by TurtleMe
Navigating the forest was difficult enough without the gnawing doubt starting to form like a crust at the back of my mind. Eventually, though, the physical torment of our days of endless marching was strong enough to distract me from the worry that some elf would drop out of the trees and cut us down. My legs throbbed in pain and my sore back made me feel older than my blood matriarch, but I continued on without complaint until the weak, diffused light started to dim. Somewhere out there beyond the awful fog, the sun must have been setting.
“Merciful Vritra,” I mumbled as we finally settled down for the night, nested in the thick branches of a tree.
Cole passed around strips of salted, dried meat and a candied root for each of us, giving me a gentle smile when he handed me mine; my pieces were bigger than the rest.
We ate silently, relishing the first small break in several days. As I sucked the sugar from the candied root, I thought about Cole’s attitude toward me. I’d been the target of similar affections from other men during training, but my focus had always stayed on attaining my emblem. It had been easier to avoid the unwanted attention back home. Here, it was just the four of us, and I worried that if I rebuffed him too sharply it would interrupt the team dynamic, perhaps putting us all at risk. I knew there was no choice but to suffer through it, using the Shield’s feelings toward me to further the mission.
After the light meal, I turned my mind away from trivialities and set about finding a valid path through the fog.
Igniting my emblem, I activated True Sense. The unsettling sensation of my consciousness leaving my body felt as if I were undressing in a snowstorm. Like a ghost, I drifted through the sky, narrowing my True Sense to lock in on a single element. My head—figuratively speaking, since my actual body was sitting comatose below on a tree branch—throbbed terribly.
Particles of ambient mana glowed green as I focused on seeing wind mana. Mastery of True Sense would one day allow me to see all four elemental mana particles in the atmosphere, but for now seeing wind-attribute mana would be enough. The goal was to find any large clusters of mana, thereby leading us to the hidden kingdom of the elves.
As I extended my True Sense, the throbbing grew unbearable, and it was a struggle to maintain the incorporeal form.
Just a little longer… There!
Immediately, I was drawn back into my body, anchored by the powerful emblem. The last twinkle of green flickered out of my vision as my physical eyes opened and a pained gasp forced free of my lungs.
“Were you successful, Circe?” Fane immediately asked, true to his impatience.
My body felt cold, like I’d fallen asleep outside only to wake in the dark, but my lips curled into a smile. “The kingdom itself is still too far away, but I found a large area of mana fluctuations about a day’s travel from here.”
“How large?” Maeve asked cautiously. “Large enough to be a settlement, or even a town?”
Cole ran a hand through his long hair and let out a sigh. “At least we’re going the right way. Nice to know all of this hasn’t been for nothing. Great job, Circe, really great work.”
“As expected from a member of the Milview blood,” Fane grunted, tearing off a piece of his dried meat. “Up ‘til now, I was wondering if you truly were of that lineage,” he added, his eyes probing me for a reaction.
Ignoring him, I looked up into the branches above us and, speaking to no one in particular, said, “I won’t be able to use my emblem for another day, but after I’ve fully recovered, I want to do another scan to hone in on water-attribute mana.”
“Sensible,” Maeve said, shooting a warning look at Fane. “From our reports, these elves are particularly adept with water or wind magic.” The Striker turned away from us both, spitting a hunk of gristle off the edge of his perch and falling into a sullen silence.
After finishing our modest meal, we got as comfortable as we could within the branches of the ancient tree, deep within enemy territory. Either Cole or I had to be on watch in case something approached, but since I had just expended most of my mana activating my emblem, Cole and Maeve took first watch. The weathered Shield, who was at least twenty years my senior, winked at me before erecting a small veiling barrier around us while Fane and I slept.
Despite the cold, hard branch pressed against my back and the fear of falling—even though we tied ourselves to the tree—I soon felt myself drifting off. Then Maeve was shaking me awake.
“It’s been two hours,” she whispered, signaling me to take over, then turning to shake Fane awake.
No need to worry about elven soldiers or Dicathian mages. These two hour shifts will be the death of me, I groaned internally.
Channeling mana into my crest, my awareness spread to a thirty-yard radius around us. Normally, I’d be able to stretch my sphere of awareness to over a hundred yards no matter the terrain, but the mysterious magic encompassing this endless forest restricted everyone’s senses, even mine. I passed the time by pushing my senses as far as they would go, exploring the trees around us, feeling the shapes of bird nests and rabbit burrows.
Was it possible the animals were immune to the effects of the fog? If they could navigate within the forest, perhaps we could use that somehow? I’d trained with a young woman who could inhabit the consciousness of a small animal, see through its eyes, and give it simple directions. How far could I see if I could join my mind to one of these birds and ask it to fly over the treetops?
Farther than thirty yards, I imagine, I thought bitterly. I was saved from delving further into my own shortcomings as multiple figures entered into the range of my senses.
Elves!
Moving slowly so as not to scuff the tree or lose my balance, I turned toward Fane and gave him a meaningful look.
“How many?” Fane mouthed.
I held up three fingers and pointed in the direction they were coming from.
