3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Rafi had nearly passed out in a meditation garden after several loops of the course with Laure, then gone to the room he shared with Cambray to clean up and try, again, to get real sleep.
He’d again failed. By morning, he was pale and easily distracted.
Instructor Lin had told him to put his spada down and to go straighten up the equipment room if he wouldn’t go rest. The spada, a slender, two-sided blade often used in duels, was an elegant weapon and the most commonly carried by swersoldi, but Rafi was too exhausted to handle it and would hurt himself.
Rafi was therefore in a corner slowly neatening shelves and racks full of wooden swords and daggers used in sparring bouts when he heard another lesson begin.
Since there wasn’t much else for him to straighten, he wandered out to see which class it was, stopping in stunned surprise at the sight of Viau and Instructor Daloit taking on a group of final-year students in a weaponless fight.
Swersoldi were meant to defend. In the past, in times of more violence, that had meant being ambushed while traveling or within a private residence, sometimes at night, when no one but a few guards would be armed.
So swersoldi were taught several ways to fight without swords or knives, although improvised weapons were allowed in those fights.
Not in this particular bout, but instructors were known to stage scenes so students could learn to find defenses within their surroundings. Younger students often played the part of helpless nobles.
In this instance, it was Viau and Daloit against four students.
It had been five, but another student there to act as judge had called the fifth a casualty right as Rafi had come out.
A call of casualty meant that, in reality, she would have been dead or too injured to continue fighting.
Everyone was in padded clothing but Rafi still winced on her behalf.
The fight itself would not take long; experienced swersoldi didn’t fuck around since a long fight meant exhaustion and mistakes.
Anyway, as every combat instructor emphasized—when enemies were out to kill you or your charges, fighting wasn’t about manners; it was about staying alive.
That usually meant killing or incapacitating those enemies as quickly as possible.
He put a hand to his stomach, though the flutter of concern over Viau wasn’t worth thinking about.
Rafi’s nerves should be for his future. Everyone involved would be bruised, but fine.
Yet he couldn’t help but think that the students should have been attacking as one.
They all had lessons on fighting a combined enemy.
They should have known. But they leaped at Viau and Daloit separately.
Hesitating, probably because they were facing Viau.
Though then Rafi wondered if that would have mattered.
Viau wasn’t untouchable, but he moved away when about to be struck or moved forward to meet the strike, lessening its force and enabling him to strike in return.
Three rapid, brutal blows against his opponent’s chest and his opponent fell back, then swayed and tripped over the feet of one of their classmates as that classmate charged recklessly forward.
Rafi made a rude noise at the impetuousness, although their bruises combined with the lecture Daloit was going to give them later should make the lesson stick.
Then they would have to do this again and again and again with each other and against other instructors until they figured out how to act as a team when necessary.
They might even realize that they could have acted before Viau and Daloit had their chance to take a position with their backs to a wall.
Viau stepped back to catch his breath and Daloit moved in front of him, granting him the moment. They must have fought together before. They were near the same age. Perhaps they’d been classmates.
Daloit was a nex. Maybe they’d been intimate before, since Viau seemed to find nex beddable.
Rafi closed his eyes, reopening them immediately when he heard a pained grunt and then another call of casualty.
Others in the Arms Room had also stopped to watch the bout.
Rafi wasn’t the only one though he felt the most obvious.
Ridiculous. There was no reason for anyone to note him.
Katoh said the lead-up to aedis was odd and so it was, because Rafi was not someone to stand out, not even flushed and perspiring, not even when staring at Viau, since many were.
Viau’s hair had come loose from its ribbon, but that didn’t appear to distract him as he stepped forward again.
Nor did the occasional fall of hair into his eyes keep him from moving.
He was still fast, still efficient with his strikes when he was close enough, although as vicious as he seemed, he hadn’t inflicted any real harm.
Rafi narrowed his eyes to study Viau as the fight momentarily paused—the two instructors being sized up by the remaining two, somewhat nervous, students.
Viau was glorious, of course, his shirt falling to the side to reveal one shoulder and his hair nearly completely out of the ribbon.
The spill of curls was almost rakish and his brief, playful grin to Daloit was wicked.
His eyes were where he continued to be dangerous, his eyes and his aer.
He saw everything, but Rafi couldn’t judge his aer to see if he was excited; that was locked down with impeccable control.
