Chapter Five #3
“To be honest,” I started, gritting my teeth against what I knew I had to say, the weakness it revealed, “I’m not certain I’ve mastered any of them.
I’ve used some more than others. Adrian and I practiced using our strength, our speed, the underwater breathing and healing, but not much more than that. ”
Kleio watched me for a moment. He didn’t say a word as his eyes roved over me from head to toe, but the disappointment was just as clear in his expression as it had been in Valin’s.
My fists clenched at my sides. I wasn’t enjoying the sensation of disappointing so many legendary mentors so quickly. Being brought to Kleio, once again, after being deemed unfit for service was a humiliation Cosmo would have disowned me for.
“Today, we'll begin with the senses,” Kleio announced abruptly, drawing me out of my disparaging thoughts. He strode to a chest in the corner and opened a drawer.
My brow furrowed in confusion as he pulled out a thick strip of cloth and turned to face me.
“The senses?” I asked. “But—”
“Until you can learn to utilize the magic you're capable of in a way in which you hardly think of it at all, you will not be able to master any of your other Blessings to their maximum potential,” Kleio explained as he approached again.
"You must be able to harness your power without reaching for it, let it flow into you and through you at all times like the blood in your veins.
Using it must become as natural to you as breathing, until you're hardly able to distinguish between when you are and when you are not. Therefore, we begin with the senses.”
Kleio reached out with the cloth. I flinched away, uncertain, but at his quick frown of frustration, straightened myself out and allowed him to wrap the thick cloth around my eyes, obscuring my vision as he tied it firmly behind my head. Everything became utterly dark.
“Even in humans,” Kleio began from somewhere beside me now, his voice strangely louder than before, “the other senses become stronger when one is restricted or denied. You cannot see so smell, touch, listen. What do you hear? What do you feel?”
I stood silently for a moment, straining to hear a single sound in the silent room.
Perhaps I was more out of practice than I thought, or maybe gods were far stealthier than my people, but I couldn't even hear Kleio’s steps as he moved around me, speaking aloud from time to time and surprising me with his new location.
I couldn't hear his breathing or the scraping of his boots on the ancient stone beneath our feet.
Frustrated, I blew out a breath and turned to smell.
“You’re making tea,” I said suddenly, identifying the cloyingly sweet, floral aroma for the first time.
“Very good,” Kleio remarked, now behind me. “What kind?”
I sniffed again. It was floral indeed but there was something citrusy about it as well.
“Rose,” I said. “No. Lavender. And with a hint of lemon.”
Kleio hesitated, then spoke again from my left side.
“Close,” he replied. “It's Jasmine. But you’re right about the lemon.”
I nodded, determined.
“Now feel,” he ordered. “What do you feel?”
I reached out.
“Not with your hands,” he barked. “We feel with our whole bodies, Dante. Not just our hands. Tell me what you feel, what all of you feels.”
I frowned, furrowing my brow in concentration. Feel without my hands?
“I—I don’t…” I started, confused.
“Do you not feel the hard stone beneath your boots?” he chided, growing impatient.
“Do you not feel the breeze from the window to your right, blowing the stuffy desert air into this already stifling room? Do you not feel the tension in your own muscles, gravity itself weighing down upon you each and every moment of the day? What of the material of your clothes against your skin? Heavy leather across your torso, arms, and legs, over the smooth, stretchy material of your training garments beneath? Your hair blowing across your brow or at the back of your neck? Do you feel none of these things, Champion? Are you so unaware of your own existence that you cannot pinpoint what is closest to you?”
I frowned, reaching up and ripping the blindfold off of my eyes in frustration.
“How, exactly, will this help me survive against the Zver?” I snapped, losing my temper before I could think better of it. “I survived the beast this morning but if it’s capable of killing gods—”
“It is,” Kleio answered, frowning at the blindfold in my hand I'd removed. “I’ve seen our own fall to the beasts. I’ve seen what they’re capable of.
Do not be so dimwitted as to believe the only way to defeat them is through weaponry or brute force.
Will strength increase your odds? Sure. But the Zver are beings of magic and therefore the most effective means of destroying them is through magic.
They're also stealthy, near silent on those massive paws when they wish to be.
So if you cannot detect a breeze in a house, there's no way you'll be able to detect a shift in the wind as they lunge at you from the shadows. If you cannot see in the dark, you won’t identify them stalking you in the night.
If you cannot smell their scent on the wind, you will not know they're near. If you cannot hear their low, warning growl, you will not know to raise your guard. Your senses are a muscle you must forge like any other. Make no mistake; if you neglect them, you will die.”
I frowned but bowed my head and nodded, thoroughly scolded.
I felt like a small boy standing in front of my grandfather’s enormous desk in that foreboding office of his once again.
A disappointing failure, same as always.
Taking a breath, I brought the blindfold up to my eyes, determination settling onto my features as I rolled my shoulders and cleared my throat.
“Again,” I said, and so we began.
Kleio and I worked on enhancing my senses for the remainder of the afternoon.
He assisted me in identifying my normal capabilities as well as those enhanced by magic.
He helped me learn how to turn them on and off and how to keep them on even when it began to hurt, the magic leeching more energy from my body than I had to give.
Endurance, he promised. We would work on my endurance until I could leave my enhanced senses on all the time without hardly noticing.
I was bone tired by the time we were finished, nearly more exhausted than I'd been after fighting the Zver. I’d had no idea that using magic could be even more tiring than fighting a god-killing beast. So when I finally emerged from Kleio’s home, promising I would return the next day for more training, the moon was already high in the sky.
I stared up at it in awe, taking a deep breath of the cool night air.
Somehow, it seemed clearer here, brighter.
My senses were so exhausted, however, that I almost didn’t see the soldier stepping from the shadows until he was upon me. I raised my gaze to him and he frowned, looking over me in examination, strong arms crossed against his chest.
“I’m Castor,” he told me, his voice gruff but friendly. “Valin’s Second. He asked me to fetch you after your lessons.”
I nodded, too exhausted to argue or question him further. He frowned, noticing my hesitation, but slapped me on the back and steered me toward the barracks all the same.
“Let’s get you a stiff drink,” he said, chuckling under his breath.
That, at least, was finally a plan I could get on board with.