Dex glared at me from across the courtyard.
I couldn’t see his face clearly, but I felt his glare from where I stood.
“It’s just us?” I asked, looking around. “Really?”
“I don’t want you distracted,” he said, “especially with your Director around. Your brain gets all addled, and I need you sharp for this.”
“My brain isn’t addled,” I grumbled as he crossed the large courtyard. “I’d be sharper if we didn’t do this before sunup.”
“Do you even know what time it is?”
“Looks like the middle of the night to me,” I said, pointing up at the sky. “What time is it?”
“Time for you to focus.”
“I don’t do focus before dawn or coffee,” I muttered, mostly to myself. “This can qualify as cruel and unusual training.”
“My apologies,” he said as he turned to face me with a small bow. “I’m sure your enemies will consult with your calendar about the best time to kill you. If you’re lucky, they may even bring you a mug of your favorite coffee before they blast you off the face of the earth—something like a going-away gift.”
“Wow, was that necessary?” I said under my breath. “And they call me the smartass?”
“Because you are one,” he replied. “One who’s going to get himself killed one day.”
“How did you even hear that?”
“You’re not as quiet as you think,” he said. “Ready?”
“No. Most of my brain is still asleep!” I called out in the dark, barely making him out. “What’s so urgent we have to do this now?”
“Life and death rests in the moments between decisions, boy,” he said. “Lately, your decisions have been about as arse-backwards as they can get. It’s a miracle you’re still alive.”
“My decisions?” I said in protest. “Are you serious?”
“Does it sound like I’m joking?” he answered, and the air in the courtyard chilled. “You are the Aspis. You are the Marked One. You are the catalyst. If I were an enemy, who do you think I would target?”
I remained silent, because he was right.
But that didn’t mean I had to like it.
“Aye, finally, it’s starting to register,” he continued. “You are the lynchpin. When Gault attacks—and he will attack—he will focus on you. Now: focus, boy.”
“I am foc—”
I never saw the attack coming.
The first orb crashed into my chest, spinning me around. By the time I managed to get my bearings, the second orb punched me in the face, causing me to stumble backward…into a green teleportation circle.
The courtyard vanished around me in a green flash. When I realized where I was, I found myself thirty feet in the air looking down at the courtyard.
I unfortunately didn’t possess the ability of flight, and so came crashing down onto the stone floor of the courtyard with a heavy dose of pain and agony: two of my constant companions.
I groaned in protest as I rolled over on my back. My curse flared with heat, healing my mostly superficial injuries—there was no healing my injured pride, though. I couldn’t believe I had missed all the indicators of that attack. The fact that he had surprised me pissed me off. I should have, at the very least, sensed it.
“You should really watch your step,” Dex called out. “I did tell you to focus.”
“A little warning would’ve been nice,” I said as I slowly got to my feet. “That was underhanded and dirty.”
“Aye,” he said. “No such thing as clean fighting where you’re headed, boy. Nothing is fair. Your enemies will blast you when you’re down and laugh while you die. They will give you no warning and attack when you least expect. This is the world you’ve entered now, and there is no going back.”
“My morale is all bolstered now, thanks.”
He laughed in the darkness.
I was under no illusion that I could beat Dex, but I wasn’t going to let him bounce me around the courtyard. Yes, he was powerful, but I wasn’t exactly powerless.
“Are you ready now, boy?”
I materialized Ebonsoul and let the darkflame cover my hand in response. Ebonsoul thrummed with power in my hand as the energy flowed through me. Black wisps of energy wafted up from the blade as the runes along its length fluctuated from red to gold to violet.
“Yes,” I said, stepping into a defensive stance. “I’m ready.”
“Aye,” Dex said with a nod as he formed Nemain. “It seems you’re taking this seriously now. Good. Let’s see how ready you truly are.”
“Just because I’m taking it seriously doesn’t mean you need to bring out your psychoaxe,” I said, wary of his weapon. “You can be serious without that thing.”
He paused and looked at Nemain, holding it up to his face. He turned to face me and grinned. I knew this was going to hurt.
“Where’s the fun in that?” he said, still grinning. “I would be remiss if I didn’t make you fear for your life. The more you bleed in training, the less you bleed in battle.”
“I don’t think that’s how that saying goes.”
I was taking it seriously, but I didn’t know about taking it Nemain-level serious. He stared at me as he hefted his axe-mace in one hand, pain and suffering disguised as an ancient mage. His weapon filled the courtyard with a feeling of despair and death.
