Chapter 20 #2
Not because of the training – gods, she still hated that – but because he’d quickly become a true friend. Someone she could be herself with, no matter how bad her attitude, nor how much she smelled like a raphon.
‘Because your brother still hasn’t shown to check up on my progress with Six.’
She yelped and lifted her wooden sword as he advanced.
‘And that’s a problem, why?’ Arawn asked.
Gods, he was strong, even though she knew he was holding back.
‘Because he doesn’t even care to see me!’ Ezer growled, then lunged forward. ‘He has no clue about the work I have done with Six.’
He tripped her with his sword, then caught her before her face could slam against the floor.
‘As much as I do not wish to defend my brother’s honor,’ Arawn said with a sigh as he set her back upright, ‘he has good reason to be absent. Give him time.’
‘And what reason could be as good as ensuring his Raphonminder isn’t dead? It’s been two weeks.’
She whirled and avoided another hit, proud of herself …
Until the tip of his sword hovered just beyond her throat.
She growled in frustration, sweat dripping down her temples.
His hand slipped into his pocket, where he always kept his speaking stone.
Have you considered that maybe he trusts you to do your job? Maybe he’s allowing you the space you need to succeed on your own? A smirk, and he added, You’re dead, by the way.
I can see that, Ezer thought back as she gripped her own speaking stone. I do not like to be kept waiting. I do not like to be ignored. The gods have done that plenty, when it comes to me.
He frowned. He’ll return soon enough. And … it also sounds like your heart still isn’t right.
My heart? She released her stone to wipe sweat from her eyes, and spoke aloud next, needing him to understand.
‘My heart is fine. I’m just not a warrior, Arawn.
I’m a Minder. Hence, I do things with my mind, and not a godsdamned sword.
Certainly not with magic, for how many nights I’ve tried.
What’s the point of this anyway, if I’m only to ready Six to fly with a rider and not go across myself … ?’
His face gave nothing away. ‘The point is that you’re a Sacred. It is your birthright to learn. And the gods, much like my brother, are on their own timetable. Sometimes it is to our benefit to wait.’
She tried to strike him in the chest … but he easily batted her sword to the floor.
‘Lose your weapon and die,’ Arawn said gently. ‘Pick it up. Try again but remember to keep your arms strong. Mean it, Minder, when you strike to kill.’
‘I wasn’t striking to kill,’ Ezer said sweetly. ‘I was striking to piss you off.’
He lunged for her, faster than she could evade.
‘You must have clarity of mind –’ he struck, she failed to block – ‘and heart –’ another blow landed to her chest – ‘each time you invocate.’
His body slammed against hers, and she hit the ground with a whoosh of breath, and then he was standing over her, with his sword poised just over her heart.
‘Dead. Again.’ He frowned. ‘What will you do when a darksoul or a shadow wolf comes for you? If you cannot invocate now, how will you do it when your life is in mortal danger?’
She winced, remembering the fit she’d had earlier that evening, when she’d lost all clarity of mind and thrown the candle in frustration. The wind would not come to her call, despite how well she’d learned to invocate the request to Avane.
Her attempts at wielding were more like …
Furious desperation.
‘There isn’t going to be a darksoul or shadow wolf that comes for me,’ Ezer tried.
He struck harder, faster.
‘We have no clue what the future holds.’
She sidestepped and ducked to avoid a hit to her temple.
He wasn’t holding back tonight.
‘We have the wards,’ she said, and swung.
But he was ready for her and rapped her on the ribs. Hard enough to make her yelp, but not hard enough to truly break anything. He was helping her learn her own grit. Helping her see that she could take a hit and keep standing on her own two feet.
‘And what if you find yourself beyond those wards?’ he asked. ‘What happens then?’
She paused and raised a brow. Because they both knew what happened last time.
She’d nearly been eaten alive … until the ravens.
‘I don’t know,’ Ezer growled.
‘That is exactly why you must train.’ His eyes fell to her sword. ‘Again.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m tired.’
‘You’re quitting?’
‘Yes,’ she hissed. ‘I’m never going to need to—’
‘You must learn, Ezer, or someday you will die!’ he growled. ‘You will die out there. And it will be my fault for not training you hard enough.’
His voice echoed off the cavernous walls.
‘I’m … doing my best,’ she said, and she couldn’t hide the hurt in her voice. ‘I’m sorry if that’s not good enough for you.’
