Chapter 10
Ten
Alek
The impact of Stavros’s sword clanging against my dagger rattles through every bone in my hand. Possibly my entire arm.
I restrain my flinch as well as I can and sidestep the way he’s shown us. The goal is both to block the blow that might follow and to put myself in a better position to find an opening.
My feet stumble on the rocky terrain. My arm whips out to steady myself, but I realize I’ve left my torso completely open with the same motion.
Stavros pauses, lowering his sword. “I think that’s enough for today.”
I straighten up, flushing with shamed relief and the lingering exertion. My hair clings to my forehead and the back of my neck, damp with sweat. My skin feels sticky beneath my shirt despite the cool mountain air.
I need to learn how to fight. It might be the only useful thing I can do out here without a vast library and records to turn to, without much in the way of practical skills beyond my ability to glean information from a page.
How could I stand against an army of scourge sorcerers with only book learning anyway? There are so few records that give even brief accounts of the old practices of the illicit magic.
But knowing how to do a thing and teaching one’s body to actually do it are leagues apart.
I swipe at the perspiration on my brow, managing not to cringe at the texture of my uncovered scars, and glance toward the main Haven building. My relief deepens when I see that Ivy isn’t even watching our current sparring match to have noticed my stumble.
She’s standing with Casimir and Rheave, the latter of whom is examining a quiver of arrows he must have found in the Haven’s many storage rooms. My chest tightens a little at the thought of him aiming those projectiles at targets around him.
How much can we really trust the daimon in our midst? How long will the dogged devotion he’s shown to Ivy even last?
There are no records at all about spirit creatures inhabiting human forms.
As Stavros and I both amble over to join them, the daimon slides one of the arrows out of the quiver and then picks up the bow he rested against the outer face of the building. “I’ve seen these used before. You pull it back with the string, and it flies?”
Ivy lets out a wry chuckle. “I’m not the right person to turn to for archery advice.”
Casimir holds out his hand. “I won’t say my aim is fantastic, but I can show you the gist.”
When Rheave hands the weapon over, the courtesan notches the arrow, looks around, and launches it at one of the broader trees along the edge of the small clearing. The head thumps into the bark a little right of center.
“Better than I could manage,” Ivy mutters without any rancor.
Rheave’s bright eyes have widened. He takes the bow back and grabs another arrow. “I like this. Better than swinging around a blade in the hand.”
He positions the arrow exactly as Casimir did—a quicker study than I’ve proven to be with weaponry. With a twang of the string, he sends it soaring between the trees to smack into a more distant branch.
Ivy arches an eyebrow at him. “Are you sure this is your first time?”
“It makes sense,” Rheave says with obvious excitement, snatching up another arrow. “The arc and the air and the tension in the string…”
He shoots a glance at Ivy, with a flare of fierceness in his gaze that somehow sparks both approval and uneasiness in my chest. “I can protect you from up close and from far away.”
“I’ll be very safe from any murderous trees that descend on us,” Ivy says, but she pats the daimon’s arm at the same time. “I’m glad you’ve found a form of combat you like, if only so you and Stavros don’t need to squabble so much.”
Stavros glowers at her with obvious affection before turning to Rheave. “Unless you want to climb those trees to get the arrows back, I’d suggest you stick to targets that aren’t quite so distant. I don’t imagine there’s a huge supply of weaponry here.”
Rheave hums thoughtfully. “How would a soldier practice?”
Naturally, Stavros knows all about that. He motions Rheave over and sets about constructing a couple of suitable archery targets at the edge of the woods.
I sit down on a stump that’s been carved into a stool, finding a strange enjoyment in the graze of the cool air over my bare face. It’s been years since I stepped outside without my mask.
My pulse still lurches from time to time when I remember that my scars are exposed, but none of my current companions react to them. There’s nothing to really stir my insecurities.
It’s unexpectedly freeing not having that small but constant weight against my skin.
Rheave works through the quiver of arrows with swift efficiency, landing all of them in the inner three circles of the makeshift bullseye Stavros created. I can’t deny that the daimon has some strengths—and that his eagerness is admirable.
