Chapter 12
Surface Tension
Veridiana tossed her wooden blade into the air, its end whistling in the air before she caught it by the handle as it came back down. For the fifth time.
It looked incredibly impressive. Also, reckless.
My attention strayed away from her performance.
Zevrial had handed out woven rattan daggers to us today, and we were training with them for combat against the miasmic creatures that showed up near the outer islands.
We’d specialize in using one of the myriad of other weapons lining the walls after graduation, but everyone had to learn to handle daggers.
Today’s training felt like an excuse to find inventive ways to mock our lack of skill and technique. Except for Veridiana of course. She had some prior blade training and was making the rest of us look like complete idiots.
But Zevrial’s demonstration made hers look amateur by comparison. He’d thrown a rattan dagger at a wooden shield with so much force the shield had cracked in half, directly down the center.
Having a weapon in my hand and Zevrial within the same enclosed space was a recipe for disaster, so Sarina and I had moved to the opposite end of the Fitness center to train while he coached other trainees.
It was purely an intellectual decision, to keep me from stabbing him.
Nothing at all to do with trying to avoid him and the confusing feelings he conjured inside me.
Best not to go there. Focus.
Sarina feinted forward, twisting as she took a swing at my shoulder. I ducked, rolling sideways to avoid the strike. She followed me as I rolled, leaning over me with her dagger pointed at my chest.
“You’re distracted.” She held out her hand to help me up. The birthday bracelet winked in the light.
Taking her hand, I stood again. “I’m tired.”
“We’re all tired,” she said. “And this is my first time doing weapon training too. But you’re extra clumsy today.”
Probably because I’d overdone it exercising yesterday. My abs still hurt. Everything hurt. “Tell me how you really feel,” I groused.
“Let’s try again. This time you make the first move.”
I circled her, lunging when she hesitated for a moment. She spun out of the way of my training dagger, whipping hers back to press into the side of my neck.
“See? Sloppy. You coulda had me if you noticed which way my feet were going.”
A grunt seemed like a sufficiently grumpy noise of agreement.
“Watch.” She pointed to a nearby pair of trainees, where the instigator managed to change the trajectory of their lunge at the last second and land a small scrape on their training partner.
We tried again. And again. And a few million more times. I kept missing and winding up with the point of Sarina’s dagger at my throat or above my heart.
“I’ll take over from here,” came an infuriatingly smooth voice from behind me. “It looks like she’ll need some instruction with her training.”
Sarina swiped a sweaty red curl off her cheek, shooting me a sidelong look. I tried for nonchalance when I shrugged.
Zevrial stepped into view, a solid wall of masculinity. Internally, alarm flared to life. Whether it was for the physical hazard he presented or the emotional one was anyone’s guess.
He took up a defensive stance, his training dagger held loosely and backwards in his grip. “Let’s see it.” A sardonic smile curved his lips. “And make it rough.”
What an arrogant ass.
“Hold it properly,” he said. “Your grip is loose. You’ll drop it on impact.” He demonstrated several different grips with his own knife.
Clenching my dagger tighter, I charged at him, moving too fast to slow down when his leg shot out and tripped me. As I fell, he grabbed and twisted my arm, forcing me to fall on my back.
The air rushed out of me as I crumpled. For a stunned moment, I stared at the runes on the ceiling, contemplating the life choices that led me here. Falling asleep until winter sounded nice, right here on the Fitness center floor. Maybe then everything would stop throbbing.
Zevrial’s face loomed over me as he pinned me between his legs, his dagger held downward. “Down isn’t done.”
My body was intensely aware of how well he fit above me. I pummelled my baser self back to the darkest corner of my brain, groping for composure despite my compromising position beneath him. “What do you want me to do, wriggle and flail?”
His eyebrows lowered to an angry point above dark eyes.
“Giving up is the same as dying out there. The abominations that lives in that mist won’t wait ‘til you’re ready.
They’ll press every advantage when you’re weakened.
So fight back. Even disarmed, even if you’re knocked down.
You’ve got fists, knees, elbows. Headbutt me. Buck me. Use your teeth, your nails.”
Disturbingly, an image of me raking my nails down his back was all my brain could summon.
He leaned down, his breath like a summer storm caressing my cheek. “Although, feel free to wriggle too.” It was barely louder than a breath.
Swinging the hand holding my dagger toward his face only resulted in that hand being pinned at my side by his free hand. His grip was firm, fingers hot and slick with sweat. His heartbeat thrummed through his thumb.
“Giving up already?” He taunted.
Winding back, I aimed a punch at his ear. He leaned out of reach, slamming my hand back down with the handle of his dagger.
Ow.
Pausing to search for an opening, I listened to his heartbeat and noticed his pulse was beating in sync with mine. Once might be coincidence, but twice was suspicious.
That’s odd.
I thought about Nikolach and miasma monsters, waiting for my heartbeat to rise. Predictably, it did. But his did too.
That gave me a pretty good idea of what our Skinscript did.
Time to test the theory. I wriggled beneath him.
Think boring thoughts. Books. Studying.
He shifted, the firmness forming near my stomach a dead giveaway as his heated gaze bored down on me. “Is your plan to seduce me into surrendering?” His tone became richer, lower. “Because there’s quite a large audience in here with us.”
His heartbeat raced against my wrist, much faster now. Listening, mine was racing too, still in time with his like an amplified echo. That cinched it.
“She’s had enough, let her up,” Sarina’s voice said from nearby.
“She’ll tell me when she’s had enough.”
“Get off me,” I gritted.
Zevrial rolled back onto his heels, standing again. I pushed myself up with the grace of a toppled tortoise. “You’re going to die out there,” he gestured to the Fitness room’s windows. “Sooner than later.”
“Gee, how sweet. Thanks.” Trading the rattan dagger to my other hand, I squeezed the grip.
“I say what I mean. And sometimes, that’s some mean shit.
Doesn’t mean you don’t need to hear it.” He spun with liquid polish, throwing his dagger at a target against the wall without hesitating to aim.
The blade sunk up to the hilt into the chest of the dummy target.
“Imagine for a second that you don’t give up without trying.
” I glared at him. I was trying. It just wasn’t enough. “Maybe then you’ll start improving.”
My knuckles whitened around the dagger. Before I could open my mouth, Sarina did. “She is trying! We’ve been training after hours every night for weeks.”
Quiet curtained the room as curious faces turned toward the commotion.
“What you’ve been doing is failing,” Zevrial said. “Time to try something new.”
I was too tired to try something new. There was barely enough energy in me to even participate in the regular daily training. He hadn’t been in the Fitness center after hours once over the last few weeks. He had no idea how hard we were training.
Frustration rushed to the surface, and I hurled my dagger at a training dummy. The dagger landed with a clatter, nowhere near the target.
I turned and stormed out before I did something I’d regret.