There’s always a cost…always.
Ultimately, it’s not the cost that matters, but whether one is willing to pay it. Right now, the cost I was looking at was steep.
He raced in again. I barely parried his axe as he rotated the weapon in his hand. That move was followed by a fist that would have broken several parts of me if I hadn’t shifted my weight to one side, taking the blow on my arm instead of my face.
The fist sent me flying, causing me to land on my back, hard. The air rushed out of my body as I bounced a few times, coming to a stop just short of the courtyard wall.
“Looks like you’re focused now, boy,” Dex continued with a growl. “Even for an immortal, dying is a poor strategy. Is that the plan? You’re going to defeat Gault by dying enough times to tire him out, and then you’ll strike when he’s exhausted?”
“I don’t intend on dying being a part of any strategy I use,” I said, spitting out blood. “Are you trying to kill me?”
Dex hefted Nemain again and gave me a grin.
“Not yet,” he said. “We haven’t gotten to that part of the training.”
He dashed at me, taking one step and disappearing from sight.
I didn’t know how old Dex was, exactly, and it didn’t really matter—however old he was, he moved faster than anyone his age had any right to.
He reappeared as he closed the distance with a swing of his psychoweapon.
I barely had enough time to lift Ebonsoul to intercept the strike. As our weapons clashed, a mini-explosion of black, gold, and violet energy erupted around us.
“Not bad, boy,” Dex said, grinning with our weapons locked. “Stopping Nemain is no easy feat.”
“Glad…glad I could impress,” I said, struggling to keep him from pushing me into the ground. “Feels…feels like you’ve been hitting the gym.”
He laughed this time.
“The gym?” he said. “No, child. This is what is normally called ‘old man strength.’ Usually arrives around the time a man becomes a father and is reserved for those moments when the pups feel themselves grown and think they can best their elders.”
“But you don’t have kids…do you?”
“Didn’t need to have them,” he said, unleashing a fist into my stomach, which forced the air from my lungs with a whoosh. “Montagues and Treadwells are a large clan. Plenty of young ones to guide, teach, pound, and intimidate into the proper shape. Consider yourself part of the clan.”
He swung his weapon around, lightly tapping me in the chest with the oversized mace head, sending me across the courtyard floor at speed. At this rate, I was going to learn every square inch of the courtyard by sliding across it.
I slammed up against the far courtyard wall with a crash, cracking some of the stones behind me. I sat there, stunned for a few seconds as I tried to catch my breath with deep gasps.
A distant whistling triggered all the alarms in my brain, forcing me to roll to the side as Nemain buried itself in the stones where I had sat a moment earlier.
“What the hell?” I said, raising my voice. “I’d like to file a formal divorce from the Montague and Treadwell clan.”
“Too late,” he said, extending an arm. “Wasn’t your choice to begin with.”
“This training session is going to be short if you kill me in the process.”
“What do you think Gault is going to do, boy?” he called back as Nemain dislodged itself from the wall and flew back to his outstretched arm. “You think he’s going to ask for the First Elder Rune politely? He’s going to rip it from you as painfully as possible, in the hope that its removal will destroy you.”
“Well, shit,” I said, rolling to my feet. “Evergreen said we couldn’t give it back to him. How is Gault going to use it?”
“Gault isn’t Evergreen, and Keeper Evergreen wasn’t being entirely truthful.”
“What?” I asked, shocked. “Are you saying he lied?”
“Lied? No. He bent the truth a bit, that’s all,” Dex said as he formed several green circles around the courtyard. “If he had told you the truth—that he could take back the First Elder Rune—would you have kept it?”
“Hell no,” I said, keeping an eye on the placement of the circles. Nothing good could come of Dex creating teleportation circles. “I would’ve tried to give him his rune right back.”
“Exactly,” Dex said. “That’s why he was less than honest with you.”
“Less than honest?” I asked. “He lied. Call it what it is.”
“He didn’t lie, exactly,” Dex answered, and I felt the energy shift around the courtyard which meant it was time to move. “In that moment, he couldn’t take the rune back, even if he wanted to. It would have destroyed his body.”
“Sounds like convenient mage semantics,” I said, picking up my pace, and moving to the side of the courtyard, near one of the walls. “He still wasn’t totally honest.”
“You needed the First Elder Rune,” he said. “Korin would have finished you both if you didn’t have it.”
