12
The following day, our exercise routine morphed into something more. Instead of the usual endless push ups and running, we also had to learn to strike each other. While the previous day Dromak and Uzadaan had shown the basic fighting maneuvers to the group, I had not received the instruction. I was no stranger to a punch being thrown in my direction; the act of doing it, however, was foreign. The other Vezet? had taken it upon themselves to teach me away from the rest of the group, much like they had when we first began the exercise regimen.
“Turn your hip over when you throw,”
Izgath instructed again. He demonstrated the right handed punch with an exaggerated twist of his hip and foot, then returned into his resting position. I mimicked him, or so I thought. He shook his head and stepped closer, resting his hands on either side of my hips.
“You’re still throwing from your shoulder. Throw from your hip,”
he said. “Raise your arm straight out in front of you and I’ll show you.”
I did as instructed, and then he swiftly twisted my hips, throwing my fist forward and nearly into Uzadaan’s face. The ruby-eyed male’s lip twitched up at the corner.
“Do you feel the difference?”
Izgath asked, stepping back.
“I think so,”
I said. “Let me try on my own.”
Izgath stood diagonal to us, assessing me in a different way than normal. Inhaling, I raised my fists to either side of my face, just below eye level, shoulders hunching up. On my exhale, I threw my right hand forward, ball of foot digging into the earth as I twisted it and my hip. Uzadaan’s head slipped ever so slightly to the side, and my punch brushed the tip of his ear before I retracted it and settled into my stance.
“That was it,”
he commented with a grin.
“But I didn’t even hit you,”
I replied, dropping my hands.
He stepped out of reach, lips stretching over his sharpened teeth. “And you never will.”
Dromak approached, rotating out with Uzadaan. The two of them, along with Jaku, were coaching the other recruits through a series of slow, controlled strike patterns, ensuring that all were using the proper form and no one was hitting too hard. As Jaku had said, injuries would slow us down, and getting the technique right first was more important than throwing swiftly or with enough power to maim an opponent.
Hence why Izgath and the others had taken such an interest in how I was throwing these punches. If only I were in my body, this would all be so much easier. The additional height, reach, and weight threw me off enough already, though I’d become more accustomed to it after nearly three straight weeks of wearing it.
Dromak stepped in front of me, sporting his usual crooked grin. “Alright, hit me, Vagach. Show me what you’ve got. Let’s see if your haircut helps you move better.”
After my encounter with Izgath the previous night, I’d done as he suggested the entire time and changed the form to be slightly slimmer and with a haircut close to Dromak’s, rather than bother with something complicated like Izgath’s. Shaking my head, I raised my fists. “After all the shit Izgath gave me about it, it had better.”
Dromak snorted, then swung for me without warning. My dodge was wider than necessary, but I at least remembered to duck and roll to the correct side. Popping back up, I threw the right-handed punch. Like Uzadaan, Dromak slipped it easily, with hardly any motion at all. On my retreat, his fist flew straight toward the left side of my face, so unexpected I didn’t move out of the way in time.
“Ow, fuck.”
I rubbed my cheek. “I thought we weren’t supposed to make contact!”
“We’ve got to toughen you up, Kormánzó. You’re too soft compared to these other males,”
Dromak teased. “Gotta know what it’s like to take a punch.”
If only he knew.
Rage burned inside me as memories of Vagach’s abuse surfaced, and it took all my willpower to remain silent and not unleash the fury in Dromak’s direction. These ignorant males had no idea what it was like to be a female in the Demon Realm, told to stay quiet and spread our legs.
My nails dug into my palms so hard I thought I might draw blood. The urge to spit words at him was becoming too great, so rather than succumbing to my desire, I spun on my heel and stomped away, letting the strike of my feet against the ground ease the growing tension in my body.
“Wait, Vagach, I was only joking!”
Dromak called out, but I ignored him.
Izgath chastised Dromak, but I paid no attention to the words that passed between them. My gaze was fixed on the line of wagons in the distance and the lines of tents beyond them. Eyes followed me from the pairs of males facing off and practicing the sequence the Vezet? had given them, but I didn’t care who witnessed my retreat.
