Flashback ( PDFDrive )

“Of course I am. I’ve been stuck in bed for weeks waiting for this,
while all my friends trained without me. I have a ton of catching up to
do.”
“Then I know exactly where to start this lesson.” He motioned for
her to follow him over to the scarecrowlike dummy that Flori had
assembled from lumpy sacks and twisted rags. It didn’t have a face,
but someone had painted two unnervingly realistic blue eyes across
the coarse fabric of the dummy’s head.
Sophie froze when she recognized them.
“Who painted those?” she whispered, sucking in a breath to keep
the monster from waking. But she could feel the beast stretch its
restless legs.
“I did,” Sandor told her. “I wanted to make sure these lessons feel
real.”
Mission accomplished.
“I . . . never realized you were such a good artist,” she told him,
closing her eyes—but the scarecrow’s lifelike irises were already
burned into her memory.
Gethen’s eyes.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Sandor said, placing a
steadying hand on her shoulder. “If this is too much—”
“No!” she interrupted. “I can handle it.”
If she couldn’t face an imaginary Gethen, how would she ever face
the real one again?
“I’m going to trust you to know your limits,” Sandor told her, and
she nodded, grateful he wasn’t going to baby her.
She took another long breath and forced herself to stare back at the
dummy until her pulse steadied.