While Stavros offers a few tips, Casimir disappears into the building. The courtesan returns holding a metal flute that flashes as it catches in the sunlight.
He props himself against the wall and starts to play. The lilting tune winds through the air, drawing Stavros’s and Rheave’s attention.
The daimon bobs with the melody as he yanks the arrows from the target. “Music is better than shooting,” he declares.
A laugh escapes Stavros that he then looks startled by, but he allows Rheave a small smile. “I suppose that depends on whether you’re under attack.”
He pauses, his gaze settling on Ivy with a brief tick of his head. The intensity in his expression has me bracing myself, but there’s no hostility behind it now.
He steps toward her, holding out his hand. “Seeing as we’re not under attack at the moment… I missed the chance to dance with you at the one college ball you were able to attend. I wouldn’t mind remedying that oversight.”
Ivy gives a laugh of her own, a blush touching her pale cheeks as she takes his hand. “I could probably use a little more practice at dancing like a lady, in case I need to play one again.”
Stavros offers her a sly grin. “Who says I want you to dance like a lady?”
Ivy casts her gaze toward me for a moment, catching my eyes with a quick smile that I can read easily enough. She’s telling me that I’m included too. I’d imagine I could have the next dance if I ask for it.
Of course, I’m not much more graceful a dancer than I am a sparring partner.
As Casimir keeps playing, an unexpected sense of peace settles over me. Stavros turns Ivy with the music, Rheave sways in his own sort of dance, and the mid-day sun beams down on all of us as if we’re part of a strange new family.
And I’m on the outskirts of that family, even though I’ve been by Ivy’s side for far longer than the daimon has.
The serenity I felt disintegrates. I don’t want to feel like an outsider in this unnervingly immense mission we’ve found ourselves on.
The ground has shifted beneath all of us, and I need to get my footing.
The cotton shirt I wore for sparring has stiffened against my torso with dried sweat. I duck through the nearby doorway and make my way up to the sleeping building where I left my regular clothes.
Sulla has managed to provide us with a couple of spare sets, washing what we’ve discarded despite our insistence that we could take care of that ourselves. It was easier to stop protesting when she showed us the washer tub that churns the clothing all by itself once it’s filled with soapy water.
I’m not sure where our host has gone off to at the moment. She seems to prefer to give us our space—or to recover her own—outside of meals and her training sessions with Ivy.
But she did give us permission to explore all of the Haven’s buildings. I don’t think she keeps even her own bedroom locked.
Not that bedrooms are on my mind right now. After a quick shower thanks to the magic conveying the mountain stream’s water through the Haven, I head back to the main building where I found one particular spot I can put the skills I’ve already cultivated to use.
A room down the hall from the dining area has built-in shelves on either side.
One set holds various sources of entertainment: wooden board games, a couple of faded sets of cards, toys that suggest some of the Haven’s inhabitants arrived here at an even younger age than Sulla did, and a few musical instruments.
I assume this is where Casimir found the flute.
The other set of shelves holds a varied assortment of books, many of their covers crumbling with age.
I’ve already perused the contents a few times in the past couple of days.
Most are fiction, either books of tales past residents brought with them or stories they wrote themselves.
I found a journal kept by a sorcerer who lived here nearly a century ago, which I spent a few hours yesterday carefully paging through, but he mostly talked about his efforts cultivating new crops through both traditional means and magic in the Haven’s gardens.
So far, I’ve avoided the oldest volumes in the collection, mostly out of respect. I’d be a horrid guest if I destroyed the Haven’s archives by having the ancient texts fall apart in my hands.
The books stashed away here haven’t benefitted from the professional archival efforts of royal or temple librarians. I can see signs of rot in the leather, scraps of paper that’ve already cracked off their brittle pages.
But there’s nothing else left for me to check. And those aged volumes are the ones most likely to contain some piece of information I don’t already know.
Something that’ll help us convince the king of Ivy’s worthiness or defeat the scourge sorcerers? That might be too much to hope, but I have to try.
I ease one of the older books off the shelf, wincing as the leather binding crumbles more against my fingers. Sinking into one of the two armchairs set against the wall between the shelves, I open the pages as carefully as I can.