But he sheathed his sword, and when he met her eyes again, some part of him was gone. ‘Sometimes … I swear you were sent to punish me, Ezer. Because you act just like her. And when it counted … when it mattered the most … she couldn’t save herself. And I couldn’t save her either.’
His words hit her like a brick to the chest. Suddenly it was hard to breathe, hard to think straight.
She didn’t even know what to say. But it didn’t matter anyhow.
Because before she could reply, he’d already turned and gone.
The entire next day, the stone in Ezer’s pocket remained cold.
After a session in which Six had panicked over a mouse scurrying through her cage, Ezer limped to Alaris’s office, nursing what had to be a broken toe.
She’d navigated the route back to her dormitory plenty of times, but she was so stuck in her head, lost in her thoughts, that this time she took a wrong turn.
And somehow ended up on the threshold of a door she had not seen before.
It was a lovely thing.
As golden as the Aviary doors, and so heavy she didn’t think she’d be able to heave it open, were it not already ajar.
She wouldn’t have gone inside if she hadn’t heard the sound of music.
Gods, it had been so long since she’d heard music.
It was soft and delicate, a trilling instrument that reminded her of the old days with Ervos, when they sat on the outskirts of the city and listened to the faraway concerts that were saved mostly for the wealthy.
She knew the song it was playing.
A mournful tune … one she often heard like an echo when she thought of her mother.
She slipped inside, too curious to stop herself.
And paused when her feet found fresh-fallen snow.
Another courtyard, Ezer thought, as she entered.
She had to be in the center of the Citadel, the rounded white walls around her protected by the enormous fortress on all sides. Snow danced down from the sky, kissing the space.
Marble pillars spanned to her left and right, carved runes twinkling beneath the wardlight.
Somehow the snow still trickled through it, another mysterious kiss of the gods’ magic.
Rows of long worn wooden benches stretched all the way to a raised dais.
They, too, were rune-marked, the snow hissing before it touched the ancient wood, so they remained clear and dry.
Pillowy white drifts had piled up all around them, so the entire space seemed nestled.
Tucked away for when it was needed most.
Beside the dais – upon which sat five pillars with five bowls of fire, one for each color of pillared magic – sat a harpist.
She wore grey robes, a hood covering her long black tresses from the snow. Her long fingers stroked the strings of the golden instrument, every note as sweet as the snowflakes that danced gently around her.
Ezer sighed and slid onto a bench, reveling in the warmth of the runed wood.
Ervos would have loved to hear this song.
I miss you, she thought. I wish I could see you one last time. I wish you could help me with Six.
Because if she had a gift with the raphon … surely, Ervos would have been better.
For a time, she simply listened, allowing the song to swim through her veins. She stared at the depictions of the Five carved all around her … strangely at peace.
Which was broken by the sound of footsteps, then the groaning of a bench as someone sat down just behind her.
She glanced back, thinking it would be Arawn arriving to explain himself after his outburst. Or perhaps Izill, making sure she kept to her eating schedule for the day.
But when she turned around …
Her peace shattered.
And she looked right into the cold blue gaze of King Draybor Laroux.
She knew she should have bowed, should have averted her gaze, but she was frozen.
‘Y-your Highness,’ Ezer sputtered.
He hardly looked like the man she had seen just weeks ago.
His shoulders, once broad and enormous with muscle, seemed to have shrunk even further.
His face was so deeply lined with wrinkles he looked like he’d melted, like a wax figure left to sit beneath the sun.
His hair was now fully white, thinning beneath his golden crown. Two marks, for his two pillars.
The magic that was clearly killing him, each time he had to invocate in battle.
No one in Lordach truly knew how bad a Sacred’s ageing was.
No one really knew what it was like when they spent themselves like this.
When they wasted away for obeying their gods.
‘My second-born seems to think you are making progress with the beast,’ the King said. ‘I expect it to be ready for a Demonstration soon enough.’
No greeting … he went straight for the throat.
‘Several weeks of training, and you have yet to settle upon a pillar of magic,’ the King said.
Ezer’s veins went cold.
Of course, he knew. He had to know.
Had it been Arawn that told him?
No.
He wouldn’t.
But … would he?
This man, wasting away before her eyes, was his father. And she was only an outsider in this space. His loyalty would be to his kingdom first.
Not to her.
‘Answer me, Unconsecrated,’ the King spat. ‘Have you made any progress at all?’
‘W-with Avane, Sir.’ Ezer forced the words out, grateful he wasn’t an Ehvermage who could sense her lie. ‘I … am leaning towards Avane.’
One of his two pillared gods.
His blue eyes narrowed.