by K. A. Linde
Kerrigan fell to her knees on the edge of the training room. Sweat poured down her face, and she had the distinct impression that she was going to be sick.
“Get up,” Fordham barked at her.
“I need a minute to breathe.”
“Alura is going to make you run the lap again if you don’t get moving. One foot in front of the other, halfling.” He flung the stupid nickname at her to get her moving.
She jerked back to her feet. “I hate you, princeling.”
He snapped a smile at her. “I know. Now, let’s finish this lap. You can run faster than this.”
She could.
She had in the past—when she was running for her life. But there was nothing chasing her here, except disappointment and possible expulsion.
If she hadn’t used up all of her energy, trying to take down that stupid wall, she would have been keeping up just fine. Fordham wasn’t even breathing hard. It made her look like an amateur. An amateur who didn’t belong here.
But there was nothing she could do about it. She’d been incapacitated for more than a day. Her magic flickered in her gut, but it wasn’t an inferno by any means. And her strength was practically nonexistent. Not to mention, her coordination. Whatever had happened in that spell had broken something in her. She had to hope that it would all come back.
“Argon,” Alura snapped. Kerrigan cringed at the sound of her father’s name in Alura’s mouth. “Are we taking a rest or completing the circuit?”
“Completing the circuit, sir.”
“Get to it.”
Kerrigan gritted her teeth and finished. Last but at least she finished.
“A sloppy mess,” Alura said. “Gods help us if the lot of you make it through training. Luckily for you, the sword master has already shown up for class today.”
And then a tall, dark figure walked into the training arena. Kerrigan’s heart dropped. Scales, it was Lorian Van Horn.
Not only was he Alura’s father and a revered sword master. He had also been the single loudest voice of dissent for allowing her into the Society. He would stop at nothing to get her to drop out of the program.
She squared her shoulders. Not happening.
16
The Masters
Lorian snapped his black robe off of his shoulders, revealing the silver metal attire of Venatrix. He was over six feet tall with black skin like his daughter, a shaved head, and a defined beard. He had a blade strapped to his belt.
Kerrigan had heard stories of that blade. A black blade with a vein of ancient Tendrille steel at its core and a pommel that melded to his hand. It had been in the Van Horn family for hundreds of years and had won him the dragon tournament against Kerrigan’s father. Lorian had defeated Kivrin Argon in combat to secure his place and keep her father out of the competition.
She didn’t hate him for it. Her dad had no place in the Society. Not that she much respected Lorian’s backward view on half-Fae and humans either.
“The sword,” he said, dramatically removing his from the sheath, “is an extension of the self. It must become a part of you, an extra length to your arm, for you to truly master the art form. Not all of you will.” He shot her a look of disgust. “Some of you haven’t even earned the right to be in these halls.”
Kerrigan balled her hands into fists as he called her out.
He stepped up to her. The sword held before him. He could have nicked her chin with barely any movement. She held firm. Not moving an inch.
“We’ll do what we can with what we have.” He split a stray strand of hair, and they all watched the red curl fall to the ground at Kerrigan’s feet. The threat blatant between them. “I assume all of you have had proper sword training in the past. I can’t imagine you being here without knowing how to use one, but nothing would surprise me at this point.”
Kerrigan shifted on her feet, trying to suppress the cramp building in her thigh. Lorian whirled back around to face her. His sword came so close to her nose that she swore that she saw the gods’ faces. She jerked backward on instinct.
Lorian shook his head. “Typical.”
Kerrigan saw red. She didn’t know what he wanted her to do. She wasn’t going to get split in half by this Fae standing before her, but she wouldn’t be cowed either. If he thought threatening her was going to do the trick, then he would need to talk to Basem Nix about that. Hadn’t worked out well for him.
“Stand in a circle and walk through Ravendin’s twelve paces,” Lorian said.
They moved into place. Kerrigan met Fordham’s face for a second. His jaw was set. He was angry with Lorian too. Well, at least she wasn’t alone. Not to mention, she and Fordham had run through Ravendin’s paces so many times that she sometimes saw them in her dreams.
Everyone else, apparently, had likewise studied Ravendin, the Great War commander.
Lorian moved them into Chutrick’s art-of-war formations. Through the basics of Kristoffer’s lunge and parry work. And through three more of the greats.
By the end of the hour, not a one of them had picked up even a practice sword. But they were coated in sweat and panting. Each of the paces moving through the next one in synchronization. So, they looked more like a dance troupe than a group of sword fighters.
“Enough,” Lorian finally barked. “Tomorrow, be prepared for the ancients and not just the greats. We’ll spend a week on footwork before moving into practice play.”
Roake looked ready to pass out as he groaned. Noda pushed her headscarf back off of her face. The entire thing was drenched in sweat. Kerrigan had no idea how she’d done the entire morning with it on. Audria—even perfectly prim and posh Audria—looked less than peaky.
“Get out of my sight,” Lorian said. “Except you.”
He pointed at Kerrigan, and she held back from the rest of the group. Fordham made like he was going to stay for support, but one glare from Lorian, and he relented, following Audria to their awaiting lunch break.
