It was foolish to think the lessons Griste put me through would change after I started using magic. When I tried to throw the disks off their path, an invisible force ripped them free from my grip before I could slow them down. When I tried to create small shields of ice, they would go around them. An attempt was made at larger walls they could not go around, and while they did work to a degree, I could not maintain the Aura consumption, and before long I found myself lightheaded and not long after unable to use any magic.

Early on, I tried attacking the skinwalker. Whether I did it out of malice on my part or a genuine strategy was likely closer to the former. Regardless of the reason, it did nothing.

If I tried ice, it would evaporate into steam before it could even think about making contact. If I tried fire, it would sizzle out halfway, earth would crumble to dust, and sharp winds would dissipate before making contact. No matter what I tried, an invisible counter prevented it from having any effect. Eventually, Griste put an end to my attempts through silent suggestion by distracting me with the disks, moving them at a speed that left no time to react.

On the third day of the “training,” I concluded Griste was trying to drain as much energy from me as possible. Getting hit by the disks wasn’t an option either, and I had to use some form of magic to protect myself.

Further frustration grew when the skinwalker started moving more than one shape at a time and laughed at my protests that such a thing was unfair.

“How are you going to avoid multiple attacks at once?” he mused.

Under the pressure he placed me under, failure to execute my magic correctly became more commonplace, and I developed an instinctive dread whenever I felt the process backfiring. There was the disappointment of failing something I thought I had gotten good at, but there was also the knowledge that there was a metal object flying toward me at high speeds.

Sometimes doing everything perfectly meant nothing. The shields held; the hold bought me a fraction of a second, and an unseen disk would nail me in the head.

Several times, I contemplated going to my parents to protest his tactics. Yet every time I worked up the courage to go to them, one of three things would happen. I recalled how they treated my complaints about Dragoslava when she was trying to provoke a magical response. The situation with Griste felt similar, and it was not out of the question they encouraged his lessons, perhaps even telling him to carry them out.

Second, there was a method to his madness. He was not graceful in how he explained it, often working ridicule into it, but I understood it to an extent. I would debate whether the extent he went to was necessary.

The last reason that kept me from reporting him to my parents was spite. Whenever I struggled or wasn’t putting forth satisfactory effort according to his standards, he would suggest quitting. I wasn’t sure if it was how he was saying it or some look in his eyes that tipped me off, but hearing such words set me off. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to let him be right, so I picked myself up and threw myself at the challenge once more.

Despite my resolve to continue Griste’s lessons, I was not sure why my parents kept him around. Their political standing within The Nest improved upon delivering Illthic’s body to Andreaki’s family. Merthic’s escape prevented it from being restored in full, and I doubted they would ever forget Andreaki’s death, but my mother and father relaxed for the first time since her death. This allowed their mysterious work to increase to a similar level to where it was before, keeping my father busy enough that I noticed his absence but giving him enough freedom that he would be around for supper.

I saw no reason why they couldn’t hire someone else. It was clear no one in the mansion liked him. Dragoslava would wrinkle her nose at him, and the other maids would avoid eye contact with him altogether, moving with haste to leave whatever room he entered the few times he would leave the study. My mother held her breath, and the look my father would give him was disdain.

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Yet the skinwalker stayed around, and his lessons continued, much to the detriment of my body. It became hard to remember a time when I didn’t have bruises, and the mere sight of fast flying objects made me jump.

As painful as Griste’s methods were, I was seeing progress in my abilities. Magic became more instinctive, and I could cast ice magic without imagining the drain. Other forms still required some focus, but I could multitask while using them. I found success in practicing doing so when I could, keeping an orb of light around even when I didn’t need it, warming myself with my magic instead of the houses—small things.

Newer forms of magic eluded me, limiting what I could do to basic elemental control and psychic abilities, but they were enough to get along with his lessons. When I tried to cast new types, one of two things would happen. It felt as if doing so cut a hole in the bottom of my drain, releasing everything in my Aura in an instant. Or the telltale signs the magic was going to fail flared up higher than ever before, and I put an end to it myself before anything came of it.

Besides my magical abilities, my physical ones increased as well. My magic could only do so much, and my agility was one of the few things stopping the disks from creating excessive bruises. During this time, my parents added an exercise regimen to my academics. If it had been at the beginning of the day, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but they placed it right after lunch, right when bruises started taking form and exhaustion took its toll. I knew it was to help me, but I hated every second.

The “homework” Griste gave me went neglected more than it already was. A part of me believed he was joking about it and that it was just another thing he said to get under my skin. This proved to not be the case when he started speaking to me in a language I did not understand. I came to realize it was French, and no amount of pleading would make him go back to Russian.

Reluctantly, I took the book he threw at me and started reading it. It took months before the skinwalker started making sense again, and even then, deciphering what he was saying was a slow and arduous task. It did not help that he gave me little time to think.

It didn’t matter how or how much I improved; nothing would satisfy the skinwalker, and nothing would stop him from making his lessons more demanding. Deep down, I knew why he was doing what he was doing, but despite that understanding, I hated him for doing it. The one thing that kept me going was my spite for his unsaid belief I would fail and give up before he did.

For four years, this continued. Little by little, I had been improving in the exercise to the point I could go ten minutes without getting hit by his disks.

My dexterity with my smaller shields increased to where I could hold the shapes back until another diverted my attention away, and my ability to gain control over them allowed me to throw them off target. When combined with the effectiveness of the larger shields, I could hold my own.

Of course, Griste put me in my place if I made any progress, and I wouldn’t stand a chance if he got serious.

He made it hard to feel any source of accomplishment when a random disk or bar would hit me from a blind spot, but I had a feeling he was doing so on purpose. Though I had no proof, I had a feeling he derived a sick sense of pleasure from putting me down.

In those four years, not once did I see anything implicating Merthic being around, and I had a feeling it would remain that way. It would be a lie to say I did not go out looking on my own again once my grounding ended, though it was unlike the first time. I made sure to tell Dragoslava I was going for a walk, and I just so happened to “wander” off the beaten path during said walks. I made sure I never lost sight of the path and would go back to it if I heard anything I could not attribute to wildlife.

Looking back, I was likely being watched the entire way, perhaps with my maid following in my footsteps.

None of my “walks” amounted to anything, but I wasn’t expecting them to. They were more childish ventures meant to give me some sense of closure that the Winter Witch would no longer be a problem.

My parents did not experience the same level of closure as I did, and they muttered Merthic’s name from time to time. One night, I overheard my father talking to someone through magical means. I could only hear my father’s side of the conversation, but from what I could piece together, it sounded as though he was told to drop the case. He was far from pleased by such a decision, but as far as I could tell, he followed the directions and dropped it.

The modifications to the house that turned it into a fortress did not disappear, but there was an attempt to cover them up more. Either they were unsuccessful or I was more aware of the magic permeating through the house, as I could still pick them out from time to time from the corner of my eye. Because of the lingering presence it had, it served as a reminder of Andreaki, and chills ran down my spine every time I saw them.

Regardless of how I felt about them, it added a strange atmosphere to our home. It was as if we were trying to move on from the tragedy but couldn’t.