"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
- Robert Frost, Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
―
THIRTEEN: DARK SILENCE
"Faster, Cass ― stronger. Push back harder, make your movements less tired. Push yourself harder."
I panted between my teeth and danced away from the edge of Ezra's sword as it whistled past my neck. Each step felt like wading through molasses. Although the night air was cool and crisp and a substantial breeze floated by, I was still sweating buckets and it was as hot as hell.
I started to lose my grip on the swords, swinging them across toward Ezra and making a feeble attempt at ducking while almost sluggishly hopping back onto my feet and bouncing slowly on the balls of my feet.
"I―"
"It's only been two minutes so far. We're only going until three."
I did my best to scrape together what little energy I had left, careful to leave the surplus of magic energy alone. Ezra said we would spar without magic, and I was out of shape enough already, even with magic energy to aid myself.
What annoyed me the most was the drop of sweat that was slowly rolling down my back at an agonizingly ticklish slow speed.
Focus. Ignore that. The tip of Ezra's sword, watch, watch it!
I danced back on weary feet, tightening the grip on the leather of my swords with some difficulty. I needed to lock my grip in and let it stay locked.
A soothing flow of wind rushed over me, like little graceful kisses of air along my skin. My skin prickled at that.
The tip of his sword pointed downwards, his eyes never leaving mine, alert and waiting for a sign of attack. I regulated my breathing. He lifted an eyebrow, almost daring me to lunge. I waited, slowing my breathing, adjusting my grip on the swords, blocking out everything else.
Find your hidden skill. You're a born swordswoman. Or rather, Noryn was a born swordswoman. It took practice for me to even swing the sword the right way. It took practice to hold the swords.
I tried to find hidden skill inside of me, I really did. Meditating, standing in weird poses, meditating with the swords, standing in weird poses with the swords...there was no hidden secret. The blatant truth was that I desperately needed practice. I also needed time. Something that I had very little of.
As we circled, mimicking the circular movement, swords pointed towards the center, eyes locked and waiting for the other to move, I calmed my breathing once more, slowed my heartbeat, brought myself to see only what I needed to see and to focus on those points.
Watch his eyes for a flicker of a glance. Watch his limbs for a flicker of a movement. Watch his sword for a flicker of a twitch. It was all about the flickers, the tiny things, the small things.
This time, instead of defense, I decided that I would go on the offensive. A lunge with the blades in an arc that whistled through the wind, then the other sword in another arc. Ezra blocked each thin sword with his own quite gracefully, dodging.
My grip on the Aethimor swords tightened. Another arc with the sword, but it felt more tired. I was tired.
"What did I tell you?" Ezra's copperish brown eyes met mine again. "Relax. The swords are a part of you, not going to kill you. You don't need to strangle them."
I pursed my lips at that and held the swords with a relaxed wrist. My veins were wound up tight and my fingers were tired from squeezing so much around the hilts. More cuts and slashes and jabs and arcs with the swords in blinding flashes of starlight reflecting from the silver. Each of them deflected, except for a single skim of my blade against Ezra's shoulder, a single touch before it was thrust to the side by his longsword.
"That's three minutes," he called out and I nearly collapsed to the ground in a relieved heap. I braced my elbows on my knees, panting and pushing a sweaty swath of hair out of my eyes.
"You've improved a lot."
I smiled tiredly in acknowledgement.
"...but you need a lot of improvement as well. Warriors in Ealyndris are much better trained than I am ― trained since birth, skills constantly honed. I...don't want to bring you down, but at this rate, you won't be able to survive by yourself. Your magic is strong, but you'll have to keep a low profile."
I sat down on the ground with my knees in front of me and thought for a moment. Something was still bothering me. "Does everyone expect me to defeat her?"
He blinked. "No, they don't expect you to..."
I tore my eyes from his gaze. "But they still expect me to try."
"It's up to you. You can keep a low profile and stay out of her sight. It isn't your world. It isn't your responsibility."
