Chapter 7
Seven
Rheave
The soft blades of grass tickle my palm. I turn my hand over, taking in the difference of how they feel against my knuckles.
There are so many tiny experiences that make up the essence of bodily life. So many sensations it never occurred to me might exist when I barely brushed against the physical world.
Flowers of different shapes and colors bloom between the green blades. Their petals graze my fingers with a different texture.
A glimmer of curiosity lights inside me. I pluck up one blossom and then another and another before pausing to admire how the hues intensify when placed next to each other.
With a second quiver of inspiration, I crack little notches into the stems and start fitting them together. A smile crosses my lips at my handiwork.
As a pure daimon, I danced through the city streets and the fields beyond, stirring up the energy of everything around me when the impulse caught me. Now I can spark amusement and surprise more directly.
Stavros’s commanding baritone carries across the field where we stopped to let the horses graze. “Rheave, why don’t you join us? It’d be good for us to know how you could best contribute in a fight.”
Sounds hit me much the same in this form as when I breezed along as a ball of spirit energy, only sharper and with a distinct impression that I should pay attention to them. It was easier to ignore humans talking in my previous state.
I glance over at where Stavros is standing with the other two men who are Ivy’s dedicated companions. Stavros has drawn his sword, and Casimir and Alek are both holding daggers.
While we rode this morning, the big man said something about teaching the others more combat skills. Making sure they’re prepared for whatever we might face on the road.
I didn’t realize he meant me too.
I hesitate, reluctant to leave off my current occupation. Many humans seem to be fond of smacking and stabbing each other. It didn’t appeal to me when it was the ones they call scourge sorcerers jostling each other around, and I’m not eager to be a part of any similar games with this bunch.
A few paces away from me, Ivy lifts her head by the buried firepit where we’re roasting a couple of rabbits that Stavros caught in snares overnight. The earthen cover over the flames ensures that no smoke escapes to give away our location.
It’s an old army trick, he said. Fascinating.
Ivy is exempt from his training, but I think that’s only because she doesn’t need it. It was also fascinating watching the deftness of the knife in her hand as she skinned the rabbits. The shifting of her fingers against the handle, the way the sunlight glinted off the blade…
“That’s right,” she says, her clear voice cutting through my reverie. “The scourge sorcerers put you in place as a guard—did they train you at all for the position first?”
I don’t like thinking about the first couple of weeks as I learned to operate the body that felt like a heavy cage around me at the time.
My mind skims through the memories. “They made sure I could move and speak well enough to pass as a regular human. I think we were supposed to rely on strength rather than skill when they called on us to attack.”
Alek considers me with a gleam of interest in his eyes. His blotchy face is fascinating too, so different from any other complexion I’ve seen.
He doesn’t seem to like it, though. Ivy swatted me this morning when I must have been studying the interplay of color and texture for too long.
“What about the supernatural power the other daimon used in their clay bodies?” he asks. “It looked as if they were summoning bolts of lightning from their hands. Can you do that?”
I look down at my pale hands beneath the strand of flowers draped across them. Callouses are forming from gripping my horse’s reins. I’m lucky the creature seems to like me, or I’m not sure I could have stayed on it.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I never have before. I never tried.”
Stavros waves his sword. “Well, come on. We’d better find out before you fling it around at the wrong time or place. And Casimir could use a break.”
The courtesan makes a sound of protest, but then he starts to cough. With a disgruntled noise, Ivy gets up and yanks him over to sit near the fire. “You should be taking it easy.”
Casimir wipes his nose on a scrap of fabric he’s turned into a handkerchief. “I might need more than my fists if we encounter a whole army of daimon.”
“You won’t be fighting any which way if you’re too stuffed up to breathe.”
Stavros is still watching me with the evaluating look that makes my skin prickle. I can’t tell whether he’s happy that I might be able to help or studying me like a potential enemy.
But Ivy glances over at me too with an expectant air. All of the others are working at being better protectors.
How can I ask for her help and not offer my own in return in as many ways as possible?
I get to my feet and bind the last of the stems as I cross the field. “First, for you,” I say, setting the ring of flowers on Ivy’s head like a crown. A renewed grin springs to my lips. “The colors look wonderful against your hair!”
“Oh.” Ivy touches the garland tentatively, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. “Um, thank you.”
As Casimir chuckles, I force myself to walk toward Stavros and Alek next. A niggling sensation runs down my back with the awareness that I’m leaving Ivy farther behind.
It’s because of her that I’m here. I should stay close to her.
I want to understand her and all the little, unusual things about her that helped me snap out of the scourge sorcerers’ control.
But the other men who hover around her seem to think she’s theirs. That it’s up to them to protect her and watch over her.
Maybe if I swing around a blade to their satisfaction, they’ll start to see that I can look after her too. That I have just as much right to follow her on her quest as they do.
When I’m a few paces away, Stavros motions for me to stop. “Stay there and watch. I’ll run through the exercises with Aleksi first, but you’ll give them a try afterward.”
The other man pauses and gives Stavros a lopsided smile. “You know, you could simply call me Alek at this point. Almost everyone does other than the professors. I think being on the run together puts us on a slightly less formal level.”
It hadn’t occurred to me to wonder why Stavros said the name a little differently, but Stavros looks chagrinned.
Casimir tsks his tongue playfully. “The scholar has a point.”
“All right,” the big man says, with a hint of a smile of his own. “Let’s see how much you’ve learned so far, Alek.”
