Bruises and Honey
15
A new routine began for Scorch, and no longer was training in the eastern room the sole occupancy of his time. Upon first waking, Vivid would thrust breakfast of some sort into his hands and watch impatiently until he’d eaten it all. Then they would commence to the forest for what Vivid liked to call “stealth training” and Scorch liked to call “torture.”
The dubious practice consisted of a number of activities, one of which involved Scorch trying his best to move silently through the trees while Vivid stalked him. Other times, it was Scorch’s turn to attempt stalking Vivid without detection. Both scenarios always met the same end, with Vivid sneaking up behind him and proving how easy it would be to kill him, usually with a hand on his neck or his blades pressed against Scorch’s back.
“You are hopelessly loud,” Vivid scorned, and again, he would show Scorch the right way of placing his feet on the ground, and the proper way to breathe, of which Scorch had never known there was an improper way. The Guild had taught him how to swing his sword and nock a bow, but the guardians did not practice their skills in the shadows, so the only need for delicacy had been in hunting. But apparently, even that brand of silence was not enough to satisfy Vivid.
“Imagine your life depends on your stealth,” Vivid instructed before beginning training one day. “Imagine my life depends on it.”
Scorch groaned. “Gods, I’ll kill us both.”
“Not if you heed what I’ve taught you. Go.”
Scorch nodded and walked ahead into the forest. Whoever was to be stalked began at the big oak tree. He arrived there with a nervous stomach; the idea of Vivid spying through the trees made it hard to relax.
The goal was to travel stealthily back to the waterfall without being heard. If Vivid detected a single twig snap or leaf crunch beneath brutish feet, he would appear moments later to pretend-kill Scorch. As of yet, Scorch had never made it to the waterfall and Vivid had killed him about thirty times. It was both terrifying and exhausting, but he could admit to himself that it was also thrilling, in its own way. When hands gripped his hair and slit his throat with an imaginary knife, or a swift foot swept his legs from under him and lethal thighs straddled his chest, his body would delight at Vivid’s touch. It was always a shock when he was caught, and the takedowns were never gentle, but Scorch was never displeased to find Vivid upon him.
Still, he kept Vivid’s words in the forefront of his mind and forced himself to imagine the penalty for being caught. If his light steps meant their survival, meant Vivid’s survival, surely he could manage it. Maybe. He would try his best, at least.
He cleared his mind of loud thoughts. He forced his heartbeat to calm, and it was similar to holding back the change. If he could make himself relax, he would be less inclined to take a faulty, rushed step, gasp at a swooping bird, or get himself killed by an assassin. When he was calm, Scorch narrowed his eyes at the path before him and made a silent vow for success. He would hate for hypothetical Vivid to die, and he would hate more for actual Vivid to be disappointed in his being caught again. With that in mind, he set out for the waterfall.
Because of the late season and the northern climate, the terrain was difficult to trek, with fallen leaves aplenty strewn across the ground. Not only did they give away his location when stepped on carelessly, they hid even noisier items beneath, like twigs waiting to be snapped and rocks waiting to be kicked. Scorch, so used to walking with what Vivid referred to as a “bullheaded strut,” found it difficult to move among the leaves soundlessly, but he kept his breathing steady and kept his mind still, and with one careful foot stepping after the other, he navigated the forest.
When he wasn’t searching the ground for detritus, he was searching between the trees for Vivid. It was a fruitless endeavor; Vivid would never reveal himself until he wished to be revealed, but Scorch couldn’t help himself from looking.
It was a clear-blue day and the forest was peaceful, with few sounds save trilling birds, and squirrels making the branches shake. Scorch finessed himself over a mossy log and tiptoed around a tricky root, adding no chorus of his own to the song of his surroundings. He crept slowly across a broad stretch of decaying leaves, and when they made no crunch, he smiled. But as silent as he sounded to his relatively untrained ears, he still expected, with every step, the suddenness of dangerous hands.
