16. Chapter 16 The Crucible #2
His first strike caught Valt's barrier and punched through it.
The mana bolt found the exact point where the wind barrier's rotation created a seam, a gap between one layer and the next that lasted a fraction of a second and required knowing the architecture of wind-aspected shielding to exploit.
The barrier didn't shatter. It came apart along the seam like a thread had been pulled.
Valt rebuilt it. Lucien put the second strike through the same weakness before the repair settled.
The class was silent.
Lucien closed the distance. His exchanges were clean and easy, each one the same play: inside Valt's guard, contact, back out before a counter could form.
He tagged Valt on the shoulder with an open palm and stepped clear.
He came from the opposite angle and did it again.
Valt's wind augmentation flared and scattered against blocks that were already in position.
Each exchange lasted two seconds and ended with Lucien resetting at a distance that said he could come back whenever he chose.
A black cat appeared on the railing above the third tier.
Corvath flowed through a crack where two stones met at an angle, his body passing through the gap with the ease of something that had been using these passages for several days.
He settled on the iron railing with his front paws folded beneath him and his gold eyes fixed on the ring below.
His tail hung over the edge and swung once.
"Don't hold back on my account," he sent through the bond. "This is the best entertainment I've had since breakfast. You didn’t see me but I saw you, and you handled that bastard gloriously."
Lucien put another strike through Valt's guard. This one was physical: a palm strike to the chest that moved Valt two feet backward across the arena floor. Valt's boots scraped the ground and he caught himself with one hand down, breathing ragged, his barrier gone.
Kess moved. The transition had no windup. She unwound and glided between them, her upper body arriving at the center of the ring before her lower half had finished uncoiling. She was faster than anything in the room with legs, which was alarming.
"Hold."
Lucien stepped back and crossed his arms. Valt straightened, chest heaving, his uniform disheveled and his pale eyes carrying the focus of a man who was holding composure through will.
Kess turned to Valt, then to Lucien. She held on him one count longer than the others had gotten, and the heat-sensing pits along her jaw would be reading a mana circulation rate that had no business being as low as it was after a rotation at that intensity.
An affinity-null generalist had just handled everything a noble-trained student could throw, then taken him apart on the switch.
She made no comment but her eyes said that she had opinions.
"Seats," she said. "Both of you."
Valt decided to speak. “Margrave cheated! You saw it yourself!”
Lucien chuckled but said nothing.
“There was no cheating, Mr. Krenning. I’m not sure why you have come to that conclusion. I stopped the sparring because it was getting too intense. I don’t want you taken to the infirmary. The headmistress would call me in for a special meeting to find out what kind of class I was running.”
Kess turned toward Lucien. “Well done, Mr. Margrave. You have been practicing. It is evident.”
“But Professor!” Valt interjected and was greeted by Kess holding up one finger toward him.
“Silence,” the lamia hissed.
She called the next pair without pause. Her tail tip flicked twice against the floor, and she turned her attention to the students entering the ring.
Lucien stepped over the wall and climbed the tiers.
"Decent showing," Corvath said out loud from the railing. "However, I think the wind-boy needed another thirty seconds to fully appreciate the lesson. Shame about the interruption. I was hoping for an infirmary visit."
The words reached Lucien's row, the tier above, and Valt's bench below.
A girl at the end of Lucien's row covered her mouth.
Valt, climbing back to his seat, had his back to the railing where Corvath sat.
He didn't turn around. He sat down and put his hands flat on his knees.
He said nothing but he certainly heard what the cat said.
Lucien sat down. Wulden quickly moved to the seat in front of him.
"Hey." Wulden's voice was pitched for Lucien's ear. "I heard about breakfast."
"Valt interrupted my breakfast and called my girlfriend a whore. I was displeased."
"Lucien." He pressed his hands together between his knees, and the worry sat in his face where it always sat, right on the surface where anyone could read it. "What you did in that ring just now. That wasn't..." He trailed off and tried again. "Nobody in the generalist section fights like that."
"Kess runs a hard class and I have learned a lot. There are also these items called books that give you instruction as well. I like reading them. You should give it a try. You can find them in the library. They have lots of them."
Wulden studied him. The look carried the weight of everything he'd been accumulating since they’d met that didn't add up: the friction spell, the corridor, the dining hall, and now the ring, all of it stacking up. He nodded once and turned back to the arena then looked back over his shoulder.
“I know what a book is. I just want to clarify that…”
Tesslyn sat on Lucien's other side with her notebook open and the quill in her hand. She hadn't written a word since the exhibition started. Her green eyes rested on the ring where the next pair traded strikes, and her posture was composed and still.
She looked at Lucien and said softly, “That was really impressive. It was nice seeing you put Valt in his place again. He doesn’t look like he is taking it too well. Corvath making fun of him hasn’t helped matters.”
Corvath plopped beside the beautiful woman. “Are you talking about me, my dear?”
“Yeah, you were being kind of sassy toward Valt.”
“Sassy? I simply spoke the truth. Though, I do like the word ‘sassy,’” Corvath said with a hissing sound. “I’m going to add that to my vocabulary immediately...”
Tesslyn couldn’t help but giggle at the cat.
Wulden turned abruptly. “Shh! I can’t hear the professor. I really need to hear the professor.”
“I do believe that our friend Wulden is being… sassy,” Corvath replied.
The class continued. Three more pairs rotated through. Kess coached and corrected from the ring's edge, and her attention returned to Lucien between rotations, brief and professional, adding to an assessment she'd been building for weeks.
Valt left before class ended. He collected his bag from under the bench and stomped toward the south entrance without looking at anyone.
His pace was controlled and his spine was rigid.
Nobody tried to stop him. Kess followed his exit to the door.
She settled lower, and her attention moved from the closing door to Lucien's row.
She held the look for two seconds, then turned and dismissed the class.
Corvath dropped from the railing and landed without a sound. He padded across the ring and fell in beside Lucien's boots as they descended the tiers. “Do you think that Valt is going to get his daddy again?”
“Probably,” Lucien replied.