Chapter 35 #2
Emrin looked between us as I sat. She clearly knew the tension at the table hadn’t been there yesterday.
She didn’t ask. Dax was halfway through a story about a Verdant candidate who had accidentally grown roots through the bottom of a bathing room.
Raiden kept interrupting to correct details that did not appear to matter.
Normally I would have joined in. This morning, I buttered a piece of bread and listened.
Lidia spoke to everyone except me. It was impressive how naturally she managed it. At one point Raiden asked if she wanted the honey. “No.”
“You always use honey.”
“Maybe I’ve changed.”
Raiden stared at her. Dax stopped chewing. Emrin closed her eyes briefly. I looked down at my plate. There was absolutely no chance that had been about honey. A few minutes later, I reached for the water at the same time Lidia did.
Our fingers almost touched.
She pulled hers back. “Take it.”
I poured a cup. “Thanks.” She shrugged and resumed eating. That was the entirety of our conversation. Afterward, Vareena headed toward Aurora with me while Emrin left for Verdant. Lidia went the opposite direction with Raiden without saying goodbye. I watched until the crowd swallowed her.
“She’ll come around,” Vareena said.
“I know.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m trying not to decide how she’s supposed to feel.”
Vareena glanced at me, but whatever she thought of that, she kept to herself. I was too tired to ask before Light Foundations.
The morning passed slowly. I summoned Light when Calis asked, held it until she was satisfied, shaped it, dismissed it, then did the whole thing again.
She corrected my stance twice and finally told me that being physically present for a lesson did not qualify as participating in it.
I considered telling her that I had learned I was possibly the surviving heir to Elyndor less than twelve hours earlier.
Instead, I apologized. The information still felt too large to say casually. My mother was Queen Aurenya. I couldn’t imagine telling Calis.
Or Dax.
Or Raiden.
Or Lidia, who had only just learned the smaller impossible thing.
By midday, my head hurt. I had almost convinced myself the day could pass without becoming worse.
Then I found my name on the assignment board outside the eastern training courts.
Since the projection assessments, anything that normally would have taken place inside the Crucible had been scattered wherever the Sanctum could fit it.
The investigation was still ongoing, and the great ring remained closed except to investigators, and whichever unfortunate instructors had been assigned to explain how half its protections had failed at once.
From where I stood, I could see part of its upper wall beyond the central grounds. Scaffolding climbed one side. Two figures in grey wardmaster robes were working near the western entrance. Today’s mixed-affinity conditioning had been moved to Court Three. I ran my finger down the posted pairings.
Then stopped.
ALERAIN — VEXORIA
Emrin came up beside me with her training wraps looped around one hand. She read the board without comment. I waited.
Eventually I looked at her. “Nothing?”
“What would you like me to say?”
“That someone has made a clerical error.”
“I don’t think they have.”
“Lie to me a little.”
“I couldn’t if I wanted to.” Right. I sighed and headed to join the candidates filing down into Court Three.
It was smaller than the Crucible by enough that I could see every face surrounding the ring.
No elevated galleries. No enormous ward canopy overhead.
The protections here were meant to keep ordinary training from becoming fatal, not contain whatever Halos had managed to drag out of us during the projections.
The Crucible was visible beyond the central grounds from here.
I tried not to look at it. Neseryn was already inside the court.
She stood near the opposite wall speaking to one of the combat instructors, her dark hair braided tightly away from her face.
She wore fitted black leathers without the ornamental silver some Shadow candidates favored, stripped down for combat with nothing loose enough to catch or slow her.
The first time we’d been put in a ring together, I hadn’t known what I was doing. She had. She’d thrown me across the Crucible before I could call enough Light to defend myself and spent the rest of the match making sure I understood exactly how wide the difference was between us.
I remembered blood filling my mouth.
Her voice.
Try harder.
Weeks later, my ribs still seemed to remember even though the bruises had faded. Neseryn glanced over. Her eyes landed on me immediately. Violet at the edges. Cold everywhere else. She finished whatever she was saying to the instructor and walked toward her mark.
No smile. No greeting. Fine by me. The instructor waited until the previous pair cleared the court.
“Controlled combat. Affinities permitted within ward limits. No killing strikes. If a ward calls the match, you’re finished whether either of you agrees or not.
