Children Of The Sky (The Scripts Of Neptune, Book 2)

Chapter 49

It was raining. Not heavily; it was just a cold drizzle, the kind that came in early autumn and made everything smell wet and sharp. The clouds were a nondescript grey, low and wispy, brushing the tops of the tallest buildings in the city like the fingers of storm spirits grasping at the physical world from another, stranger realm.

The training yard was empty when Darcy came in, dripping with rain and hazed over by the mist. No one would be training for a few days--her mother had ordered everything shut down for the traditional week of mourning after Lord Eldin's death. It gave Darcy the space she wanted, whether it was good for her or not, to be alone with her grief.

She hadn't wanted to come here, really. It would've been more comfortable, and easier, to sit in her room and stare at the wall or bury herself in a book. But her body was restless, wanting to move, used to being worked hard. Jack's visit had shaken her, too; she hadn't realized she had so little control over her state of mind until he'd tricked her with the bottle. Gods, emotions were a pain. Grief was a pain. Loss was a pain.

The leather-wrapped hilt of her sword was cool in her hands, rubbing all her callouses where it'd been held time and again. She'd gone barefoot--not her wisest decision when handling a sharp blade--and the cold sand shifted under her feet and stuck between her toes when she dropped into stance in the center of the ring. Closing her eyes, she took a slow breath, the rain soaking through her shirt, and swung.

It was a controlled movement, the momentum marrying with the strain of her muscles to pull the blade into the next arc. The steel looked like wet stone in the low light; it was still early morning, and the sun hadn't yet risen. There was rain in her eyes, on her skin, on her sword, making the hilt slippery. Holding it tighter, she slowed, her body drawn tight as a bent bow in an effort to keep her form.

The rain kept up, but so did she, despite the cold. The sun rose, and the grey took on a yellowish sheen--just short of golden--but the fog remained. It was out of that fog that a ghost of a boy came, his pale hair damp and his face set in a resigned expression. In his hand was a sword.

Darcy paused, not breaking stance, and Ely stepped into the ring. He too was barefoot, and the sword he held was as sharp as hers. Without a word, he dropped into a defending form. She raised an eyebrow at him. He mirrored it. With half an eye-roll, Darcy attacked.

The ring of swords coming together when he blocked echoed like a thunderclap off the walls of the training yard. As her blade hummed with the shock and she drew back, she was reminded of the morning she'd sparred with him, the first time she'd gotten him to hold a sword for more than a minute. Gods, so much had changed since then-even Ely himself, who now held his weapon with quiet confidence instead of trepidation.

She struck again--he dodged it, this time--and as her heartbeat quickened and her blood grew warmer, the emotion that'd buried itself in her bones started to seep out. Her breath came out in a hiss with her next blow, and she caught Ely watching her, calm and measured. He knew what he was doing; she saw that now. He probably meant to. She probably needed it.

That thought made her angry, though she didn't want to think about why. Gritting her teeth, she came at him again, and again he slipped out of her way. This time, however, he made his own move, and she was barely quick enough to parry. Gods, that'd been too close. He was getting better.

Sticky, salty sweat mixed with the frigid rain on her face as they circled, and in the greyish light, Ely's eyes were the same color as the clouds. He was still watching her, waiting for something, impossibly patient. He was looking for something, was he? Perhaps she'd just have to give him something to see.

She struck, and he danced backward with irritating grace, out of the ring and under the pavilion that ringed the training yard and attached to the rest of the manor. The stone was colder than the wet sand on the soles of her feet as she followed him, hissing through her teeth at his too-confident stance. That arrogance. Darcy wanted to smack it off his face with the flat of her blade.