Then the students moved, in one combined action at last, both of them going for Viau as if they had silently decided he needed to be removed first and as quickly as possible.
Too late, Rafi thought. They should have thought that from the start. But his breathing hitched when Viau sidestepped them again, almost dancing away from their fists and feet.
As if he knew where the strikes would be.
Rafi sank his teeth into his bottom lip as he realized that was exactly what was happening.
Viau was strong with aer, everyone knew that.
Swersoldi were supposed to use aer to assist them; that was what made them so valued.
But Viau must be very strong if he could do that while keeping his own aer sealed away.
Rafi could sense when someone was near, but he’d never tried to focus on it in the heat of a fight.
He should practice that. Later. When his legs weren’t turning to water because Viau turned to share that same grin with Daloit when the other instructor made another student a casualty.
One opponent left.
Only for a moment. Viau and Daloit struck before the unfortunate student could muster an attack, and the final call of casualty was almost immediate.
Viau’s aer use had been defense, not even a nudge or a push in offense, though he or Daloit could have done so.
Oh, those students were going to get a lecture for certain.
Their instructor and Viau had gone easy on them, and they shouldn’t have had to aside from taking the usual precautions against serious harm.
Viau flashed another smile at Daloit, leading to a sigh of longing from someone elsewhere in the Arms Room.
Then, to further set every heart in the area aflame, Viau bent down to help the last student up and then assisted the red-face miné in brushing off some of the straw stuck to his back.
He was breathing hard but not out of breath, and re-tied his hair at his nape while giving each fallen opponent a respectful nod.
Daloit was less kind, but Rafi let those sounds fall away.
Viau was untouched. Pleasant and already catching his breath. A few pieces of straw were easily dealt with. If he had been tested by that bout, it did not show because he did not want it to show.
A strange, presumptuous thought, but it lingered.
Viau had taken the fight seriously, as anyone sensible would, since even an inexperienced fighter could cause damage, but he had given not one clue to anyone of what his limits actually were.
Rafi considered sneaking closer to find out if he could sense the aer he could not see, but was not quite that out of his mind with aedis yet to draw Viau’s attention to him and risk questions when Viau had so far respected Rafi’s silence.
He really was the ideal swersoldi. It didn’t seem fair. Ideals were things to strive for but few actually met them. Surely even Viau must have faults, or at least weaknesses and normal human quirks.
Another presumptuous thought. Maybe Rafi wanted Viau to be flawed. A flawed Viau could be an acceptable partner for a nobody nex’s aedis. He’d certainly do more than the heroic one.
That wasn’t just presumptuous, it was selfish. Rafi was clearly far from the ideal swersoldi. Perhaps that was why full control was so elusive.
But Viau’s flaws, if they existed, were not for him to discover.
They were not acquaintances, or friendly, or intimate friends like Viau was said to be with Bellai the playwright.
Aedis was playing havoc with Rafi’s thinking.
He should go meditate or sit in a garden if he could not get his mind to calm.
The air would be refreshing and free of the scent of pink cherry blossoms if he went to a stone garden or the water garden.
Cherry blossoms did not even smell. Rafi was dreaming things now, and would wake with sweetness in his mouth and an embarrassing spill in his sheets again.
He turned to make his way from the Arms Room and as if the motion caught his eyes, Viau looked straight at him.
His expression was distantly polite at first, then intent, gaze sweeping over Rafi and noticing every sweat-dark curl at his brow and against his neck, the flush surely making his freckles stand out, the front of his shirt opened and unlaced because Rafi had grown even hotter while watching Viau fight.
Rafi’s mouth was so dry he could not swallow. He curled his fingers into his palms and his toes inside his boots, and did his best to hide the shiver that went through his bones and blood and aer. He didn’t think he succeeded, not with someone as powerful as Viau.
Viau’s lips parted.
Something inside Rafi pulsed that had never pulsed before, not even with someone sucking his small nex cock entirely into their mouth, not even with his fingers pressed inside him. He went wet and shuddered for that and the stiffening that anyone would see if they cared to look.
Viau did. He lowered his head and unless his eyes were closed, he would see.
Rafi spun around in reflex, then turned again, dizzy, before seeing one arch leading outside and heading straight toward it without allowing himself even a glance back.