When he’d travelled halfway to his mark and still not been stopped by Vivid, his confidence surged. He’d never made it beyond halfway before. The certainty in his poise moved his feet faster and leant him the nerve to leap across a puddle of rainwater. He landed on the other side in a crouch, and his hand stole out for balance, too enthused. What he thought to be solid ground was muddy, and his hand slid. He lurched forward and caught himself on his elbows, holding his breath.
Quietly, he exhaled and lifted his head, bracing himself for impact. Though he tried to fall with minimal noise, he knew the thud of his elbows splattering the mud had found Vivid’s ears and the assassin would be on him any moment.
He waited, but nothing happened. He stood, but nothing happened.
After several anxious minutes of waiting, he decided he must have been stealthier in his fall than he’d thought. With a triumphant smirk, he stepped around the mud and continued. He made it three whole steps before a blunt force shoved him forward and pinned him to the trunk of a tree.
“Argh!” he yelled.
“You’ve killed us both,” Vivid announced. One of Vivid’s hands was wrapped around the base of his neck and the other was pushing against his lower back.
A laugh was forced from Scorch’s lungs as Vivid pressed harder. The bark scratched his face. “I can’t imagine a scenario where I save your life through the power of divine stealth.”
“Let us hope for both our sakes it never comes to that. We would die for sure.”
Scorch closed his eyes and focused indulgently on the points of contact between them. Vivid’s grip was not lessening, and the sustained touching was making him tingle. “I made it halfway this time,” he boasted, struggling half-heartedly.
Vivid’s hand slid from his neck into his hair, which he yanked before forcing Scorch’s face back into the rough scrape of tree bark. “Stop talking. You’ll try once more and then report to Audrey.”
Scorch groaned in complaint when Vivid released him, and groaned in defeat when, several minutes later, he was caught again. That time, it was because he sneezed. Vivid entangled him in the crook of his elbow and sent him to his knees, looking down at him with impenetrable eyes. He kept him there, a captive at his feet, for several seconds before letting him go and sending him on his way, because Scorch had begun training with Audrey, as well, and she did not take kindly to late-arriving pupils.
****
With the Water elemental, Scorch sparred. He thought, naively, since he was one of the best among the apprentices, he would be able to handle her enough to keep himself from total embarrassment. As was the usual run of things, he was wrong.
While the Guild had cultivated strength, speed was the way of assassins, and for every blow Scorch attempted, Audrey landed five. She was ruthless and quick and spun about in an attractive manner Scorch likened to Vivid. He tried to keep up, but their styles were ill suited, and hers, proven time and time again, was superior.
At the end of a rigorous bout of getting his ass kicked, she threw him to his back and jabbed her elbow into his chest. “No wonder he bested you in the Circle.” She offered him her hand and picked him up from the floor.
He rubbed at the back of his head where a lump was forming. He had been thrown down a lot. “Vivid told you about that?”
She poured them each a cup of water and sipped thirstily, although Scorch could see she was barely sweating and had never lost her breath. “He also told me you gave up your chance to escape, like a fool.”
Scorch remembered cramped bodies in cages and uneasiness prickled the hairs on his neck. He shrugged it off and gulped down
his water. “Sometimes the right thing to do is the foolish thing.”
Despite Audrey’s stare being restricted to one eye, it was as striking as a full set, and he felt exposed beneath it. But more disquieting was her accompanying smile. “We don’t suffer fools in the Hollow.”
“Are you sure? Some might call packing a bunch of murderers in a cave together foolish.”
She laughed, not at his words, but at him. “Do you know what Vivid told me about your fight in the Circle?”
“I assume he told you he won and I lost.”
“He told me you beat him, but that you lacked the nerve to kill him.” She moved closer to Scorch, her single eye scrutinizing him, reading every tick of his expression.
Scorch recalled the moment with extraordinary clarity. “I refused to kill for the slavers’ sport. If Vivid recounted the rest of the story, you know he refused, too.”
“For his own gain,” Audrey said, and it almost sounded like a question, so Scorch treated it as such.
