Free Exile by Lola Lebellier Page A

been using them for all that time. They’re passed from guardian to apprentice.”
    “And you wear them too?” he asked.
    “Want to see them?” Aless offered.
    “If… if you don’t mind.”
    Aless stood up, rolling up his pants slightly above his mid-thighs, pointing to the thick silver rings on his legs. Corin reached a hand out hesitantly, feeling the skin around Aless’s leg restraints, eliciting a loud hiss from Aless.
    Corin pulled his hand away as if he had been burnt. “I’m sorry!”
    “It’s nothing,” Aless replied. “The skin around the rings is just extremely sensitive. You can touch them if you like.”
    “I don’t want to hurt you,” Corin insisted, averting his eyes.
    Aless blushed, laughing a bit. “They aren’t sensitive like that.”
    “What do you—?” Corin began asking, before flushing bright red. “Oh.”
    Aless laughed. “As I said, it’s completely fine,” he insisted, grabbing Corin’s hand and moving it back to his restraints.
    Corin furrowed his brow, examining the rings. He read the writing on them slowly, not bothering to translate it into Common, letting his thumb run over the intricate patterns.
    “What?” Aless asked.
    Corin shrugged. “It’s what the ring said, isn’t it?” he asked. “‘Bind your spirit.’”
    “No, I mean, you can read that?” Aless asked, crouching down.
    “Yes. It’s Centrallian,” he answered, reading it over again. “Same variant as the village I grew up in. It’s not widely used.”
    “That’s amazing. I didn’t even think those were words.” he explained, laughing. He reluctantly pulled Corin’s hand off and unrolled his pant legs, sitting back down.
    Corin blushed, clearing his throat. “So everyone wears those types of restraints?
    “Sort of. We all have one around our necks,” Aless explained, pointing to his neck, “but the others’ locations depend on the demon. They also vary in material. Mine are silver, Piers’s are gold, Cyril’s are ebony, Selena’s would be silver, and I believe Kateline would also have a gold set.”
    “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I don’t think that’s right,” he stated. “I’ve never seen any rings on Master Selena’s neck. And Kateline has been wearing a black ring on one of her arms—I saw her in a corridor this morning.”
    “Unusual on both fronts,” he said, pausing. Very unusual, in fact. After his restraints had snapped off, he’d had a different set for a very short amount of time, but after that he had returned to his normal silver set.
    Beyond that he had, from a few of the books he stole, heard that some guardians, ones with an immense amount of mana, had been able to use only their neck restraints to seal their demon, but none who would have managed without even that. Corin had to be making a mistake.
    Corin looked at Aless curiously. “I’m sorry for bringing it up.”
    “It’s fine. I’ll look into it at some point. We’ll talk later this week, I promise. I think we got a little carried away. Up for a spar?” he asked, offering his hand to Corin.
    Corin smiled, taking Aless’s hand and standing up.

Chapter 9

     
    C ORIN sighed, trying to stretch his muscles under the table at breakfast. For all that Aless had been kind in the early morning, when they had begun sparring he certainly had meant business. He left no room for mistakes, and was constantly calling out advice during, not allowing the young apprentice to take a single moment to recuperate. Corin was sure he was bruised in more places than he even knew existed.
    “Did you pull a muscle?” Adelle, Corin’s friend, asked, glancing at him curiously. “I can try a basic healing spell, if you want. Master Zephyr isn’t normally this rough, is she?”
    “I spent the morning researching,” he insisted. “I accidentally knocked my pile of books onto my back. It was a little bit painful.”
    “You should’ve mentioned it to me! I would’ve come and studied with you! Master