” His attention lingered on Neseryn. Interesting. Then on me.
Less interesting. “Understood?”
“Yes,” I said.
Neseryn rolled one shoulder. “Perfectly.”
We stepped onto our marks. The benches surrounding Court Three had gotten noticeably quieter. Apparently people remembered our first match too. I shifted my weight onto the balls of my feet. Kieran had spent weeks correcting that. Stop planting your heels when you’re waiting for the first strike.
At the time I’d wanted to throw something at him. Now, when Neseryn moved, I was ready. Shadow came low across the stone. I jumped it and drove Light straight toward her chest.
She twisted.
Most of it missed.
Not all.
A line of gold caught her shoulder hard enough to turn her half around. A murmur moved through the candidates. Neseryn looked down at the singed edge of her leather. Then back at me. There was a beat where neither of us moved. “Better,” she said.
I hated how much satisfaction that gave me. She attacked again. This time there was no testing strike. Three ribbons of Shadow split across the court, one aimed high, two low. I caught the first with a shield of Light and barely stepped clear of the others.
The impact against my shield traveled through my elbow. Neseryn was already inside my guard. Her fist caught me beneath the ribs. Air left my lungs. I drove my forearm into her throat. She stumbled back just far enough for me to get my boot into her stomach. Neseryn hit the stone on one knee.
The murmur around the court died. I stared at her. She touched her lower lip. Blood came away on her thumb. Her face shifted. I expected anger.
Instead, she stared at the blood for another second and smiled. One that had absolutely no joy inside it. “Oh,” she said.
Then she came for me. I barely got my arms up before she hit. There was no distance left for magic, only bodies. Her shoulder drove into mine. My heel skidded against stone. She caught my wrist and twisted, trying to force me down. I rammed my forehead into her face. Pain burst through my skull.
Neseryn swore and her grip loosened just enough for me to tear free.
Blood ran from her nose now. “You headbutted me.”
“You punched me in the ribs.”
“That was combat.”
“So was that.” The corner of her mouth twitched before her Shadow slammed into my spine. I went down hard. My palm scraped across stone.
Neseryn kicked my wrist before I could push up. Pain shot through my fingers. “Too slow.”
“Still talking?” I rolled as another strike hit where my head had been. The ward stone flashed once in warning. Neither of us cared. I got to my feet. Neseryn circled me and the other candidates had stopped speaking entirely.
I could feel them watching. That should have made me cautious. Instead, everything I had been carrying since last night seemed to find somewhere to go—the fight with Lidia, Aurenya’s name, the prophecy, even the word princess still lodged in my head like a shard that didn’t belong there.
Neseryn gave me one problem I understood.
Hit or be hit.I could work with that. I summoned Light into both hands. Her eyes flicked toward my stance. Recognition narrowed her gaze. “You’ve been training.”
I sent the first strike before she finished.
Neseryn blocked it. I followed with another.
She shifted left. I knew she would. Kieran had taught me what Shadow wielders tended to do when Light forced their sight to one side.
I pivoted and drove my elbow into her jaw.
Her head snapped back. Neseryn recovered quickly, but not quickly enough to stop me from catching her wrist. For one perfect second, I had her.
Then she looked at the way I was standing. At my grip. Understanding moved across her face. “Kieran.”
My stomach dropped. She used that moment to slam her knee into my thigh and my leg buckled. She caught the front of my vest and drove me backward into the perimeter wall. Stone hit my spine. Neseryn leaned close enough that only I could hear her. “He taught you that.”
I shoved against her. “He’s an instructor.”
“He isn’t yours.” The possessiveness in her voice scraped directly across my temper. I drove Light between us. The blast threw her several feet. She landed badly, one hand catching the stone.
I pushed away from the wall. “What exactly is your problem with me?”
Neseryn straightened, blood bright beneath her nose. “I don’t have a problem with you.”
“You’ve threatened me, nearly broken my ribs, called me a Veilrat and somehow manage to show up every time I have a bad day.”
“Perhaps you have too many bad days.” There it was. That effortless cruelty. I started toward her.
The instructor raised his voice from outside the ward line. “Alerain. Vexoria. Control.”
Neither of us looked at him. Neseryn’s Shadow thickened. “You want to know what your problem is?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”