12. Training
Training
It was April.
Finals for Spring Term had taken place the week before, and I’d somehow, miraculously, passed all of my classes, although my grades had taken a pretty dramatic turn and definitely not for the better.
No one lectured me about that.
None of my teachers said a word, no matter how abysmal my work, or how low of a passing grade I managed. I hadn’t even gotten a particularly stern word from Blackstone, although I’d half-expected him to fail me when he saw the pathetic excuse for a talisman I’d strung together for his final exam.
It was inconceivable on one level, that it was already the fourth month. When I thought about it differently, however, it struck me as equally inconceivable that so little time had passed. It felt more like years since that first morning of January.
Technically, I was still in my spring break, with classes resuming the following week, but as I hadn’t gone anywhere, hadn’t changed focus, or even much of my out-of-class schedule, the only difference was, I didn’t have to bother with the distraction and wasted time of sitting in lecture halls for large chunks of my day.
I could devote every minute to the projects that actually mattered to me, even if they felt maddeningly out of reach.
“Focus,” my instructor growled.
My jaw tightened as I cleared my mind. I kept my body weight centered, my vision half-focused, but roughly on the area of his chest.
I’d been taught to do that by Bones, so I would see and react to anything my opponent was about to do with either their hands or their feet. Something about using my peripheral vision, rather than a pinpoint focus, allowed me to catch the movements even before they began.
“Why are you waiting?” Quicksilver grunted. “You didn’t wait out in the gardens that morning.”
A bolt of purple fire aimed for my ankle.
I yanked it back without thought, right before I threw up a shield, one of my favorites from the dozen or so in my repertoire now.
The fact that it happened to be one Bones had taught me, rather than one of the dozen or so taught to me by the man I faced off with now, had absolutely nothing to do with it.
That’s what I told myself, anyway.
“You’re moving too slow,” Quicksilver retorted. “Funny how you can move just fine when you’ve got ten Dark Cathedral soldiers in front of you.”
“You aren’t trying to kill me,” I retorted. “Not that you’ve admitted, at least.”
He grunted in wry amusement.
I tossed my head to get hair out of my eyes that had escaped the messy bun I’d piled on top of my head. I should have used a ponytail. Whenever I forgot to redo my hair for one of these sessions, I always regretted it.
“You haven’t used any of the spells I saw you use out there,” Quicksilver observed, stepping around me in a slow circle. “Not once since we started this.”
“You told me you didn’t approve of those spells,” I shot back. “Nor, as they made abundantly clear, does the Praecuri. I’m not looking to be arrested just to pass my coursework.”
Quicksilver grunted. “Right. Coursework.”
“You’re a professor here,” I countered. “How do I know you don’t have some legal obligation to turn me in, if you don’t like the magic I’m using?”
Quicksilver scoffed. “Nonsense.”
“Is it? It’s not like anyone here would mind if the Praecuri carted me away to the gaol. Maybe you’re tired of teaching me.”
“And maybe you’re too emotional,” he said, probably to make me more emotional. “Why are you trying to convince me of anything? What do you care what I think?”
“You’re the one who seems hung up on a few spells,” I pointed out.
I followed the motion of his feet.
I still hadn’t answered his question, not really.
“But why not use everything you know?” Quicksilver asked.
“Do you think you’re protecting Bones? We already know Mr. Bones taught you those spells.
Forsooth and I were the ones who assigned him as your teacher.
Are you worried we might learn of everything you got up to during Mr. Bones’s impressively detailed tutorials? ”
I didn’t miss the faint taunt in his words.
Nor did I miss the slight emphasis on “tutorials,” as if he doubted very much that what we’d been doing in here had anything to do with me learning to duel.
I didn’t point out the obvious contradiction in him both accusing me of spending my classroom time having sex, and spending it learning a disturbingly wide array of dark blood magicks from my Dark Cathedral-sympathizer husband.
If he was trying to annoy me into lowering my guard, he was going to have to try harder.