Blowing my identity to anyone else was a death sentence, and right then, I was so close to losing it that it was better I walk away and cool off, no matter what that might make others think of me. Passing the horses, loosely tethered so they could graze freely, I turned between two wagons, hoping that the position would hide me from view. I quickened my pace and entered the lines of tents. Mine was toward the front, as always, and thankfully, other than the seasoned recruits on cooking duty, no one was around.
I ducked inside and dropped my magic, immediately swimming in my clothing. A full body tremble had me sinking to the ground. I braced my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands and heaved down breaths to stave off the memories.
It was no use.
They flooded my mind unencumbered, making it hard to think, hard to see anything surrounding me. Every muscle in my body grew taught as the large wooden poles became the legs of the table in our kitchen where I scrambled for purchase to put distance between Vagach and me. The canvas wrapping over them were the sheets I tried to bury myself in to forget each day’s events. Flash after flash of traumatic moments flooded my veins with adrenaline, yet I couldn’t move, couldn’t escape that phantom pain.
My heart thundered against my ribs; I was trapped again with no way out. Digging my fingers into my thighs, I forced myself to feel the here and now, to bring myself back before anyone discovered me losing my shit. The only option was to put it down, down, down in a box so thick and so deep that it alone could contain the rage.
How I hated that I had to wear my abuser’s form every day. Had to pretend to be someone so cruel every day, though I couldn’t say I was doing a fine job at displaying his true personality. Our journey to Uzhhorod couldn’t end fast enough, simply so I could be me again. At least Jaku and I agreed on that, though for entirely different reasons.
“Assyria.”
Izgath’s low voice filtered through the tent and my thoughts.
I froze, my breath catching somewhere between inhale and exhale.
“It’s me. I’m alone. I wouldn’t risk anyone else finding out.”
He spoke again, his voice a little more forceful this time.
Slowly, I lifted my head from my hands, finding his shadow dancing around the tied slit in the front of the tent.
Then, a sigh fluttered the fabric. “I wanted to make sure you were alright. You left pretty quickly back there.”
I crept forward, silently closing the distance between us.
Izgath cleared his throat, and I watched his shadow shift from foot to foot. “Listen, Dromak is an ass. He shouldn’t have hit you when you weren’t prepared for it. The other recruits–”
He silenced himself as I unfastened the ties and lifted the flap in silent permission to enter. Head swiveling from side to side, he ducked into the tent, finding me drowning in a despair he didn’t understand.
I scooted back and wrapped my arms around my legs, using the loose sleeves of the tunic to dry my eyes. Izgath crouched, then settled cross-legged on the ground, his head cocked slightly to the side as he studied me. “Something is wrong.”
I snorted and bunched up the fabric around my wrists to wipe my nose. “Clearly.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
he asked, but then something like understanding flashed across his eyes. “This is because Dromak said you needed to know what it was like to take a punch.”
Weakly, I nodded, closing my eyes and tipping my head back as I fought against another wave of brutal memory. Canvas creaked, drawing my eyes open and head forward again. Izgath had shifted closer to me and was reaching out a tentative hand. My attention landed heavily on his outstretched arm, bare, tanned, and marked with tiny scars. Demons healed quickly and therefore didn’t easily scar, unless the blades were infused with silver. The number of slices on that singular limb told me he’d been in more fights than I’d ever want to count. And lived to tell the tales of them all.
Our gazes collided as a mutual understanding stretched between us.
Me, the helpless female whose husband abused her. Izgath, the fearless warrior who looked at me with so much concern it made my chest ache. No one had shown me that sympathy in Stryi. Even my parents hadn’t offered me this level of support. This one look from Izgath held everything I’d wanted to see reflected back at me for the years Vagach had abused me.
Like he was approaching a flighty deer, Izgath closed the distance between us and flattened his palm on my shoulder. My skin burned beneath the tunic where he touched me, but I did not flinch. “You didn’t deserve that, Assyria. Nor did you deserve Dromak’s teasing tonight. I’ll speak with him and tell him to take it easy on you when it comes to fighting.”
