She was trembling like a leaf, his novice. His little Black Magician, who had just made her first kill. And it had been an Ichani, no less. Akkarin felt a surge of both pride and sorrow in his heart. That fate had chosen to send her this as her first test; that she had passed so breathtakingly. The image of her leaping out of the alcove, straightening up within the shield of the Ichani. The cold instinct in her dark eyes as she slashed with the dagger, and clasped a pale, small hand, the sinews and muscles in her slim forearm taut, over the wound. Magnificent, this girl. No, this young woman.

The High Lord breathed deeply through his nose to steady himself so that he could steady Sonea, in turn. The speed with which she had gone from hating him, to understanding the threat to Kyralia, to accepting the story of his past, to volunteering to learn black magic – it still astounded him.

It filled Akkarin of Delvon, who had long encased his heart in ice, with a fear and a gratitude that he had forgotten how to feel. With every challenge that had come her way, his novice had grown stronger, without losing her compassion. He wanted that. He desperately wanted a little bit of that for himself.

What he had witnessed tonight had been like a dam breaking on feelings and thoughts he had barely even admitted to himself on solitary nights, sitting in the dark in his Residence like some nocturnal predator. A predator who – until she had burst past his defences in all of her young, raw, unconfined power – had hunted alone.

Kindred spirits, we are, of a sort, he had told himself. She, the perpetual outsider; I, the one who became an outsider through the choices I made. She had started out a confidant, an apprentice. Someone he could leave this work to, knowing it was in capable hands and a strong heart.

But when the Ichani woman had glanced back at the alcove in which Sonea was hidden, something primal had taken over Akkarin's senses. Something well beyond a guardian wanting to protect his novice. Something he knew had been growing inside him ever since Sonea defeated Regin in the arena, her power tempered by an innate sense of honour beyond her years.

Yes, his faculties had been taken over by pure emotion. He had seen red. In that moment, when he had launched his attack to distract the Ichani with all the ferocity he could muster, his thoughts had been suspended. Those feelings he had repressed had been what ruled him.

Sonea's dark, silken hair was covered in debris from the explosion. Her brown novice's robes were a dusty grey. Her pale, delicate, face – glowing like the Eye, to Akkarin – was clammy with cold sweat. She shook her head in disbelief, still shaking. A bewildering mixture of emotions crossed her jet-black eyes, which glinted almost opaque in the moonlight.

"Look at me, Sonea."

His voice sounded like it belonged to someone else, no matter how much Akkarin tried to slip into that calm, authoritative darkness he had cultivated in his persona. It had a desperate edge to it; deep, guttural, too intimate.

No, he would never again be the man had once been around this young woman. Even if he successfully continued to wear a mask. His new sentence, he knew, was being condemned to feel from now on, whenever he looked upon her. His brave, remarkable, beautiful little novice. A new defender of the realm – and a much more worthy one than he deserved, with his sordid past.

Sonea was still looking into the distance, in shock. Her small, pale hands were all the more beautiful, in Akkarin's eyes, for the blood that glinted on them, wet and red-black. He suppressed the sudden urge to grasp them so that his hands, too, would be covered in that blood. So that they would be bound terribly in this moment of mutual guilt and relief.

Her trembling had now been replaced by a stillness that frightened the High Lord. Let it be, then. Let it happen. A pain seemed to twist his heart as he reached out and did what he knew would seal his fate.

He softly touched her shoulders and turned her around to face him. She reluctantly met his gaze. Black eyes locked on black. It was a strange moment to think about it, but he realised how rarely, and only how recently, he had won the pleasure of those obsidian eyes looking straight at him. Properly looking at him, meeting his gaze, unlike the first months of her life under his roof.

Akkarin's eyes took in her locked jaw, her pale neck, her short black waterfall of hair. He frowned at the debris that dared make a mockery of her powerful and vulnerable beauty in that instant.

Allowing himself to loosen the familiar, tight rein on his impulses, the High Lord reached out and gently tugged a piece of the sacking from her hair. His fingers tingled where the silken tresses rippled through his fingers. Oh yes, it feels exactly how I imagined brushing my hands through her hair would feel. Of course it does.

Sonea didn't notice that the piece of sacking fell from his hand to the ground because the High Lord's fingers trembled and lost their hold, not because he let it go.

I know what you are feeling. I know it better than anyone in the world. And that is why it is now you and I against the world, my Sonea.

The words he formed in his head were, gratefully, not the words he managed to murmur through his lips.

"It is not an easy choice, the one you've made," Akkarin said, "but you will learn to trust yourself."

If he had continued to hold that jet-black gaze for a moment longer, the High Lord knew not what he would have next uttered to get her to react, or move, or say something. Instead, he looked up at the night sky, breathing in deeply through his nose and willing his mind to cooperate. What she needs from you in this moment is steadfastness. She needs you to stay in control.

Following his gaze, Sonea's eyes glinted almost blue as they looked upon the full moon that hung in the middle of the gap in the roof.

Akkarin tore his thoughts away from his body, which was screaming at him to envelop her small from in his arms: to bury her face in his chest, and feel her heartbeat pound against his own. She is novice; you are High Lord. She is apprentice; you are tutor. She is a new Black Magician; you are her maker. It is your responsibility to guide her through this ordeal, not frighten her even more. Pull yourself together, magician.

"We must get away from here quickly," Akkarin managed to say, injecting calm into his voice with immense effort. "The Thieves will take care of the body."

Sonea's delicate, pale face started as she pulled her gaze away from the Eye, as if she was emerging from the abyss of her own thoughts. Oh, Sonea, how alike we are. I know; I know, he thought, feeling as though his heart would burst out of his silken black robes.

Her wide, obsidian eyes swept up to his again for a moment – pools to drown myself in, the thought flashed – then, when she tore her gaze away to look down and nod, it was like a treasure had been snatched out of his hand.

Akkarin turned away to face the door, composing his face for the sake of the boy who waited outside to take them back to the Thieves' Road. His nostrils flared with a tension that hummed in every fibre of his being. His mouth was set in a line of pain; his self-restraint was on a knife's edge.

That night, Akkarin knew with terrible certainty that he had stopped being her High Lord, and had become a man whose heart was laid at her feet, for her to do with as she willed. The thought would make her recoil, Akkarin thought. So it was just as well that he had every intention of bearing this burden in silence. It is no less than I deserve.

As he strode out the door, Akkarin did not see Sonea reach up to smooth her hair where he had touched her.

He did not see the flash of confusion that flickered in his novice's black eyes for a brief moment, or the involuntary shiver of her hand as she recalled the sensation of her guardian's touch.