“You seem abnormally interested in my husband’s manner of ‘instructing’ me,” I retorted. “Should I be worried about that?”
Quicksilver’s eyes flinched.
I flicked my wrist in his direction.
“Pluvia ex pulvere et luce…” I mouthed.
Water sucked out of the air and ground below the experimental magic shed and drenched him in a torrent. I managed to surprise him, and he threw up his arms in reflex, so I stepped into the opening.
“Gravior aeris,” I hissed, louder.
He struggled to move under the gravity spell I’d landed. It made him so heavy his limbs wouldn’t cooperate. His light brown eyes glared at me in fury.
But really, both of those had simply been the set-up.
More of a precursor than a true attack.
“Levis tam levis quam aer…” I said, making the next mudra.
When I felt the spell lock in, I knew I didn’t have much time.
That one unlocked the gravity spell and made his arms pinwheel as he stumbled forward. In that split second, he was thrown completely off-balance as his muscular body went from fighting too much gravity to not enough.
The effect would only last a few seconds.
A straight, magical hit, one of the first offensive spells I’d learned, should do nicely to bring it home.
“Balah!” I growled, throwing real magic into my hands.
That one threw him in a straight line, back first, into the stone wall.
The impact made the lanterns sway where they hung around the edges of the high-ceilinged space. It was enough to distort and flicker the lighting briefly on the black-painted walls. The practice space had always made me think of caves.
Or dungeons, a voice whispered.
I flinched, and felt my face flush.
A familiar thread of heat coiled through my chest.
The presence that came with it cut my breath.
He’d stayed away for a while. Longer than I’d been dealing with all that well, if I was being honest.
You probably don’t want to ask me that question, he murmured.
Heat flickered over me again, so intensely, I couldn’t help wondering if he was asleep. He was never this open with me when he was awake. As it was, the amount of him I felt sucked the air out of my lungs, making me light-headed.
My magic flared outward, breaking into rippling, snake-like strands.
I stood back, heart pounding in my chest, while Quicksilver picked himself up off the practice room floor.
Neither of us said anything at first. I was still trying to control my magic from that bare touch from Bones.
Sometimes, most of the time, really, I didn’t know he was watching me until he made his presence known.
This time, he’d completely blindsided me.
I wondered if he was telling the truth, if he’d kept his distance until he couldn’t.
Fuck… you have no idea, kitten.
Heat shivered through me again, burning in my chest.
Watching you fight always did something to me, he added, softer.
I forced my eyes off Quicksilver, off where he was still grimacing in pain, his back against the wall while he sat on the floor, panting.
We were in Bones’s Experimental Magic Shed, which now half-belonged to me, like everything with the Bones name on it these days.
Quicksilver informed me it had transferred ownership the first day I showed up for one of our one-on-one training classes.
He’d requested we work together here, so we wouldn’t be interrupted by one of his other students.
I’d agreed, but told him it was doubtful I’d even be able to get inside without Bones there to unlock his chimaeras around the door.
As it turned out, that hadn’t been a problem. The door had opened on its own, the instant I stood in front of it. Quicksilver struck me as significantly less surprised.
Is that prick trying to get a leg over? Bones asked, annoyed. I might have to pay a little visit, if so. I already knew the bloody perv likes to stare at your arse…
I rolled my eyes, but didn’t answer.
The middle-aged wizard, with his rugged, scarred, but still very handsome face yanked himself the rest of the way to his feet.
I’d expected him to be annoyed with my set up and hit, but he almost seemed satisfied.
I watched as he stretched each of his arms across his chest, one by one, and nodded, almost to himself.
He went back to pacing the edges of our marked fighting ring.
“Okay,” he said. “Well, that Bones taught you.” He glanced up, his mouth twitching in what might have been humor. “Well, I assume he did. Unless that was something you got from Greythorne? What he lacks in killer instinct, he’s always made up for in brains.”