But it was, wasn't it? It was my world and it was my responsibility. She was my mother. And I would never know if she would discover that her own daughter was in the same world as her. I would never know. I didn't want to live out the rest of my life trapped in a world that I barely knew a thing about, alone and with nothing. Especially while running from a woman that I didn't know.
"Then whose responsibility is it?" The warriors of that world did not ask for it. Neither did the kings and queens whose power had long since been hewn. And certainly the people did not call upon a sorceress to make herself their queen.
There was silence from Ezra. "It isn't your responsibility, regardless. You can stay low and maybe the portal will open again."
We both knew that wouldn't work.
But I lied to myself anyway. I didn't have the energy to face the truth.
―
We sparred for exactly twenty-eight minutes more, me gasping for breath in between each strike and him barely breaking a sweat. I could tell that Ezra was trying to be positive in that wrapped-up, closed-in way of keeping things hidden.
"How are things going?" I wiped my forehead and aired out the back of my shirt as we walked together back from the Atrium along the dusty trail.
"It's...going." A slight grin. "Almost forgot ― Kira and Helen said that they would meet us tomorrow for training...or rather, tomorrow night."
That was new. "Magic or no?"
A shrug and his coppery brown eyes flickering in the night. "Maybe, maybe not."
"Do you train with Helen and Kira?"
"I used to quite a bit. Then things...fell out of hand and Helen no longer showed up."
That was probably also around the time that Kira and Ezra grew closer.
He slid me what could pass for a smile. "Your training is going well, I swear it, no matter how bad you think you're doing. I've seen many people, and you've progressed in leaps and strides."
Yeah, right. But still, I was getting quite good at faking smiles that seemed genuine, and if Ezra noticed, he didn't say anything. I didn't think he did. But people were a lot more perceptive than I thought, especially at Ivyport. There was something about the way that his smile seemed not forced, no, but certainly tinged with a sadness.
There was something about Ivyport, about Helen and Kira and Ezra and the Professor that was eerily tinged with a sadness.
"I'll be there."
―
I was glad to finally get my mind off of the day. Professor Morrow had been adamant about research on Ealyndris, and while it was practical and I probably should have been more enthusiastic, all it did was create a focal point around the seemingly more-than-dangerous world that had suddenly become my world.
No.
Yes.
No.
You have to.
It was never my responsibility.
No matter what, you''l be stuck there. Better make the best out of it.
I did not choose this.
Your choice does not matter.
Thoughts were swirling like a whirlwind and there was something about the silence that bothered me ― a light silence that filled the wind and lingered there. Like a headache that was constantly pounding, but in a milder, more deceptive way. At least training took off the mental stress.
Seeing Helen was also better. I ate meals with her and took magic lessons from her, but it was extraordinary to see her wield her daggers ― knives with glinting, wickedly sharp knives that cut against targets and stuck there like magnets.
But none of that really stuck at the end of the day, not when the rest of my mind was twirling in pirouettes and spins and a heck ton of other ballet terms that had escaped my memory (memory was a little tight, what with learning about another dimension entirely).
What really stuck was the magic. I had seen Helen's demonstrations ― little orbs of light, manipulating light and shadows and daggers ― and had witnessed her show the rules of magic firsthand.
But that wasn't it. What I had already seen were little tricks of light, little pranks and toys and shadow morphings.
As Kira and Helen and Ezra revealed what was within them, a sense of freedom escaped me.
Not just dancing with knives, but dancing with light and shadow and wind. Helen.
Not just a deadly play with blades, but a play with pine and water and ice. Kira.
Not just the game of a sword, but a game of stone and dust and wood. Ezra.
And me. What was I? I was fire, I was light and sparks and embers and flames and heat and the hope of a new life in a dark world. And as I slowly revealed my own true self ― the passion and fire and emotions that roiled within me ― there was a sort of feeling that slowly took me over.
