XIV

“YOU HAVE GOOD REACTIONS. GOOD instincts in a fight.”

Today’s hot, sun baking down from directly above. Lanistia and I are taking lunch, our table shaded by the painstakingly manicured hedge that forms an airy, light-speckled green tunnel almost the entire length of the courtyard. There’s a fountain tinkling pleasantly in the background.

It takes me a second to realise Lanistia’s talking to me, alone though we are. I think it’s the first time she’s paid me anything close to a compliment.

“Thanks,” I say cautiously around my mouthful of bread, wondering what the follow-up punch will be. And whether it will be only metaphorical. While Kadmos has been true to his word and my body feels fine—almost good, in fact—after dosing myself with his tea, I’m still emotionally sore from her assault last night.

“Ulciscor mentioned that you fought. Against Septimii. Even a Sextus.”

“I did.” The switch in conversation has thrown me. Lanistia’s every breath since I woke has been directed toward either figuring out if I know something, or making certain that I learn it.

“Why?”

“It was good money.”

She scoffs. “Why?”

“How are you able to see?” It’s a blunt quid pro quo, but the question’s been eating at me. If her interrogation is going to turn personal, there’s no point letting it be one-sided.

“How do you think?” No hesitation. No trace of offense. She’s probably been expecting the enquiry for a while.

I compose my thoughts. “You’re using Will, somehow.” That much has become obvious. The woman moves as if she has full use of her eyes. Better than full, a lot of the time. I wouldn’t want to try and sneak up on her. “If I had to guess, I’d say you were imbuing the air around you, somehow. Getting feedback from it. But to do that, you’d have to be constantly re-imbuing to account for the changing receptacle…” I chuckle, shaking my head. My best guess, but it’s ridiculous.

“Two hundred times per second.”

I feel the smirk slide from my face. “What?”

“That’s our estimate of my imbuing speed.” Lanistia doesn’t smile. “Now. Why did you fight?”

I take a heartbeat to recover. Tempted to believe it a lie, though I can tell it’s not. The sheer concentration, the intensity and focus needed to keep that up? Just to be able to see? I can’t imagine.

Lanistia’s waiting. I meet her reflective-tint gaze.

“Because I liked it.”

I expect a follow-up. There isn’t one. Lanistia studies me, then stands.

“Then I expect this afternoon will be to your liking, too.”

---

A CLOUD OF DUST ERUPTS from beneath me as my body skids backward along the paved stone. I slide to a groaning, ungainly standstill, holding up a hand for clemency as I struggle back to my feet, holding my side.

“Just… a moment,” I gasp, feeling at the bandaged area nervously, despite the pain there being no worse than anywhere else.

My opponent—Totius Octavus Conlis, a frankly huge man and most definitely larger than anyone I ever faced in Letens—either doesn’t hear me or, more likely, doesn’t care to grant the request. He lumbers forward, teeth bared in a grin that splits his broad face, sharp grey eyes fixed on me. Like some kind of giant bear about to crack open a beehive.

“Try and actually hit him this time!” calls Lanistia sternly from the stone bench where she’s watching. I fire a scowl in her direction before staggering back another few paces, giving myself room to manoeuvre. Like the Octavii from the Theatre, Conlis’s size makes him ponderous compared to me, but I was overconfident. Too eager to show off after Lanistia’s apathy at my academic prowess. I deserved the barrelling hit, but I won’t let him get in another.

Conlis comes at me again, still smiling, buoyed by his initial success. I wipe the expression from his face after I slide around his wild second swing and drive my fist hard into his side, eliciting a surprised grunt. I’m used to punching men who are imbuing. Conlis may be all muscle, but I know exactly where to make him feel it.

I don’t let up, don’t let him retreat, and within ten seconds I know I will win. There’s a flow to this. A dream-like joy when you realise your opponent cannot hope to match you. You start to see their punches coming from so far off that it’s tempting to let them get closer than they should. You choose where to hit, when to hit. You think about the fight in an almost abstracted way. Strike there. Disable that. You can see the realisation creeping over their face. You can see when they’ve recognised the loss, long before they actually go down. You become the tide. Inexorable.

“Enough!”

I falter as Conlis staggers back, the effort to stop almost as physical as the act of fighting. He’s relieved at Lanistia’s call. I’m annoyed, though I quickly stuff down the emotion. This isn’t Letens, isn’t a bout for money. I’ve proven my point.

The big man watches me warily, perhaps seeing the fire still in my stance, and then rubs his side gingerly.

“Good fight,” he mutters begrudgingly. He sticks out his hand.

I stare at it in surprise, then grasp it. “Thanks.”

“Well done, Conlis.” Lanistia spares a rare smile for the hulking man, though it clearly also serves as a dismissal. He bows before taking his leave. The athletic woman watches until he’s disappeared, leaving the two of us alone again.

“How are your injuries?”

“I can feel them, but they’re not affecting me.”

“Then you’ll need to improve.”

I glower at her before I can help myself. “I won.”

“You won with a minimum of strategy and technique. Efficient enough for a fistfight against an untrained Octavus, but if you’re tested at the Academy, that’s not a measure they’ll be impressed by.”

“Why would they put me in a fight?” I can’t help but feel insulted, and—secretly—a little deflated.

“Did you read those books yesterday or not?”

I stop short, then grumble in recognition. “The need for physical control over Will.” I try not to sound sullen. “Manipulating it at higher ranks requires more than just focus, and more than just brute strength. It takes precision. Speed. Endurance.”