“I think it was Bones,” I said stiffly. “I apologize, if––”
“Don’t apologize,” he cut in, his voice a touch harsh.
“You were following the assignment. And it’s about time, too.
I’ve been waiting for you to actually get angry enough to hit me for a change.
Rather than dancing around the edges and glaring at me like I’m the one torturing your husband in that damned tower. ”
My whole body tensed before the words fully landed. Once they did, I bit my lip, fighting a rage so intense I briefly couldn’t see.
“What?” he taunted. “Was it something I said?”
Still clenching my jaw, I lowered my hands. After staring at him a beat longer, I turned and walked back to where I’d left my satchel by the wall.
“You’re not leaving?” He let out a derisive snort. “After you finally got a hit in? What, did Bones get pissy when managed to knock him down?”
“I never got hits on Bones,” I said coldly. “Not unless he let me.”
That’s not exactly true, wife. There was that one time––
“I have to be somewhere,” I blurted, cutting him off. I bent down to grab the satchel’s strap. “I can come back tomorrow, if you have time.”
Quicksilver scoffed, running a hand through his short black hair, but his voice came out brusque. “Sure. After lunch. One o’clock.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to answer.
With Bones’s presence all around me, making it hard to breathe, much less think straight, I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
I saw something in Quicksilver’s eyes change as he looked at me. I had a momentary bout of panic where I wondered if he’d noticed something. Could he see the difference in my magical aura? I definitely didn’t intend to wait around to find out.
I hitched the strap over my head and settled the satchel by my hip.
“Tomorrow, then,” I said, nodding.
I turned to go, but Quicksilver stopped me.
“Wait,” he said, his voice subdued.
I bit my lip. After a too-long pause, I turned around. “What?”
“Bones really taught you that? That sequence of spells?”
The taunting note had gone out of his voice, so after a pause, I nodded.
“Did he teach you any others?” Quicksilver asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Bones was big on combinations.”
When Quicksilver only stood there, waiting for me to go on, I sighed. I used my wrapped hand to brush that piece of now-sweaty hair out of my eyes.
“…He was fairly tiresome about it, most days,” I admitted, my own voice growing subdued. “He would annihilate me whenever I tried to get him with a single attack spell. He never let up on that, maybe because I weighed a lot less than him.”
At Quicksilver’s raised eyebrow, I averted my gaze.
“He wanted me to hit him with three or four spells, at minimum. Sometimes as many as seven or eight, before I went for the real attack.”
Quicksilver nodded, his expression unchanging.
That time, he didn’t smile. He didn’t even smirk.
“He was right,” he said, matter of fact. “But now that you’ve told me that, I’m going to adjust my strategy to compensate. You must realize that?”
He threw a cloud of dark blue at my head.
I knocked it aside with a hasty shield.
My annoyance that he’d attacked me when I’d said I was done, and was on my way out the door turned into a harder flush of anger. Before I’d thought about it, I jerked my fingers into a swift “S” shape and hissed out a command in Sanskrit.
“Cobara makshikaaa!”
I said it too loud.
He would counter it easily, I thought, since he’d clearly expect it.
But that didn’t end up being the problem.
The gold bracelet I wore shot off my arm at the end of my mudra.
A massive, coiled-to-strike, solid gold cobra reared up to fill the cavernous room.
Its hood flared out, its head and ruby eyes rose higher.
I’d forgotten I’d put on the Bones’s Yule present when I got dressed that morning. Alaric and I had plans to use it later that day, and I hadn’t wanted to leave it behind.
In the space where I blinked, the snake swelled to fifty or sixty times the size it had been while coiled innocuously around my forearm and wrist. It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to think of a command to pull it back, or even to shrink it smaller.
The massive gold cobra let out a deafening hiss.
The sound echoed against the stone, forcing me to clamp my hands over my ears.
It hung there, its head nearly brushing the ceiling as it swayed in front of my Offensive and Defensive Magic professor, looking like it was about to eat him.