He nodded, and we quietly shook Maeve and Cole awake, covering their mouths while doing so in case they made a sound.
Cole quickly erected a two-layered barrier that dampened sounds and veiled our presence. Though he was breathing heavily and starting to sweat with the labor of casting spells after erecting barriers all day and barely getting any sleep, Cole had a resolute expression that told me he’d endure. He had to.
“About a dozen yards away,” I whispered solemnly.
“Hopefully they’ll pass us by,” Fane said. “If they seem suspicious, I’ll drop down on them, breaking free of the barrier. If I can take them down quickly, I will. Otherwise, I’ll run for it and draw them off. You three stay hidden.” To Maeve, he added, “Keep the Sentry alive. Without her, we’re doomed.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “We can all fight, Fane. Four on three is better odds than three on one.”
Cole rubbed his stubbled chin. “Even if we kill them quickly, the magic will leave traces. It’s too risky.”
“Cole is right,” Maeve added, tying her dark hair up into a tight knot. “But so is Fane. We’re expendable in this mission, Circe. You are not. Let’s avoid a fight if we can, but if we can’t, you and Cole will bolt while Fane and I hold off the elves.” Seeing my doubt, she smiled confidently and said, “I’ll take two to four with these watered-down Dicathian mages any day.”
It grated my nerves, but I understood why she was being so protective, and I knew it would be selfish to insist on throwing myself into the middle of an unnecessary battle. Out of all the teams trying to create a route to the elven kingdom, I was the only Sentry with an emblem powerful enough to navigate effectively in the Elshire Forest. Completion of the mission was priority. However, despite her insistence that the rest of them were expendable, our chances of success plummeted dramatically if any one of us were lost.
We stopped our whispering, afraid the elves might hear us even through the two-layered barrier. By the time we could hear the footsteps below us, I was holding my breath. Oh Vritra, please let them keep walking.
205
Lost Words
I stepped back as Lady Vera positioned the thin metal stick she called a “foil” for a horizontal swing. Still, somehow, the foil managed to slap my left arm.
“How?” I hissed, rubbing the fresh wound. “I thought I dodged that.”
“You’re too focused on my weapon,” Lady Vera answered, keeping her body still. “Your vision should encompass your enemy—or enemies—as a whole. What do you see differently right now?”
I looked down at the foil, still pointed at me. “Aside from the obvious?”
That earned me another smack with her weapon. “Don’t get smart with me, kid.”
“Okay, okay!” I yelped. “And I have a name, you know.”
“I’m aware that you were named for a rather boring color,” Lady Vera said bluntly. “Now, answer my question.”
Afraid of getting hit again, I scanned the tall woman. She wore a dark shirt and tight-fitting black pants. Her long, curly red hair swirled like fire when she moved.
Several months had passed since my capture, torture, and subsequent rescue. After my injuries completely healed, I began my lessons with Lady Vera. While her methods were brutal and her personality was about as warm as a block of ice, she was a very effective tutor.
“Well?” she pressed, jolting me out of my thoughts.
I let out a breath and pointed at her foot. “You pivoted using your lead leg, bringing your back foot forward for longer reach.”
“Good,” she nodded in approval. “Although, if you weren’t able to see that from the track mark on the ground—”
“Yes, yes. ‘Then I don’t deserve to be your student,’” I finished. “Now, how do I get better?”
My mentor muttered something under her breath, turned away from me, and walked over to a manmade pond she had in her yard. Our training ground, which stretched out for fifty yards in both length and width, was her backyard.
The simple fact that she even had a backyard in a city where high rise buildings took up nearly every available plot of land spoke a lot about her wealth and power. The entire backyard—which looked like something out of an old nature magazine—was also blocked off from the outside world by a twenty-foot wall, which made me wonder what sort of position she actually held in Wittholm Academy, the military school I was enrolled in.
As we reached the clear pond—which had actual, live fish in it—Lady Vera sat down at the edge and motioned me to join her.
“Try catching a fish with your hands,” she said. “Without using ki.”
“What? Won’t they die if they come out of the water? I—I don’t think I can afford to replace a living fish like this.”
She gave me a rare smile. “Don’t worry about that and just try.”
Gazing warily at the rare aquatic animals, which I’d only ever seen in a frozen and processed form, I reached in and tried to scoop one up. Just as my fingers grazed the surface of the water, the gold and black fish darted off to the other end of the pond.
“So fast!” I exclaimed, marveling at its speed.
She snapped her finger to get my attention. “Again.”
I plunged my hands into the water again and again but, after a dozen or more tries, hadn’t so much as brushed the fish’s scaly sides. Frustrated and wet, I swiped my hand angrily through the water, only to slip on the wet stone and fall into the pool.
“Gah!” I flailed to the surface, letting out a gasp. Lady Vera just laughed.
After scrambling out of the deep pond, I laid back on the grass. “What’s the point of this, anyway? It’s impossible to catch one with just your bare hands.”
“Is that so?” my mentor said in a haughty voice.
“Yes, it is. There is no way you can”—I lifted my head to look at her, and in Lady Vera’s hand was a writhing, glistening fish—“What? No way! Do it again!”