Lanistia jerks her head in acknowledgment. As positive a gesture as she’s likely to make. “Which is why physical skills are prized in the Academy too. A student who’s simply academic can rise, certainly. But only so far.”

“I’d like to think I’m already more than just academic.”

“Well. Let’s get you into one category before we try for a second.” Lanistia delivers the words with her customary dryness.

I’ve been trying not to let her dismissive manner get under my skin, but it’s hard to ignore. “You’re exaggerating,” I say flatly. “I know I need to improve, to learn more, but there’s no way I’m as deficient as you’re pretending.”

Lanistia’s mouth twists. “Ulciscor said your pride might be a problem.” She stands, shrugging her cloak from her shoulders. The tunic beneath is relatively short, more in a fighting man’s style. Her arms are bare. Not muscular like Ellanher’s, but definitely toned. “If you’re so sure, let’s see how you do against someone who’s actually been to the Academy.”

“You’re a Sextus.” I’m uneasy, and not just because of that fact. Her self-assurance holds menace.

She leans over. Places her hand against the stone bench she was just sitting on. “There. I’m holding no more Will than Conlis, now. Everything else is going to my vision.”

“How do I—”

The bench hovers briefly before settling back to the ground. I snap my mouth shut. It’s granite, thick, nearly six foot long. If she’s rapidly imbued enough Will to lift something like that, then I’m going to have to take her word for it.

Lanistia wanders over to a nearby hedge, rooting around before snapping off a long twig and denuding it. It’s perhaps twenty inches. Willowy. She swishes it back and forth in front of her, letting it whistle.

“If you can touch me, I’ll stop. And I’ll never imply that you’re deficient again.”

“So I just have to touch you?”

“A hit. A brush. A finger. You make contact, you win.” Lanistia whispers her newly formed switch through the air again. “Of course, you’re injured. And I do have a weapon.”

I don’t need further clarification. I charge.

It should be simple. I’m athletic, muscular but without the burden of a truly bulky physique. I have quick reactions, a long reach, and a high tolerance for pain. My injuries aren’t bothering me, either. All I have to do is crash through whatever defence Lanistia thinks that twig gives her, and the rest won’t matter. By her rules, it will be over.

It’s not that easy, of course.

Her wrist flicks out and somehow, just before I reach her, there’s a shocking, slashing fire below my left eye, sharp even through the numbing effects of Kadmos’s tea. I growl and flinch away; when I turn back, Lanistia has moved back and to the side. Far enough to be out of reach. Not so far that it could be taken as a retreat.

The sting on my cheek isn’t close to enough to deter me; I press more quickly this time, arms up to protect against another lash. It doesn’t work. She leans and reaches and then there’s more searing pain, almost in the same spot. It’s impossible not to baulk. She slips away again.

I stop this time, studying her, breathing a little more heavily than I’d like. Lanistia is motionless. Not smiling. Not amused or enjoying herself. If anything, she looks bored.

“Are you sure your injuries aren’t slowing you down, Vis?”

I’m sizing her up, planning my next attack, when she takes two dance-like steps forward. A whistling, biting slash for a third time on my left cheek, then again on my right as I twist away, snarling in frustration. The pain blinds me for an instant, makes me panic. I stumble.

When my vision clears, Lanistia’s back where she started. In exactly the same stance. As if she’d never moved.

“That’s not fair.” I touch the burning welts on my cheek.

“I have no eyes and a twig for a weapon. All you have to do is touch me.” Somehow as she’s finishing the flatly delivered sentence she’s coming forward again. I try to react, go on the offensive. She slips past anyway. Another smarting strike to my right cheek, delivered with infuriating indifference. My face must look a mess.

I’m angry now. Angry at the taunts—no matter how stoically they’re delivered, I know that’s what they are. Angry that one of the things I’ve prided myself on over the past six months is being so comprehensively proven inadequate.

Angry at the idea of her being right about me.

I snatch up a stone from the ground and hurl it at her, trying to come in behind the attack while she’s off-balance. It doesn’t come close to working. Lanistia’s pivoting smoothly, sliding effortlessly to let the rock smash against the cobblestone behind her. There’s yet another sting on my right cheek, and then a punch delivered to my gut. Not hard, but with pinpoint accuracy. My breath detonates. I double over.

She’s circled behind me, grabbed my arms, and shoved me to the ground before I can recover. My face scrapes against gravel. I buck, but her grip is a vise.

“Concede?”

I jerk backward in an attempt to headbutt her, but she’s too savvy to get that close. It just hurts my neck, and then my bad shoulder as Lanistia wrenches warningly on my arm in response.

I grit my teeth, and let my body go limp.

“Good.” The pressure on my back vanishes, and I see Lanistia’s shadow step away.

I lie there, trying to let go of my embarrassment. It doesn’t work. Eventually I roll into a seated position, unwilling to meet her gaze, brushing dust from my tunic and then rubbing my burning cheeks.

“So you’re faster than me.” My voice grates on the words.

“I’m better trained than you. More disciplined.” Lanistia says it with her usual dispassionate bluntness. “Go and clean yourself up, and then we can talk about how to try and change that.”

I give her a black look, but lever myself to my feet and shuffle across to the nearby fountain. The pool is hexagonal in shape, a sculpted column in its centre gushing a steady, sparkling flow of clear liquid.

I look into the gently rippling water, pausing as I catch my reflection. Frown. Peer closer.

My cheeks display near-matching raised welts. Six thin lines, striped almost evenly.

“Gods damn it.” I erase the image in the water as I splash my face, then turn back to Lanistia.

“Tell me what I have to do.”