She tried to keep her eyes everywhere but on him. “I don’t even know what most of this is.” She gestured around at the implements hanging from hooks on the wall.
“Each day we’ll try a new one until you learn.”
“And when will we go rescue the Wesh and find the Restless King? I care nothing for mastering weapons.”
He smiled, handing her the rod. “But you must master them if you hope to be any use in fighting the king. We have time to train before the auction. Damren tells me that when you are master of your body, you are a better master to your magic, and it will be more powerful.”
“And are you? Master of your body?” she asked, twisting the rod and finding its balance point. It was heavy, but not unwieldy. She flushed as she realized the implications of what she had asked, but Sy wasn’t watching her.
“I am as my father says. Weshen’s best Paladin,” he replied, facing the weapons rack. Coren thought there was a note of bitterness in the words, but all thoughts were swept away as he turned around and swung at her with a new rod.
He moved slowly enough for her to block, but she felt the thump reverberate in her arms and shoulders. She was already sore from the day’s climbing, and it would grow worse if they continued.
But her mouth set in a grim line. If he could train after such a day, so could she. Readying herself better for the next blow, she held up the rod and blocked him again. He twisted and turned it as he wove around her on the mat, still in slow motion, but she managed to block each blow.
“You have quick reflexes,” he said, grinning.
“A lifetime of hunting with a whip,” she countered. She noticed he increased the speed of his movements slightly then, but still she matched him. The night was quiet except for their controlled blows, and she found her questions bubbling to the surface of the silence. “Tell me more of the magic. Single magic has fusion and disintegration. What about Double? All I’ve done is make myself look younger. Can I look older?”
“Yes, but that’s not the opposing magic.” He leaned his rod against the wall and sat, beckoning for her to do the same. “Double magic is tricky. SelfShifting can go within or without. Within, you can shift your appearance younger, older, or even alter it to look like someone else. Though I’ve never been able to do that,” he admitted.
“And without?” she prompted.
He stood and retrieved his water. He offered it to her first, but she shook her head. Coren watched him drink, her stare letting him know he wouldn’t be able to avoid her questions.
“Without means shifting to something not human,” he said finally, his eyes meeting hers.
“Not human,” she repeated.
He nodded. “No-one alive can do it anymore. But once, the strongest of the Weshen hunters were able to claim a certain MagiCreature - only ever one per hunter - and shift into a mix of creature and Weshen.”
Coren stood, her muscles restless, as though they could learn to shift into a creature that very moment. “This is how we can beat him!” she whispered. “This is the magic that will be the Restless King’s undoing!”
“This magic was the Weshen’s undoing,” he answered softly, and her shoulders sagged. Of course. This was exactly the type of power a king would conquer a nation to get.
“But if he doesn’t know the magic has returned…if he doesn’t suspect,” she tried.
Sy nodded. “That’s our only hope. To train here, where our secrets will stay safe, and travel to StarsHelm undetected.”
Coren smiled. Yes, this could work. They had a willing and capable teacher and a safe place to practice. Even her family was protected and waiting for her return. “This has to work,” she said.
Sy held his hand out to her. “Come with me. I want to show you the library.”
“Library!” Coren repeated, her spark of excitement flaring again.
Sy laughed as she hurried from the room. He barely had time to grab his shirt from the floor, and by the time he blew out the torches, she was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
His chest grew tight watching the gleam in her eyes as he led her down a different hall and into the vast circular cave that was Damren’s library. The center of the room was open except for one wide table, and a path spiraled around the room and up, lined with shelves of dusty volumes.
“This was Damren’s real passion,” he said, watching as Coren splayed her fingers over several spines. “Before she was a teacher, she was a student, and before she dreamed of training Weshen to use magic, she dreamed of studying magic. The training and teaching only became necessary with the war. These are mostly rescued books from Weshen City’s libraries.” He pointed to a prominent shelf, less dust-filled than the others.