“I’ve since seen Vivid take on enemies higher in volume and skill than the barbarians at the Circle,” he said. “His survival didn’t hinge on my help, but he spared me anyway.”
“We all make mistakes.”
****
After sparring with Audrey, Scorch’s day returned him to the eastern training room, where Vivid waited among the unlit candles. Scorch would light the candles one at a time, put them out, light them all at once, and put them out again. Vivid made him flex his powers until sweat ran down his face from effort, but after weeks of harnessing his fire, he could feel the shift beginning.
When Vivid pointed out an unlit torch on their way to the food larder, Scorch brought it to flame with minimal effort. Lighting the row of candles grew simple, extinguishing them even more so. On those accidental occasions when Scorch found himself alone with Elias, the troublesome blond’s jibes angered him, yes, but never made him lose control. The heat was always there, packed away, but for the most part, it only unfurled when asked, and with its every day routine of release, Scorch began to reap the benefits.
Calling to name the exact results was trying, but Scorch understood himself to feel an overall betterment of self and spirit. The same way Vivid’s voice was lighter after changing into the vortex, Scorch felt lighter, too. Without the constant stress of suppressing his power, tension he’d forgotten did not belong in his body faded. And though Vivid never went out of his way to compliment his improvement, the shadow of a smile hinted on his face whenever Scorch mastered a new task. Years and years after his first burst into scales and wings and set the Guild forest ablaze, he was finally gaining control.
His sparring improved, as well. He still ended almost every training session with Audrey on his back, but that was only because she was perpetually better than he was.
Scorch’s true rub, the greatest source of his vexation, was the damn waterfall, and making his way to it undetected. Weeks of creeping through the forest had brought him yards past the halfway point but nowhere near close enough to the waterfall to be counted as a victory, and he had the bruises to prove it. Vivid ambushed him mercilessly at the slightest sound, and Scorch’s skin was abundantly marked. In the evenings, he would poke at the bruises while he bathed. His wrists were red from being held behind his back, and his chest revealed yellowing circles where knees had pinned him to the ground. He disliked the bruises for representing his failures, but the idea of Vivid marking him, oddly enough, was pleasing.
But Vivid was not pleased when Scorch failed the waterfall test for the fifth time in one morning. Instead of keeping Scorch bent at his knee or pressed into a tree as punishment, he pushed him away with a snort of disgust.
“This isn’t working,” he growled.
“I’m trying.”
“Not hard enough.”
Scorch went through the rest of his day with Vivid’s disappointment hanging over his head, and in the evening, as he washed in the pool beneath the waterfall, Vivid appeared behind him on the rocks and scared him half to death when he said, “Axum likes honey cakes.” It was the most startling delivery of “honey cakes” Scorch had ever heard.
After recovering from a gasp that made him swallow a mouthful of water, Scorch coughed and said, “I like honey cakes, too.”
Vivid held up a hand for silence and Scorch bit his tongue. “He keeps them in his chamber, hidden on a shelf behind his hanging maps. You will fetch one and bring it to me without being caught.”
Scorch resisted the very strong desire to splash him. “You want me to stealth my way into the Leader of Assassins’ honey cake stash?”
“Perhaps the threat of Axum’s punishment will better stimulate your ability to be quiet. Apparently, I no longer resemble enough of a threat to you.” He eyed the newest bruise on Scorch’s torso where he had kicked him earlier.
Scorch sank deeper into the water to hide his blush. Had Vivid seen him pondering his bruises? He was so frustratingly stealthy that he could have watched Scorch’s entire bathing ritual without Scorch noticing. And, Gods, he certainly hoped that was not the case.
“Axum isn’t in his chambers this time of night,” said Vivid, prying his eyes from Scorch’s body to deliver him a steely glare. “In case that interests you.” He toed pointedly at Scorch’s pile of clothes, scowled, and then left him to his bath, not that he could enjoy it now that the countdown had begun.