It was a feeling that I had grown accustomed to by now.
It was a feeling that I was quite familiar with.
And as Ezra paused, Helen stopped with a sweep of her eyes around the hexagonal platform, as Kira drifted around the corners of the stone, I knew it by its name. Fear.
And then all at once, all at once, there was fire.
Not my fire. I did not know this fire. I did not know the fire that licked furiously at stone, the fire that devoured and grew and rose with each breath, with almost a warning roar.
"Stay back!" Helen said deftly, with a calmness that I would never had been able to muster. Kira nodded, and together they murmured words, as if to calm the flames.
I could have helped. I could have subdued them.
I could have done something.
But there I was in the center of the Atrium, hugging myself and my swords and deathly scared, so frightened, so scared, that all I could do was stand and do nothing.
Maybe, in the end, it would have been different, but that didn't matter, not when I didn't. And all that was going through my head was like a broken track record: no, no, no, no.
The flames rose higher and higher, and with a jolt, I recognized them. I was fueling the flames. Scrambling to get a grip on my emotions, on my fear. Struggling to rein in the fire that flickered every which way. Falling to my knees as it rose higher and higher, as the flames reflected in Ezra's eyes and he was scared.
Scared.
That wasn't how it was supposed to be.
And as I thought that it couldn't have gotten any worse, that the fire that flickered higher and higher along the stone walls of the pit, as we were trapped in a wall of flame that I could not control, there was a foreign warmth that crept up into my own flames, my own creation.
Then a sickening crunch as Helen fell on her wrist and a yelp erupted from her lips.
Silver. Knives flying at us.
At least I still had enough left in me to raise my hands to protect myself, and hands ablaze, the knives were gone. Pushing myself to my feet with arms that felt like lead, I scanned the surrounding trees. It was a bad idea to build an enclosed stone arena and then not clear out the foliage. Lack of planning.
The shadow of a a figure there ― just barely through the smoke, a running figure, then another there, and there. Just behind the trees on either side of us.
"Aim up!" I screamed through the chaos, as Ezra and Kira and Helen struggled to do anything against the flames. If I could not stop myself, I could at least aid them.
Kira was the first to look up, throwing a spinning knife through the trees, fueled by a burst of wind to carry the dagger true to its target.
Where was the rest of Ivyport? Wouldn't they at least notice fire in the Atrium in the middle of the night?
Then came Helen and Ezra, and with their magic, aiming and firing and shooting into the trees with a beautiful display of piercing, precise power. Only one had fallen so far to Helen's deadly aim.
More projectiles from within the trees. More blasts of magic that were nearly impossible to deflect except for the ring of fire that surrounded us like both a cage and a protection. Helen's wrist had snapped violently, and I had fallen on my ankle and at least sprained it.
My vision phased in and out, black dots flashing around the edges of my sight, my head tossing wildly and scanning the trees, fire dotting my eyes, smoke rising higher and higher and trees catching fire in fascinating plumes of red and gold.
The most I could do now was calm the flames. Closed eyes. Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out. In, out. In, out. Down. Calm. Think of water. In, out. In-
"Kira!"
My eyes flew open. Something was dreadfully wrong. The flames peaked higher and higher.
In the midst of the flames was Kira, fallen to the ground on her knees. Something was very, very wrong. As I drew closer, there was a gleam of silver protruding from her neck, her eyes wide. Blood coated her hands in scarlet strokes.
In the midst of the flames, there was a silence, a dark silence that gnawed at me.
―
It's been more than a month since I've last updated! Well, long time no see. I do hope Chapter Thirteen was worth the hugely long wait.
I guess since this is Chapter Thirteen, that I just had to have something very unlucky happen to Kira. Whoops. Sometimes authors get a little crazy when it comes to unlucky-ness. Do let me know of your thoughts on this chapter, and vote if you enjoyed it!
Your support is very much appreciated.
- viya -