He formed a small, green circle in the air and tossed it at my legs. I jumped to the side and avoided it with room to spare. Once I landed, I started running.
“Can’t hit me if I don’t stand still,” I said as I moved around the courtyard. “Now what?”
I regretted the words as soon as they escaped my lips.
“This,” Dex said, forming three more green circles. “Watch your step.”
“Ha,” I said as I sliced through one of the circles with Ebonsoul, disintegrating it. I rolled from the second circle and ducked under the third, sliding forward unscathed. “Missed me.”
“Nice acrobatics, boy,” he said. “Shame it was just prolonging your death.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, slightly winded. “You missed me with all three.”
“I know,” he said. “But you missed the fourth.”
He pointed up.
Above me, I saw a circle almost as wide as the area of the courtyard where I stood. It hovered several feet above my head. There was no way I was going to dodge it in time. I focused and let the darkflame envelop my arm as I thrust upward with Ebonsoul.
For half a second, I managed to slice through it—then it overwhelmed the darkflame with a blast of green energy and crashed down into me.
I found myself teleporting throughout the courtyard, from circle to circle. After the third teleport, I lost all sense of direction. By the fifth teleport, I wanted to throw up. By the tenth teleport, my vision was tunneling in, and it was all I could do to raise Ebonsoul as Dex waited for me at the next circle.
He didn’t even swing Nemain.
He didn’t need to.
By the time I saw him, I was so confused I barely knew my own name, much less be able to mount a solid defense against an attack. He held Nemain still in front of his body as I flew face first into the mace. He didn’t even budge as we collided. Nemain flung me back, where I landed in a heap of agony.
I groaned as the pain rushed in, as if to remind me how bad a decision it was to request that Dex help me get ready for Gault.
“How long, Sprite?” Dex called out. “What was the time?”
“Two minutes and twenty seconds,” Peanut said as she skipped over to where I lay. She crouched down, her face filling my field of vision. “Not bad, Mr. Simon. You lasted five seconds longer than yesterday. That’s progress. Isn’t that good, Uncle Dex?”
“Absolute rubbish is what it is,” Dex said with a growl. “Once you go down, how long do you think my nephew will last? How long do you think your pup will last? You have to get this into your skull, boy. You are the lynchpin. You cannot go down.”
“In battle, first to strike,” Peanut said, keeping her voice low. “In defeat—”
“Last to fall,” I finished. “Thanks, Peanut.”
I slowly got to my feet, feeling every inch of my body protest with every breath, as Peanut stepped away.
“I still think you did good,” she said under her breath. “You can do a bunch of stuff in five seconds. Five seconds is a long time.”
“Feels like a lifetime when I’m facing him,” I said, matching her tone. “He hits hard.”
“He only hits you this hard,” she said with a sweet smile. “He must really like you.”
“I wish he liked me less,” I answered with a groan as I formed Ebonsoul again. “You better get clear in case he wants to show me how much more he likes me.”
She moved off to the side, leaving the space between Dex and me clear.
“You can’t be the last to fall,” Dex said, his voice rough. “You can’t fall…period.”
“How exactly am I supposed to do that?” I called out to Dex, who was still across the courtyard. “I know for a fact you weren’t even using all of your power.”
“Aye,” Dex said with a tight smile. “Then again, neither were you.”
“I…I… You’re right,” I said, finally. “I wasn’t.”
“You think you’re going to be able to hold back with Gault?” Dex asked, pointing at me as he approached. “This isn’t just about you. You want the truth? I’ll give you the truth. If you and my nephew just stand in Gault’s way, then everyone you know—and everyone they know—will be dead. He will erase them from existence without a second thought.”
“Stand in his way?” I said, my voice low. “You don’t think we can beat him?”
“I do,” Dex said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “The question is: Do you? Until you know you can, deep in your bones, all you’ll be doing is standing in his way, but that won’t stop him from destroying your life and the lives of those important to you. Is that what you want?”
“No,” I said. “I want the threat of Gault removed from my life, from my world.”
“Then you have to know you can beat him,” he said. “I can’t place that belief in you. You can’t hold back when you face him. He won’t.”
“I know.”
“So you’d better start getting serious,” he said, giving me a glance before turning to Peanut. “Let’s go, Sprite. Simon has a visitor. Give my regards to the Director.”
Dex formed a large circle which Peanut stepped into. They both vanished from sight a second later as a figure approached the courtyard.
Michiko.
