It’s not the same,” Marian cried. “I’m just a hearth witch and you’re—”

“I was a slave!” Lucivar shouted. “A half-breed bastard sold to one court after another, wearing that filthy Ring of Obedience to keep me submissive. But I wouldn’t submit, I wouldn’t break, and I fought back with every breath I took. I refused to be less than a Warlord Prince, and I made them deal with me on my terms. No matter how much pain they inflicted, I gave it back.”

“I’m not like that. I can’t fight like that.”

“Have you ever tried?” He raked a hand through his hair. “If you give up your wings, what else will you give up because someone tells you you’re just a hearth witch?”

Something broke inside her—broke and reformed in a different pattern. She teetered on the edge of a cliff. She could step back to familiar ground or she could leap—and possibly soar.

He’d been pushing her toward that edge. She saw that now. Every time he challenged and she pushed back, he never undermined the sense that she had held her own. She didn’t usually win—his idea of compromise was laughable—but she didn’t actually lose, either.

He wanted her to win. And he’d throw everything he was behind her to help her do it.

She swallowed tears and gathered her courage. “Could you help me learn how to fly again?”