“This is incredible,” Coren said, her face shining as she turned to him. “I thought all of this knowledge was lost.” He let her roam while he searched for the book he’d brought her here to see.
“These are the Weshen shifters,” he said, spreading the book flat to show her the pages of gloriously-colored drawings that had entranced him since childhood. This was the very book he had once stolen from his school library, lost long ago but found in duplicate here in Damren’s library.
Coren slid the book she’d been leafing through back on the shelf and hurried to join him. He heard her quick intake of breath as she ran her fingers lightly over the illustrated pages.
There were men with the brawn and ruff of a Grizzlin, taller and twice as muscled as a normal man. Women with the wings of a Vespa, spread twenty feet on either side of their shoulders, and golden claws extending from their fingers. Young men and women both with the pointed, curious ears and silken tails of Sun Kitsuun, their hair blended with coppery fur, and some with the ebony-blue and silver hues of the sly Moon Kitsuun. One had eight shiny, jointed legs springing from his spine, holding his body aloft like the Giant Arachs, and another’s skin had been replaced with the glistening jade and teal blue hide of a Cheetana.
“They’re beautiful,” Coren breathed, flipping through page after page of the fantastic creations.
“Unfortunately, there’s no way to know if any of this is possible,” Sy said, sitting with a yawn. The need to sleep had finally caught up with him.
“If it was possible once, it is possible still,” Coren answered. She looked up at him and closed the book, tucking it close to her chest.
“Damren begins training early,” Sy said. “And if we truly mean to rescue those Wesh slaves, we have limited time. Perhaps two weeks.”
“Why are they called Wesh?” she asked, standing.
He lowered his eyes. “It’s a slur. The en was removed, showing that they no longer have enough of the women’s blood to be considered truly Weshen. I shouldn’t use it.”
She watched him intently. “Thank you for showing me this,” she said, her eyes locked on his instead of the books.
Sy smiled, finally feeling as though he’d finally given her a gift to enjoy instead of another trouble to overcome.
Chapter 24
Damren’s bell did indeed ring before Coren was ready to get up. She pulled the blanket over her head and groaned at waking before the sun breached the slit of skylight above her.
But soon Sy was knocking on her door. “She won’t stop, Coren!” he called. “Just get up and deal with it!”
Coren huffed and shoved the covers away. The chill of the rock room woke her stiff muscles slowly, but soon enough she dressed and headed to the kitchen, yawning.
Sy greeted her with a warm mug of strong black tea, and she smiled gratefully at him, inhaling its steam and sweet, fortifying scent. Damren sat at the table spooning oats and sugar into bowls. Coren idly wondered where the old woman got her food, but that wasn’t what she planned to ask first.
Instead, she set the mug down and placed the book of shifters open on the table. “Can you teach me to do this?” she asked, pointing to one of the Weshen-Cheetana shifters.
Damren took an enormous bite and watched placidly as Coren began
to fidget, growing impatient. Then she smiled. “No.”
“No?” Coren echoed. “Why not?”
Damren only continued eating.
“You’ll have to master Single magic first,” Sy cautioned, sliding a bowl over to Coren. “And physical training.”
Coren nodded, her eyes distracted by how his sleeveless tunic exposed the muscle of his arms. Why did this boy care for her? What did that mean, after everything else was stripped away?
“What will I learn today, then?” she asked, blinking back to the Cheetana in the book.
“Today we see what you can do,” the old woman announced. “Eat fast. I’ll be in the training room.” She dumped her bowl in the sink and padded away.
Coren bent her head and kept her eyes on the pages before her as she ate, letting Sy finish and leave as well. Only then did she sigh and slump against the tabletop.
She could not afford to get distracted by thoughts of love, or anything even close. Things had been so much simpler before, when she lived on an island and kept her heart an island.
Unreachable by no-one except her little family.
