27. Chapter 27
Chapter twenty-seven
“Is there an alternative style of training we can try where I don’t land my ass repeatedly?” I complained as Denora offered me a hand up off the sodden grass. Gavrin’s chuckle was barely stifled behind me. I’d lost count of how many times I’d been knocked to the lawn in just the space of an hour.
Denora was right and continued to be right. I didn’t watch for the details. I wasn’t noticing when she lifted her shoulders before she would swipe with her sword. I didn’t see the shift in her hips before taking a sidestep.
Once she pointed them out, I noticed them. But in the moment, the adrenaline or charge of blood in my veins always got the better of me, and I acted impulsively. Not deliberately.
“You need to slow your breathing but not your mind. You need to steady your thoughts but not stop. Find balance in the flow of the movements. And I don’t mean your feet.
You need to allow the ebb and the flow of the dance between opponents to guide you.
You’ll feel their rhythm eventually. It’s harder when you don’t know someone’s fighting style, but it’s not impossible.
If you know a person, you can anticipate their movements more easily than if you don’t. ”
Brushing blades of cut grass from myself, I looked at Denora like she’d just spoken in a dead language.
“Is that all?” I quipped with a cynical sneer.
“Let me show you.” Denora flicked her head to Gavrin.
His hulking form moved to stand between us on the sparring lawn.
“You’re going to fight him?” I said, unable to hide my surprise.
“Size isn’t everything.”
“It’s more than you think.” Gavrin winked.
They swapped out the wooden swords for the ones at their hips, and I quickly removed myself from the fray.
They faced off for a moment, then collided with a metal-on-metal crash.
I watched in awe as they moved and breathed together. Back and forth. Like opposite sides of a coin or two magnets moving and pushing each other.
When Denora attacked, her arms swinging her sword with a flourish behind her head and aiming for Gavrin’s neck muscles, he easily blocked her move with a solid upward parry, almost without looking. His defence was as natural to him as blinking was to someone else.
I tried to watch for the details. To mark their individual styles.
When Gavrin moved to the offensive, his shoulders would flex a little as he prepared a huge strike.
And Denora saw it every time.
They looked like they could anticipate every move.
Swords clanged, and their metals rang through the rooftop air. Over and over.
And I knew I hadn’t been trying hard enough with Denora. A part of me was ashamed of that. I’d been showing up to her lessons and just not offering my fullest self to her teaching. I couldn’t say why. Maybe it was some remnant of stubbornness against my situation.
Kaed’s insistence on defence lessons made me want to do them less.
There might be a strong pull to him when he was in front of me.
Like some godsdamn chemical charge in the air.
I found it was easily replaced with ire, frustration and anger when I wasn’t around him.
Like my body forgot what it felt like to stand under him when he wasn’t towering over me.
And when it forgot, my head took over and reminded me I was supposed to hate his blue eyes and angular jaw line.
I was supposed to hate the planes of his chest where his shirt opened.
I was supposed to hate the way his hair fell carelessly into his eyes.
I was supposed to be paying attention to the lesson in front of me.
“… How about it?” Denora asked.
I looked up, dazed. Both she and Gavrin had stopped to take a breath and were looking at me expectantly.
I shook my head, and my mouth gobbed open and closed like a fish.
“Gav says he’ll take it easy on you,” Denora repeated what I’d missed.
My eyes felt like they’d pop from my skull. “Gavrin?” I shrieked with a dry throat.
He was massive. Broader and taller than Kaed. Larger than an ox. And his sword hung in his hand. I was instantly reminded of how he’d impaled that man from horseback when I’d first seen him.
“No, thank you.” I quickly dismissed their offer to spar with Gavrin. “I’d rather keep my limbs.”
Gavrin chuckled. “That’s okay. I’m happy to throw Dee to her ass instead.” He laughed again.
“I’ve beaten you three out of four times, Gav.” Her brow quirked at him. “You need to review your assessment there.”
“What did I miss?” Audrie’s sweet voice carried over the training ground then as she came to sit beside me on the stone bench.
“Gavrin is getting his pride beaten from him,” I remarked, but Gavrin instantly looked more like a mountain bear than an ox as he fumed. And a small part of me cowered as he bolstered himself.
I was glad not to be truly on his bad side. And I was glad not to be Denora at that moment.
But Denora didn’t seem to shy away from Gavrin as he squared up to her. In fact, I think she was flexing a new muscle.
Both Denora and Gavrin offered a look this way.
I thought it was for me, but as Audrie was unpacking a small bundle of candied fruit peels, I realised I was mistaken.
The clang of swords reverberated through my teeth without warning as they started up again. The force they used this time around was harder. More intense. Purposeful. They weren’t demonstrating moves for my benefit anymore; they were showcasing their own.
It was actually incredibly impressive, and I realised just how much I had to learn if this was what I needed to become to hold my own against fae.
But beside me, Audrie was visibly cringing. She flinched at the restrained violence, the shattering noise as their blades met, the near misses as their swords sliced air instead of flesh.
“Watch out!” I called to neither of them but both of them at the same time, as their swords came smashing right for each other’s flanks.
How did they not shrink back from each blow?
They seemed to practically absorb the impact as they blocked.
Each. One. Coming. Harder. Faster.