He talks Alek through a series of jabs and parries. I watch for a couple of minutes, but my attention slides back to Ivy.
She’s tucked a blanket over Casimir’s shoulders and ambled over to the horses. When my gaze settles on her, she murmurs to the stallion she’s most fond of while she brushes his neck. The animal pauses in his grazing to lean into the strokes.
Stavros clears his throat, and my gaze jerks back to him. He’s watching me with a stern expression. “You’re not going to pick up much skill if you aren’t even following the exercises.”
“I don’t want to attack you,” I point out. “We’re all on the same side. What’s the point?”
Humans are so odd.
A dry note creeps into the big man’s voice.
“The point is that your body won’t be used to fending off an actual attacker if it’s never gotten any practice.
Brute strength will only get you so far.
Especially if we find ourselves going up against the king’s soldiers rather than only other conjured men and women like you. ”
With that last sentence, his voice stiffens a bit, but I don’t know why. I can see there might be some logic to his words, though.
I roll my shoulders, reveling in the feel of the muscles flexing and stretching. “All right. I’ll practice. Whatever will work the fastest.”
Casimir shoots me a softly amused smile from his spot by the fire. “You don’t like the idea of an extended battle?”
“Daimon don’t get into fights,” I tell him. “We let each other exist without worrying about anyone except ourselves. Why make more pain?”
Alek rubs his jaw. “You do play tricks on people sometimes. Startle animals. Things like that.”
“Nothing that does any real damage. Not when we’re in control. We just liven things up where the energy gets too dull.”
“Then I’ll try not to bore you.” Stavros gestures to Alek. “Let Rheave use that dagger for a bit. Come on, daimon, let’s see what you can do.”
It’s hard to put my full commitment into the imitation of fighting he leads me through. I push the dagger through the air as he instructs, but none of the movements feel natural, like how I’d want to move if I actually needed to deflect an attacker.
My fingers curl awkwardly around the weapon. Once, when Stavros blocks it with his sword, I fumble and nearly drop it.
The big man lets out a grunt that suggests he isn’t entirely happy. “What about that burning magic the other daimon used? Can you send a little of that into this tree?” He taps a nearby maple.
I stare at the looming plant, but I can’t summon any sense of power inside me. No part of me wants to burn this living thing that’s doing nothing but growing peacefully.
A shiver runs through my limbs. That’s the kind of thing this body’s creators would have ordered me to do. They’re the ones looking to destroy whatever they can.
To show I’m trying, I walk over to the tree and rest my hand on the bark. The texture presses into my skin to delightful effect. I want to trail my fingers over the surface, not sear it away.
“I don’t know how to make it happen,” I say. “Maybe it’s something the scourge sorcerers channeled through the others, not something we brought.”
“I suppose that’s possible.” Stavros ambles back toward the fire. “Those rabbits should be just about done. Let’s see if we can’t get in a little more—”
He cuts himself off with a wrench of his head in my direction. His metal prosthetic hand leaps up to point at a spot behind me. “Quick! One of the riven-hunters has snuck up on us—they’ll be after Ivy!”
His words and the urgency coursing through them have my body whipping around before I make a conscious decision to move. My gaze snags on a bush just behind the maple tree, the twigs shuddering as if someone’s about to spring past it.
I lunge first, a growl lurching up my throat. My arms shoot forward, the dagger dropping from my hand.
No one’s getting to Ivy. No one’s going to damage one fragment of her skin, one strand of her hair—
Fear and anger collide to set off a flare in my chest. I launch myself right over the shrub, snatching at the first movement my gaze catches.
The need to obliterate the threat crackles through me.
I thump to the ground and roll to the side. When I heave back to my feet, there’s no one there.
No riven-hunter. No person at all other than the men and Ivy all watching from the field.
The frantic haze clears from my head. I look down at my hands and find myself clutching the blackened body of a bird.
When I adjust my fingers, its burnt feathers disintegrate into chalky powder.
“Well,” Stavros says in a deadpan tone, “that answers at least one question.”
My gaze flicks over to him. “I didn’t want to kill a bird. I thought there was an enemy—you said there was.”
“I was simply wondering what might happen if you were sufficiently motivated.”
He’s eyeing me, giving his head the little shake that I’ve come to understand means he’s focusing harder. His face gives away no emotion now.
Is he pleased by how well I’d have tackled the supposed threat… or upset that I’d have gone so far?
Humans don’t make any sense. But if this one decides I’m a problem, he’ll campaign to leave me behind.
I don’t know what he wants from me. I can only say the truth. “If Ivy needs protecting, I’ll protect her.”
“And that’s good to know,” the woman in question says from over by the firepit. “Plus now we have a little extra for lunch. Why don’t you bring that bird over here, and we’ll see if there’s any edible meat on it?”
Her easy smile makes the men around me seem to fade. I stride over, holding out the bird, grateful for the chance to return to where I’d have preferred to be all along.
Ivy slices into the bird I apparently charred without any sign of concern about the power I inflicted on it. Her exclamation of victory when she finds cooked flesh within settles my nerves more, even though I can sense Stavros still examining me from a distance.
What I told him was true. I’ll protect Ivy from any danger that comes our way, however I need to.
Because I need her. Her strange remarks and unusual attitudes shocked me out of the spell the scourge sorcerers had me under. They gave me my first taste of how wondrous living in this body I didn’t ask for could be.
If I’m forced apart from her—if I lose her… how easily would my former captors make me their prisoner all over again?