Damren’s bell jarred her up again, and she glared at the empty kitchen. She knew it wouldn’t stop, though, until she had learned every scrap of magic Damren had to offer. So she left her bowl in the sink and sprinted up the stairs to the training room.
When she pushed open the door, a similar sight greeted her. The torches were lit, and Sy was again shirtless. Coren huffed, and she could have sworn Damren grinned before chucking a rock at her head.
She barely ducked in time and whirled on the woman. “What the Magi was that for?”
Damren answered by throwing one at Sy. Coren’s eyebrows shot up as he raised his hand and the rock disintegrated in mid-air. A pile of dust drifted to the mat. Coren turned to Damren just in time to see a second rock heading her way.
She tried to focus her magic, but it was too late, and the rock smacked into her hand. Pain shot through her palm and into her wrist, but she said nothing.
Damren grinned and threw another rock.
It went like that all morning, and although Coren quickly learned not to keep her hand in the rock’s path, the most she managed was to break the stone into chunks that clattered to the floor.
“What’s wrong with my magic? Shouldn’t I be learning faster?” she complained, massaging her wrist after yet another rock had connected, her power a split second too late.
“Most of your magic before today has stemmed from emotion, yes?” Damren asked when they paused to rest and restore their strength with lemondrine tonic.
Coren nodded, draining her glass.
“But you’ve had a brush with Sulit magic?” Damren continued. “Is it still in her system, perhaps?” she asked Sy.
“I gave her the tonic immediately after. It should all be cleansed from her body.”
“Wait, isn’t the tonic from Sulit?” Coren interrupted, remembering Maren’s story.
Damren watched her, as though calculating. “The Sulit created it, but they have no need for such restoratives. Their magic comes from the power of nature, which restores itself naturally. Weshen magic restores naturally as well, but the tonic speeds the process, and has helped a few of us maintain our strength since the Sacrifice.”
“Maren used it for that,” Coren acknowledged. “I got a message from her,” she blurted then. “On the beach. I think she sent it with Sulit power.” She explained the leaf to them. Sy’s eyes widened and Damren’s narrowed.
“It was a rare Weshen who was able to befriend the witches,” Damren said, “but the message sounds genuine from both witch and Weshen.”
Coren nodded. “If they wanted me to come to Rurok, all they had to do was threaten the twins. But if they’re safe, I know they’ll wait for me there. I just wish I could send them a message back. That I’m coming, but I have things to do.” She lowered her eyes to her empty glass, trying to push the wave of sadness away, but like all waves, it rolled over her resolve, leaving her adrift.
“Hey,” Damren said. When Coren looked up, Damren hurled a rock right at her face.
And this time, it exploded in a puff of dust and sparkling minerals, the sources suspended in the air as Coren tried to slow her breathing, realizing she’d done it. She marveled at the cloud floating between them.
Damren cackled, her form hazy through the sources. “And you didn’t even need the hand motions.”
Sy stepped around the wide sphere of dust and grinned at Coren. “The hands help, like a crutch. But this was like the Vespa all over again.”
“Except now I know what I’m doing,” Coren answered. She concentrated on the sources, their differences now as obvious as the temperatures of the sea’s surface and its deeper currents. She willed them to separate, like with like, and soon several piles rested on the floor of the room. “I don’t even know what to call these sources. How can I feel their differences so easily?”
“The same way you know light is different from dark,” Sy answered. “Now that the magic is awake, it’s a natural part of your senses.”
“For many students of magic, the need to know conflicts with the ability to do,” Damren said. “You’re limited by your imagination because you’ve seen very little.” She stood and walked around the sources, and as she moved, the different colored dust at her feet began to move.
“A Weshen magi can be a laborer,” she said, and tiny bricks formed, laying themselves atop one another in a wall barely two inches high. “Or she can be an artist.” The bricks melted away, and the sources swirled together to create a figurine of a bird in flight, sparkling feathers covering its mottled body.