But Audrie’s scream cut through both of them as she witnessed a harrowing strike, and they stopped instantly.
Denora’s sword paused just above Gavrin’s neck.
Audrie’s hands had come to cover her face, and she looked like she was on the verge of tears.
Denora brought her blade low and made to take a step toward Audrie, but she flinched a little.
“Hey. Don’t. Don’t worry.” Gavrin was the one who spoke. His hands were hovering over her little frame. “She was never going to actually get a lick in,” he joked. “See?”
And then a blast of green barrelled for Denora.
I gasped at the display and for Denora’s sake, but she defended the magical cloud that careened for her with a maroon wall of her own.
Audrie was taken with the distraction of the magical battle unfolding. A giggle replaced the tension in her as the magic flowed in front of us.
Gavrin and Denora smiled once they saw Audrie’s nerves had been settled.
They continued their attacks, barraging each other with clouds of colour that landed like blunt throws and punches, swords forgotten.
They moved so differently as they worked their magic into the air. Gavrin’s moves were like a battering ram, as he shouldered into his magic. He looked like he would collapse a building if he didn’t hold back.
Denora, on the other hand, moved like her magic was a weapon in her hand. Her arms flowed like a dance as she poured magic into the air.
And I was struck by how fluidly they moved. They wielded their powers like a language I couldn’t speak. It was beautiful and a complete mystery.
Kaed had said it was a well from which magic was drawn.
And how deep that well ran and how quickly it was drained impacted the cost of magic to a person.
I watched as though I expected Gavrin and Denora to age before me.
The magic blooming and dissipating like clouds of mist. But neither of them seemed to slow or tire.
How powerful did the magic have to be before it drained that immortal well?
I thought of Kaed’s power then, unable to stop his presence from invading my mind.
His shadows moved like they were a part of him.
Not a language but a mantra. And when he moved, it didn’t seem fluid; it seemed restrained.
Like he was struggling to hold it in, not force it out.
When he wielded, his hands were always flexed, palm out, or curved around an imaginary object.
Like he wanted to grasp his magic and yank it back.
Somewhat sombrely, I wondered what my magic could have been like had I been born with any.
But the display brought my attention back to the present.
Eventually, both of them were panting, their chests heaving in and out.
“Who won?” Audrie called with far too much glee after seeing them throw magic around like it was a party trick.
“I did.” Gavrin shrugged. “Naturally.”
Denora, hand on hip, shook her head like he was delusional.
I laughed and walked to them. No injuries or marks on them. No new grey hairs or wrinkles. Like the magic had never been.
“And the cost? Doesn’t that worry you?”
Maybe they were shocked that I didn’t know about the magical cost. Had Kaed not told them I had no magic?
“Magic costs us, yes. But magic with intent to do harm or to control does far more than magic like this.” Denora waved her hand, and an orb of purplish red bobbed above her palm. “This is minimal. We can use magic daily. It’s the punishing use of power that drains us.”
“The stronger the fae, the deeper the well,” Gavrin added, his hulking form flexing as he gathered up his sword. “The deeper the well, the longer it takes to touch the edges of our immortality.”
I nodded, the knowledge soaking into me. It was unsettling to be so unaware of how magic worked and to be surrounded by it daily.
“I have no magic of my own.” Denora looked at me like she already knew, somehow.
But I said it anyway with a deep exhale.
It felt strange to be so open with people I barely knew.
But it didn’t feel wrong. I had never said it to anyone back home.
I had been told it repeatedly. Reminded of it. But I had never said it for myself.
No one actually replied to that. Either because they knew or suspected, or because it was so outlandish or strange, they had no comment on it.
The result was the same. Three pairs of eyes staring back at me. Like I was different.
Not human. Not fully fae. Just different. But then they all smiled.
“I suppose you’d better get much better with a blade then.” Gavrin shoved my arm. And Audrie gave him a thump for it. Much to her own surprise, I think, as well as Denora’s and Gavrin’s.
We all laughed, though. The small size of Audrie beside Gavrin was satirical.
I looked then to Denora, her sleeves rolled up. “How did you do that? Not hurt each other?” I glanced between them both to make sure again.
Denora turned her hands over to show that, indeed, there were no scratches or scars from the blows. “Magic is driven by intent. If Gavrin had wanted to hurt me, he could have.”
They smiled at each other. A camaraderie and something like veneration flowed effortlessly between the sentinels.
“Emotions too?” I asked, remembering Audrie’s accounting of magic use.
Denora nodded. “Emotions are where the power is rooted, and if untrained, will be at the will of those emotions. But intent can shape the magic.”
Kaed’s magic poured back into my mind.
The darkness. The deliberate coiling and caressing touches he used.
Did his magic stem from darker emotions than Denora’s maroon and Gavrin’s emerald magic? It somehow felt too invasive to ask that question. Maybe Kaed’s was just more powerful. I felt each time he was about to use it like it thrummed in my veins as well as his.
When Denora and Gavrin had ignited that magical spark before us, it had taken me by complete surprise. There had been no warning that either were about to conjure.
While I might not be a wonderful sword wielder, I had a feeling that, had I any magic, I’d be even more catastrophic if it all relied on emotions and intent.
Right now, my emotions and intent were a litter of embers and kindling that couldn’t decide whether to warm the depths of me or burn me in flame.