“Yes, sir?” Kerrigan asked.
“You’d do them all better if you cut your losses and bailed on the first day.”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Half-Fae have no place in these halls.”
“Sir,” she responded amicably.
“You’re going to hold them back.”
“I won my spot, sir.”
“You stole your spot,” he snarled. “You stole it from someone who deserved it, and you show no remorse for your actions. I don’t know what you did or said to the rest of the council to get them to approve you, but I will never approve of you. And I will be here every day of your training, reminding you of exactly what you took from the rest of them.”
“Yes, sir,” she got out.
If he wanted a reaction from her, he wasn’t going to get one.
“Training is all about working as a set, a group. Someone that your teammates can rely on. It’s not all going to be as easy as running and footwork, which you are already abysmal at. You’re going to have to trust each other, fly formations together, and anticipate each other’s moves. If you hold them back, the entire unit suffers,” he spat. “Remember that.”
“Is that all, sir?”
The fury on his face at the fact that she wouldn’t rise to his bait was quite satisfactory. Though something else must have shown in his posture because Alura finally stepped forward.
“Kerrigan, you eat with your team as you do everything else.”
Kerrigan bowed her head to Alura. “Thank you, sir.”
She was halfway across the room when she heard Alura and Lorian getting into it. Lorian famously detested his daughter’s girlfriend, a human who lived in Venatrix territory on the western sea. He’d trained Alura into the biggest, baddest fighting machine, hardly seeing her as a person, let alone a daughter—until the moment she’d defied him. Kerrigan was taking the brunt of his anger right now, but she couldn’t imagine Alura dealing with it all those years.
By the time she
made it into the dining hall, everyone else had already dug into their meal. Kerrigan filled her plate with food and took the open seat next to Audria. She drank three full glasses of water before getting any food.
“What did Lorian want?” Fordham asked stiffly.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Roake asked. “He wants her gone.”
“It’s practically barbaric, the way he was treating you,” Audria said.
“Seems in line with what I’ve heard of him,” Noda said. “Someone said that last year, he beat a half-Fae girl in Venatrix near to death for supposedly stealing from a vendor in Edgewood Market.”
Audria gasped. “He’s a Society member!”
“Which means no one would say anything about it,” Noda said.
“Isn’t the Edgewood Market magicked against stealing?” Roake asked. He pointed a drumstick at Noda. “Why would someone be stupid enough to steal there?”
Noda shrugged. “Just what I heard.”
“Anyone would steal if they were desperate enough,” Fordham said.
“And how would you know?” Roake asked. “You’re royalty.”
“I’m not royalty but of the peerage,” Audria said. “And I still have compassion for those in need.”
“I would know because my people are desperate,” Fordham said flatly.
His gaze bore through Roake until Roake finally looked away.
“Yeah, sure,” Roake muttered.
“Do you think he actually beat someone?” Audria asked.
“Yes,” Kerrigan said at once.
She knew firsthand how people reacted to half-Fae who had supposedly stepped out of line. She doubted that girl had ever even stolen anything. Just the threat was enough. Living as a half-Fae was a crime here.
“What do you think of the schedule?” Fordham asked to change the subject.
“Gods-damn madness, if you ask me,” Roake snarled, his southern accent peeking out on the words.
“Agreed,” Audria said properly. “I don’t know how they expect us to keep up.”
“They don’t,” Noda said. “They expect us to fail a lot, just so we keep trying to get better.”
“And how do you know so much?” Roake blustered.
“My mam helped me with Society training. She didn’t tell me what I was in for, just that it would test me beyond anything I’d done,” Noda explained. Then, she looked at Fordham. “Why are you eating with us?”
Fordham stared right back at her. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“You didn’t for a month during the tournament. You never spoke more than three words to any of us, except Kerrigan.”
“She’s right,” Audria added.
Roake nodded.
“You were competitors,” Fordham said. “And now, we’re a team. We have to work together so that we can all make it out of here.”
“And why should we believe you?” Roake demanded.
The other two looked like they wanted to know the answer too.
“They don’t want the House of Shadows represented in the government,” Kerrigan answered for him. “So, they’ll gun for the two of us to drop out. You don’t have to work with us. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to, all things considered, but the only way we’ll get through this is as a group.”
Fordham nodded once. “Personally, I’d love to prove them wrong about us lot. I’m not dropping out.”
“Me neither,” Kerrigan said quickly.
“I’m not either,” Audria said.
Noda nodded. “All of us or none of us.”
They all agreed and then looked to Roake. Waited for him to tell them to all go to hell. It would suit him after all.
But to their surprise, he held his hand out. “All of us or none of us.”
Audria covered his hand, then Noda, then Kerrigan, and finally Fordham.
It was a pact that might be entirely meaningless in the end, but at the moment, it felt like it held the weight of the world in it.
“Oh yes, there you are,” an absentminded woman said as she strode into the air-magic room after lunch.
