27. SEVEN DAGGERS IN A TREE #2
“Only because you threatened her within the first thirty seconds of meeting her.” I slapped my hand over his as he gripped the pommel of the last blade.
“She needs training if she’s going to be staying with us for the foreseeable future.
If something happens, and her ability to use spells and magic are wiped out, I need to know she can handle a proper weapon like the rest of us. ”
Roirdan sighed, but it didn’t fool me. He wasn’t the least bit put out by this. He was probably already planning ways to make the witch miserable.
“No liabilities,” he relented. “That is something I can’t argue with.”
“Good.” I turned around to face everyone else on the platform. “She has no idea about this, by the way.” With that, I began walking back to the others.
“Fucking hell,” Roirdan muttered under his breath, falling into step behind me. “If this ends up being a shit show, it’s entirely your fault.”
“Fair.”
The edge of Aremis’s mouth lifted as he watched Roirdan and I return.
He knew our dynamic—how we liked to give each other a hard time.
And he appeared particularly intrigued to witness whatever I had planned for the commander.
Silas, however, didn’t know how to react.
His agitated wings were an obvious tell.
“Silas, you remember Roirdan,” I said.
The two nodded at each other.
“Nivelle . . .”
The witch stood two steps further away from everyone else, eyes narrowed to slits.
Oh, this was going to be good.
“We’re here for a couple of reasons. First, I need to practice porting with someone else.
I’ve only ever ported by myself, but it’s imperative that I learn how to transport someone with me.
And second”—I turned to Nivelle—“you need some basic training when it comes to wielding weapons. Everyone here needs to be able to protect themselves, if, for some reason, all magic and power fails.”
“Why would all magic and power fail?” she asked.
“The fae have ways that can render everything useless.”
“Witches aren’t affected by such things.” She lifted her chin, aiming the words right at Roirdan.
“Regardless, it will give us all some peace of mind,” Aremis said gently.
Silas watched his sister, silently imploring her to agree.
She worked her jaw for a moment. “Fine. But I think I’ll take to the smaller blades better than a sword.”
“You’ll learn both,” Roirdan said, taking a step further into the semi-circle we’d all formed.
“Roir, start with the daggers,” I said, flashing him a stern smile. He rolled his eyes, but didn’t object. “Silas, you get to work with me.”
The Dionach’s green eyes crinkled in the corners as he smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”
Roirdan jerked his head toward the opposite side of the platform, where his bag of weapons was perched on a nearby tree stump. Nivelle stalked after him, already sour with irritation.
Aremis leaned in to me and murmured, “You sure you know what you’re doing with that?”
I glanced over my shoulder at the commander and the witch. “Nope.”
An hour later, Aremis had walked me through how to port someone alongside myself, and I had successfully transported Silas back and forth across the pavilion. Each time we manifested on the other side, where Roirdan and Nivelle were training, I caught snippets of their arguments.
“Your hand doesn’t go there,” he said.
“My hand goes wherever I want it to go,” she spat back.
“Try harder,” he gritted.
“Teach better!” she snapped.
A handful of profanities were thrown to the wind on Roirdan’s part, and Nivelle seethed at each of his reprimands, her facial markings igniting blue whenever he came near to correct her.
They were a mess.
Silas gripped my arm again, chuckling under his breath as Roirdan shot us a very irritated side-eye.
“This is the most I’ve ever heard Nivelle speak,” he said, looking at his wardeness as she flung another blade at a tree.
The flat edge of the weapon slapped the bark with a thunk and clattered to the ground.
I shrugged. “She seems to have enough spite in her to at least throw the weapon effectively enough to knock someone out.”
Roirdan mumbled something, and the witch’s snippy retort echoed through the open space. “You pick it up, then, if you’re so much better!”
“I am better. That’s a fact,” he replied, stomping into the trees to snatch the dagger from the tangle of roots and leaves.
Silas and I snickered.
To my surprise, laughing with him . . . was nice. Whatever chasm had stood between us before was being bridged together with every quiet laugh we shared, and with every bit of praise and “good job” he said upon each landing.
We were . . . bonding. If you could call it that.
And nothing sped up the process of bonding more than having to learn to haul your Dionach’s weight through space.
Porting with him was no easy feat. His wings alone were twice my own weight.
And I learned very quickly that whoever is the heaviest will touch the ground on the other side first.
Upon our initial landing, Silas’s body had materialized before mine did, and yanked me into existence with it.
I was thrown forward with such force, that he had to snag me before I slammed face-first into the stone.
Since then, I managed to adjust my bearings, and for every port afterward, I focused on refining the launch and fine-tuning the landing.
Aremis was easier to port with. The two of them at once, however, was not so smooth of a launch or a landing. Their body sizes were starkly different, their weight throwing me off balance.
Silas’s wings snapped open, keeping us all upright as we landed rather roughly again.
I blew out a breath. “That’s going to take some work.”
“Perhaps try to leverage your weight with mine to even it out,” Aremis suggested. “Lean further into me to counterbalance.”
I nodded, and we vanished once more. Our landing was less of a struggle with his suggested technique. Silas stepped into existence first, followed by Aremis and me at the same time. We only stumbled forward slightly.
“Much better,” Aremis praised, squeezing my arm. “That will have to be the end of it for today. I don’t want—”
“Ugh! I can’t read your mind, you brute!” Nivelle’s voice cut through the air nearby where she was kneeling to swipe up the longsword Roirdan had just knocked from her grip.
Aremis cleared his throat, then finished what he had been saying. “Don’t want you wearing yourself out before we leave later. And this little arrangement”—he jerked his chin toward the commander and the witch—“seems to have run its course.”
“Indeed,” Silas said, tucking his wings in and starting across the pavilion.
“Wait,” I said, throwing my arm out to halt him. “Watch.”
Roirdan paced, waiting for Nivelle to ready herself again with her weapon. The sword was almost as tall as she was, its weight probably close enough to hers too. She heaved it up, adjusting her grip, her features settling back into that stony rage she wore like a second skin.
“Grip it higher,” Roirdan commanded, “and keep your elbows bent. Don’t swing it with straight arms. You’ll get ‘em lobbed off, or you’ll lose your weapon again.”
Nivelle growled under her breath. “I know that.”
“Then do it,” he said, stepping toward her.
She didn’t flinch, didn’t move, until he launched.
Then, she was quicker than I expected, dodging left, feinting right, watching his movements and reacting accordingly, as best she could.
I knew Roirdan’s fighting style and technique—he was going painfully easy on her.
But she watched him with a serious expression, determined to match his might.
His sword flashed, slashing at an angle from right to left, high to low.
She parried, meeting his blade with all her strength, keeping her elbows bent like he’d instructed.
Metal clanged, ringing out through the trees.
Then, Roirdan was spinning, and Nivelle was dodging another strike, winding up her arms to bring her sword down on him, but he caught her wrists in mid-air, halting her sword’s blow.
She grunted, infuriated that his size had given him the obvious advantage. Her feet kicked off the ground as she tried to drive her force into the weapon and break his stiff-armed deflection. But Roirdan didn’t budge.
The witch spat a wad of saliva on his leather vest, then let go of her weapon. “You’re insufferable!”
“Happy to be that for you, sweetheart.” He sketched a mocking bow.
Nivelle dropped into a stance, ready to launch herself at him when—
“Velle!” Silas called out. “We’re done for today.”
She whipped her head from the commander, to her brother, and back to the commander. “You and I are not finished.” With that, she turned, stormed toward us, grabbed onto my wrist with a brutal grip, and said, “Take me home.”