He rushed from the water and dried off before pulling on his clothes with impressive speed. His jerkin may have been inside out, but there were honey cakes on the line.
The Hollow was never at capacity, assassins coming and going with a regularity Scorch found distressing. The guardians were always coming and going, but their missions were to protect. The assassins returning to the Hollow were fresh from a new kill, and the ones leaving were about to kill again. Whether it was for the good of elementals or not, it didn’t sit well with Scorch. It did however, leave the bulk of the Hollow unpopulated, especially in the evening hours, and that made his winding journey through the torch-lit tunnels unproblematic, and his path to Axum’s door unhindered.
He checked over his shoulder for the tenth time and saw no one. When he put his hand on the door, his pulse quickened, but he breathed through his nose and out his mouth and made himself be calm. If Axum wasn’t inside and no one was around to sneak past, Vivid’s stealth assignment was going to be easy.
It should have been easy.
With a final glance to make sure no one was coming down the tunnel, he pushed open the door. He found it curious that there was no lock, but maybe Axum assumed no one would be stupid enough to sneak into his chambers. Scorch was stupid enough though, and he sneaked with weightless steps into the room. It was just as he remembered, but now that Scorch was free to examine it, he couldn’t help but compare it to the Master’s quarters at the Guild.
Master McClintock’s space had been full of cloying pipe smoke and streaming lights from the stained glass window. It was all warmth and knowledge, with trinkets strewn across his desk and his sword mounted proudly on the wall. Axum’s space was contrarily drab, the only décor being the maps of Viridor hanging on the far wall. That being the alleged hiding place of the honey cakes, Scorch made his stealthy way toward it.
The map clearly marked the Hollow’s location, and it was much where Scorch had placed it in his head, almost due north of the Guardians’ Guild, which was also specially marked. With the way he’d heard assassins react to mention of guardians, Scorch was not surprised; Master McClintock held similar ideas about assassins.
He set thumb and finger to the map’s edge and lifted it from the wall, revealing an alcove. With a smile, he snaked his hand inside until he felt a spongy texture beneath his fingers. He grabbed the cake and smoothed the map back down. The cake was fragrant and fresh, and he wondered where Axum procured cakes with such regularity, since he’d not seen an actual kitchen within the Hollow, only the larder where pre-made foodstuffs were kept. Resisting the urge to sink hi
s teeth into the sweet treat, he tucked it away beneath his jerkin, hoping it wouldn’t crumble too terribly against his skin before he could get it back to Vivid.
He was still meditating on the marvels of baked goods when he heard voices, several of them, coming from the tunnel outside, and, judging by the rapid rise of volume, they were headed straight for Axum’s chamber. In lieu of cursing, Scorch clenched his teeth, his eyes darting speedily about the room, searching for a place to hide. Anywhere, anywhere would do! Short of hiding beneath Axum’s desk, which Scorch would have done if he thought he could reach it in time, the only object large enough to mask his presence was a chair angled in the corner by the hanging maps. It was a terrible place to hide, but when he heard the shuffling of boots directly outside the door, he knew it was his only option. Trying to keep a calm head, he leapt for the chair and shoved himself behind it in a ridiculous huddle, his head tucked into his chest, and his arms wrapped around himself, trying to make his body as small as possible. His knees pressed into the chair’s back and his back pressed into the wall. As the door opened, he shut his eyes and prayed it would be enough.
“Come in, come in. Shut the door.”
Scorch recognized Axum’s voice, and he could hear him walking straight to his desk to take a seat. Lucky, then, that Scorch was not beneath it.
“Here, let’s have some wine. Elias, pour the wine, please.”
Scorch’s heartbeat ticked at the confirmation of Elias’ presence, but he shoved down the panic. He may not have been able to achieve full stealth mode in a forest full of obstacles, but he could keep quiet behind a chair when the thought of being found out by Elias was at stake. It was a blessing the room was so dimly lit and that the corners were relatively dark, or else, as more bodies spread out across the room, Scorch would have surely been discovered.
The Sun Guardian Page 24