Lady Vera shrugged and threw the fish back into the pond. “Sure.”
I scrambled back to my feet and watched closely in case my mentor tried to pull a fast one and use ki or cheat in some other way.
Leaning forward, Lady Vera waited with her hand close to the surface. Just as another fish was about to swim by, she dipped her hand slowly into the water. The fish darted forward, startled by the disturbance of the water, right into Lady Vera’s waiting hand. With a twitch of her fingers, she closed her fist around the fish, holding it in a firm but gentle grip.
With a smug grin, she released the fish, which shot away into the depths of the pond. “Now do you believe me?”
“I don’t get it. You did it so slowly…” I mumbled. “Wait! Did you train these fish to just swim into your hand?”
“Do I look like someone who would spend my time doing something as useless as that?” My mentor gave me a deadpan look that suggested she was not, indeed, the type of person who whiled away her days training fish to do tricks in order to impress orphan boys she picked up off the street.
I scratched my head. “I guess not… but I still don’t understand the point of this—unless it was for you to just show off.”
Lady Vera splashed water in my face. “I did it to show you that you and these fish—these little creatures that were able to make a fool of you—are similar.”
“What?” I asked, clueless as to her meaning.
Lady Vera’s hand suddenly shot out toward my face, and I whipped my head to the side to avoid being smacked.
“Your reaction speed is fast, frighteningly so,” my mentor explained, patting my shoulder. “But it’s instinctual, untamed—just like these fish.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean ‘untamed’?” I asked.
“Though you are not consciously aware of it, by the time your opponent’s arms flex in order to throw a punch, your brain has already sent a signal to your body in order to react. Now, if your opponents are on the level of the students here, which is to say, they are not yet trained and experienced fighters, you hold a large advantage over them due to this ability. However, if left untrained, stronger opponents can easily predict how you’re going to dodge, just like how I predicted the fish would surge forward when I grabbed it.”
I thought for a moment and realized that what Lady Vera said made complete sense. “So how do I tame this ability?”
“By responding, not reacting,” she answered, getting up and taking an offensive stance.
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
She shook her head. “One is intentional, the other is instinctual. We’ve focused on basic conditioning for the most part, but I think you’re ready to start learning how to respond to an enemy’s attack, instead of merely reacting.”
Grinning, I fell into a defensive stance, bouncing slightly on the balls of my feet. “The fun part!”
“Fun for me,” she replied with a dark smile, swinging her foil in a figure eight. “Lucky for you, your next class starts soon, so we’ll continue with this exercise tomorrow.”
I let out a groan and rubbed the welt on my arm from where she hit me earlier.
“There’s a car waiting for you to get back to school,” Lady Vera said, shooing me away. “Now scram—” She cut off suddenly, looking at something over my shoulder.
I turned to follow her line of sight; a young woman, one of the household staff, was walking quickly toward us.
The woman curtsied then glanced at me before speaking. “Ma’am, we’ve just received a call. There was some kind of explosion at Wittholm. The enforcers have locked down the school and asked all students and staff to stay away until further notice.”
“The enforcers? But why—” I felt my stomach drop suddenly. “Oh my god, Nico—”
“A panicked man may drown in a puddle, while a calm man may swim across the ocean, Grey,” Lady Vera said sagely.
I frowned. “What?”
“It means calm down.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but she cut me off, pointing across the yard. Another servant was walking quickly toward us. He bowed before he reached us and, addressing me, said, “M
r. Grey, you have an urgent call from a Mr. Nico. I apologize for interrupting, but he seems quite upset.”
Forgetting myself, I took two steps toward Lady Vera’s house before I remembered to ask permission. She waved me off.
“Go, Grey. See to your friend. Then return. Since you apparently don’t have class today, we can keep working on your reactions.”
“Nico!” I gasped into the receiver, having sprinted into the house from the yard. “What is it? Are you okay?”
“Grey! Grey, I don’t know what happened—the ki restrainer must’ve malfunctioned—but I checked it just a few days ago and it was fine. I don’t know what happened! It’s all my fault!” he said. It sounded like he was choking back tears.
“What happened, Nico? What’s your fault? You’re not making any sense.”
“It’s Cecilia. She had one of her accidents. Can you—can you come down to the school, Grey? The enforcers are here, they’ve been taking interviews and asking all kinds of questions—I’m scared, Grey. What if they take her away? Please?”
“But Cecilia… she’s not hurt? She’s alive?”
“Yes, but what if they lock her up? It was bad Grey, really bad. She demolished part of the administration building.”
“They…” I hesitated, unsure. Would Lady Vera let me go to the academy if I asked? Or would she just scold me and tell me to stay out of it, to keep my eyes forward and let the enforcers sort it out. I knew the answer. “They’ve asked everyone to stay away. I can’t come, Nico. I mean, I want to, but they wouldn’t let me in.”
“Can you meet me somewhere else, then? We need to figure out what to do if they try to lock her up—”
“Nico,” I cut in, “Listen, we don’t know that’s going to happen, right? Just don’t panic. A panicked—a panicked man can drown in a puddle, but a calm man can swim across oceans or something like that. We just need to stay calm.”