She didn’t look like much. Shorter even than Kerrigan with hair graying at the temples and lines around her eyes. Since Fae so rarely aged at all, it was a shock to even see it. They could live for over a thousand of years before ever gaining lines. And many gave in to the abyss before letting that happen. Vanity and all.
“What are you all staring at me for?” she asked in confusion.
“Um, we’re here for air-magic training,” Audria said quickly. “Sir.”
“Sir?” the woman asked, straightening to her tiny height, a sparkle of laughter in her soft brown eyes. “Sir is for military types, I’m afraid.” She dropped a giant bag down onto the lone table in the magic training room. “Well, loosen up now. We’re not in the military here. The Society is only strict to traitors.” She made a slash gesture across her neck, and Kerrigan had to fight back laughter. “Anyway, you can call me Zina or Mistress Zahina if you must. I’m supposed to be teaching you air magic.”
She waved her hand, and everything in the room, including the five trainees, rose into the air at once. She clapped her hands, and they dropped back to the ground.
“Good enough demonstration?”
They all nodded with gaping mouths. Kerrigan had never seen anyone with that sort of control before, and she’d spent years sneaking in on air Fae practices.
“Good. Let’s get started. I didn’t volunteer for this post, but I owed Helly a favor,” she grumbled. “So, here I am.”
Zina moved them to equally spaced spots around the circular training room. She moved the rocks, water, and oil for the other elements to a spot at the center of the room, as if it were the easiest thing she’d ever done. The entire lot of them had to keep from staring agog at her.
Then, she ran them through wind drills. They had to pass a bit of air between each other as if it were a ball. If a person dropped it, they had to take a step forward until they reached the equipment at the middle of the room.
At first, it was easy, moving the ball of air around in a circle, feeling that tug from one to the next. Still, each of them dropped the ball at least once as they worked through it. Zina made them randomize the pattern. A person could throw it to whomever they wanted, even back to the person who had thrown it. They did all right with that until the blindfolds came out. And within fifteen minutes, all of them were at the center of the room. It was like none of them had ever practiced air magic, which was absurd. Kerrigan herself had done nothing but air in her fights, and Noda was a first-level air-magic user. The exercise made them look like amateurs.
“Where did you go wrong?” Zina asked.
“We don’t know who is going to get it, and we’re blindfolded,” Roake muttered in irritation.
Zina smacked him in the back of his head with a lob of air. “Those are the rules, not your failure.”
“We can’t anticipate each other’s moves,” Kerrigan tried.
“But can’t you?”
“No,” Noda said. “But we should be able to feel the magic moving. It’s a basic tenet of Flavia’s air teaching.”
“Bah! Flavia was a hack! I couldn’t teach her anything,” Zina said, banging on her head. “And I won’t teach you either if you don’t embrace what is around you. The air is already there. You aren’t catching a ball thrown. There’s no ball. You’re embracing the magic that exists in front of you.”
They all stared back at her blankly. This wasn’t how magic was taught at all. Kerrigan had never heard this sort of rhetoric in all of her time in the House of Dragons.
“Let me show you. You throw the ball with your eyes open. I’ll tell you who has it,” Zina said. She crossed her legs and sat folded in on herself, floating in the air before them. A blindfold appeared across her eyes. “Begin.”
The others shrugged and started up the game again.
Zina couldn’t see a thing, and she called out, “Fordham, Audria, Roake, back to Audria, Noda, to Kerriga
n, back to Fordham, back to Kerrigan, Roake, to Audria, back to Noda, to Audria, to Noda, to Audria.” Zina removed the blindfold. “Stop that.”
“But how?” Noda whispered.
“I’ll teach you if you’re willing to learn. Most aren’t.”
But they were.
17
The Problem
The rest of the magic masters weren’t half as interesting or helpful as Zina. Water on Tuesday with Master Raysor, who fell asleep halfway through his own lesson and only woke up to talk to Audria about healing lessons outside of class. The rest of them clearly didn’t matter. Wednesday earth lessons with Master Tippan, which were not much fun for anyone but Roake, who apparently had an affinity for earth. On Thursday, they met with Mistress Sencha, who Kerrigan had had most of her magic lessons with in the House of Dragons. At the time, Kerrigan had been trying not to draw attention to herself, and so Sencha seemed surprised that Kerrigan had any mastery of the element. But still, the lessons weren’t that different, only more rigorous.
Each afternoon when they left magic lessons, they left with their well depleted. Their bodies ached from morning training and their mind and magic were just as bad. Kerrigan, who usually fought with her sleep schedule, crashed face-first into the mattress every evening and didn’t wake up until breakfast. No interruptions. No time to do any other research. No time to even think.
When Friday afternoon arrived with another verbally abusive match with Lorian, everyone was ready to call it a day.
“What did you have planned for your extra sessions?” Audria asked, running a hand back through her light hair. She hadn’t given up trying to keep it prim and proper despite the rest of them barely finding time for baths.
“I don’t know,” Kerrigan lied.
“I’m going to meet with Raysor. He said that he’d help me with my healing.” She grimaced. “I’m not looking forward to it.”