It was my turn to study him. A few strands of my hair had come loose from their plaits, and they caressed my cheek as I tilted my head to the side. My attention swept up his scarred arm, across his broad chest, and finally up to his face and over the messy knot of hair piled on his head, revealing the smooth sides. Izgath was a true warrior, with the body to prove it. The way he moved was graceful, sensual, lethal and he feared no one.
Maybe what I needed was to embrace what he, Dromak, and Uzadaan were offering me rather than flee it. I’d already chastised myself endlessly for failing to learn my power before it was absolutely necessary. And now, they were offering me an opportunity to learn to fight so that I’d be prepared for the battle ahead. Whether or not I ever saw an Angel in combat, those skills would be useful in a world where females were second to males and expected to be subservient in every way.
Receiving blows had not prepared me in the slightest for how to defend against them. Learning how to fight would ensure that no male would ever lay a hand on me in violence again—at least not without a swift, decisive action in return.
“No,”
I said simply. “Teach me. Don’t hold back. He never did. I want to be prepared for next time.”
Izgath’s lips pressed into a thin line, a muscle feathering in his cheek. “He’s not around anymore, though.”
I merely shrugged. “He doesn’t have to be the one to do it. It is simply a fact of my existence as a female.”
Color drained from Izgath’s face, and his brows pinch as he adjusted his position. “Is that truly how you feel?”
A scoff slipped out unbidden. “Of course you don’t see it as a male. You’ve had an entirely different life experience from me. You were likely educated differently from me as well. At least in Stryi, male and female schooling was separate. I hardly saw my childhood counterparts outside of our brief interactions with other farm children during the harvest season. And here you are, a Vezet? in the Demon Army, constantly surrounded by males. Tell me, Izgath, when was the last time you spoke to a female besides me?”
Silence stretched between us while he considered his answer. His hand remained on my arm, though it twitched slightly before he answered. “Outside of,”
he cleared his throat, “a few intimate encounters I’ve had since I joined the army, very few. None of a deep or serious nature such as this outside of my mother.”
Jerking his hand off me, I scooted back. “And do you see me as beneath you because I have breasts and a womb?”
Izgath retreated, sitting back and draping his arms over his knees. “I don’t.”
He paused as if he were rolling his next words around, considering if he wanted to release them. “I see a fearless female, who is risking everything. I see a female for whom the Weaver threaded a shitty path, trying to find her way along it in hopes of a different life. If anything, I am impressed by your tenacity. Sure, if you had approached us in this form, we would have rejected you for the reasons we were taught in school. But you have proven day in and day out just how deserving of it you are, that you are more than willing to keep up with every male here, despite not being one yourself, truly. Your magic is powerful, Assyria, and you have wielded it with intelligence. For the most part.”
His lips twitched up into a wry grin.
I could only blink at him, stunned to silence. His soliloquy was unexpected. A male regarding me as an equal or as deserving of more was a foreign concept. I opened my mouth to say something, but no sound came out.
“If you want to learn to fight, I will teach you. After Dromak and Uzadaan are finished with you in the evenings, I’ll show you the real ways to take down a male. Fighting on the battlefield is different from fighting in self-defense. That way you won’t end up pretending to be someone else the next time you kill a male for touching you the wrong way.”
The grin Izgath sported was nothing short of mischievous as he turned to his hands and knees and crawled toward the front of the tent.
Words still escaped me as he pushed through the flaps. Glancing around, he pulled it back slightly so I could see the sincerity etched into his face. “If you wish to remain here tonight, I will bring you dinner. I will take care of you, Assyria. You deserve it.”
And with that profession, he disappeared, leaving my head swimming with the sudden turn of events. I’d thought it was only a matter of time before Izgath revealed the truth to Jaku or the others. But his words, his actions spoke an entirely different story. Whether he could be trusted had yet to be seen. This entire conversation could have been a trap to get me to lower my guard before he delivered the killing blow. Perhaps he planned on betraying me in the end.
So why couldn’t I convince myself to believe that?