Damren sat back in her chair and took another drink. “Or, a Weshen magi can be a warrior.” The bird’s wings stretched wider, its body slimmed and lengthened, and its beak grew more pointed, until a stone dagger rested before them on the floor.
Coren bent to pick it up, and its new form held true, as though it had been carved from the rock wall with tools rather than assembled with an old woman’s mind. She turned and hurled the dagger at a wooden target, where it embedded itself near the edge.
“Sy, practice with her. I believe I need to lie down,” Damren said then, and rose stiffly, hobbling toward the door. She brushed away Sy’s attempts to help, turning back to them before she opened the door. “There is nothing wrong with your magic, Coren. You’re stronger than Syashin was initially. But your mind is cluttered and your heart overfull with confusion. The magic must have room to grow.” She didn’t wait for an answer, only slipped away.
“Shifting drains her quickly,” Coren observed when they were alone again, avoiding Damren’s comment. These were things she’d already sensed in herself, and the boy in front of her was a source she needed to either separate or fuse into her heart.
But she feared the idea of caring for someone. Of depending on them. Love might shift him into the perfect weapon, ready for someone to aim at her heart.
Sy turned and walked back to the training floor, selecting the same two rods they had used the previous night. “Part of it is her age, she tells me. Just like the body and mind weaken over the years, so does the magic.”
“And if you shift to a younger version of yourself?”
“It doesn’t stay. You can only hold that form as long as your magic is strong. A few minutes, maybe more for some people.”
“Can you do it? SelfShift?” Coren asked
Sy nodded and leaned the rods against the wall. His form flickered, and a slight haze grew around him, as though Coren were seeing him through the shimmery heat of summer. And in an instant, he stood before her, a boy no taller than Kosh. His hair was cropped close to his head, and his chest was the unformed plane of youth, but his eyes were the same.
Coren stared into his eyes too long, trying to remember the little boy she had once known in Maren’s yard before the elders had charmed them both to forget.
“I wish I could remember,” she said, as his form shift
ed back, the limbs stretching and muscling before her eyes, the hair seeming to grow inches in seconds. But the eyes were the same, and they didn’t break contact until Sy reached for the wooden rods and chucked one at her.
“We can make new memories,” he said, shrugging as he began to circle her.
She smiled and struck at him, and the training began again. Sy was harder on her this morning, hitting with more speed and force. Finally, her belly growling with hunger for the noon meal, she managed to strike in such a way to knock his rod to the floor. It clattered away as she pressed the end of hers to his throat.
He grinned. “Good. But don’t forget about your other weapons.”
“Magic?” she asked. But he shook his head, and faster than she could react, he had knocked her weapon away and swept her to the floor, his forearm in position to crush her throat. Panic swelled in her chest as she clawed at his arm.
“Weapons are useless and magic is dangerous if you can’t control your body,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. His weight bore down on her, his body coming close to full contact. She stilled under him, no longer trying to struggle away.
Coren’s mind stuttered through several responses, but just as she opened her mouth, the kitchen bell rang, and Sy removed his arm, standing and holding out a hand to help her up.
By the door was a stack of towels. Sy threw her one, then took one himself, scrubbing at his face. As Coren wiped her neck and just lower than her shirt’s collar, her eyes wandered again to his bare chest, wondering why those ridges and smooth, sun-darkened skin were so pleasing.
“Do all boys look like this?” she wondered.
“Look like what?” Sy asked, lowering the towel.
Coren felt her cheeks flame. She truly hadn’t meant to ask that aloud. “Like you,” she mumbled.
Sy grinned, his face flushing too. “In EvenFall you’ll see much less muscle. More fat. People who have too much to eat and never train. Or people who have had too little to eat all their lives and are wasted to nothing. But soldiers and Weshen boys look like this because we train every day. Resh has better abs,” he pointed to the squares of his stomach, “but his arms aren’t as strong as mine.”
Shift of Shadow and Soul (SoulShifter Book 1) Page 23