Sel meets each downward smash, sweep, thrust, and lunge with preternatural speed. He uses the full length of his staff—the top, the middle, the butt end—and even blocks one of Owen’s blows with a bare forearm.
Eventually Owen lands a blow. He clips Sel on the shoulder. It doesn’t even faze him. Instead, the Kingsmage grins and sweeps low, swiping at Owen’s shins. The Liege blocks—barely—with a downward stab to the mat.
Still smiling, Sel presses Owen toward the edge of the circle, corralling the older man like prey with rapid-fire attacks. Owen can barely keep up.
Finally, one sharp crack to the head sends Owen to a knee. He raises a hand to concede, and the fight is finished.
The room claps as Owen stands with a grimace, his chest still heaving.
With Gillian’s help, the Liege makes his way slowly to the door, and William’s infirmary.
Back at the circle, Sel watches, unwinded, as they depart. He spins his staff idly, his face unreadable. After a moment, he holds the weapon out with one hand and clenches his fist until it dusts.
He passes by, close enough to touch, but doesn’t spare me a single glance and leaves without a word.
* * *
When Gillian returns, she instructs each of us to take quarterstaffs and pair up if we wish. Everyone except me, that is.
As the others spread around the room, Gillian paces toward me, her arms behind her back. I swear, with every step she grows an inch in height. “You’re the Onceborn outsider Nick sponsored.”
“Yes.”
“I won’t go easy on you.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” I snap, unable to stop myself.
She assesses me, green eyes taking in my arms and hands, my shoulders and stature. Then she heads to the back wall and the rack of weapons. She comes back holding two wooden practice staffs, banded with silver, tucked under one firm bicep. I grunt a little when she drops one into my hands.
“No matter what you do, engage your core.”
Over the next hour, while everyone else is in practice bouts with each other, Gillian works with me. She shows me how to charge, bringing the staff down toward my opponent’s head, and how to block by raising the staff with both hands over my own. Her heavy strikes send jarring tremors down into my elbows. I’m tall enough that my strikes make her stretch for each block, but that’s my only advantage. She wipes the floor with me, and I end up on my ass more often than not.
When Gillian calls time, my wrists and shoulders are aching. “Now I’ll show you how to move to maximize each strike or block. The correct position of your feet provides stability and agility so that you can move quickly into the next movement, be it offensive or defensive. Think of it as a dance.”
I lean against my staff, wincing from a stitch in my side. “Shouldn’t I have learned footwork first, then?”
“How do your ankles feel?”
I rotate a foot. “They hurt.”
“Good.”
I furrow my brow in confusion. She grins, all teeth and cruelty. “Babies learn to walk faster on tile than on carpet. Now you have incentive to get the footwork right.”
I envision slapping her, but the Gillian in my mind has me on my back before I can lift a hand. Her mouth quirks like she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
After showing me how to balance my weight with the staff in various positions, she teaches me how to move forward and backward without tripping or falling. Different holds make movement easier or harder.
By the time Nick pokes his head in, every joint in my body is both painful and unmanageable. My stomach is sore. My glutes are on fire. The webbing between my hands feels like it might tear if I stretch my fingers too far. I collapse to the floor in a heap and look up at the clock; three hours have passed and it’s close to ten.
“How’s it going, Gill?” Nick asks.
Gillian looks me over for a moment. “She’s about as good as you were… when you were eight.”
Nick winces. “It’s her first night.”
The older woman shrugs and plucks the staff from my hand.
Nick helps me to standing, taking my weight when I hop up on sore feet. “At times like these, there are only two words I can offer.”
“Yeah, what are they?” I mutter.
“William’s waiting.”
* * *
On the car ride home, I fall into an exhausted, aether-drugged sleep. Nick offers to help me upstairs twice before I wave him away.
The images I dream of melt and bleed into one another like oil over water.
I see my mother, hunched over her desk, writing. When she looks down and smiles, I know I am a child, and this is a memory.
Her face slips into familiar blue-and-white smoke.
I wear shining aether armor. Metal gleams over my arms and chest. Nameless, faceless Regents kneel on the ground before me.
Men in robes playing god.
I level my crystal blade at their throats.
Beside me, Nick gasps. My armor matches his. I am his Squire. But his sword is sheathed. When I reach for his arm, he pulls away like I am a stranger.
I am on my hands and knees in the graveyard, bent over earth and stone with hands smeared in blood.
The graveyard falls into never-ending darkness, black and silent and suffocating.
* * *
I sleep until after noon again on Sunday. Nick texted while I was asleep:
Gotta deal with some Order issues. Will try to text later. Have a good session tonight!
Just as I’m leaving for lunch, Patricia texts to ask if we can meet, and I tell her I can’t, that I have to study for my English quiz, which is true. It feels like I haven’t touched a textbook in days.
I fully expect Patricia to keep calling or texting me after I’d run out on yesterday’s therapy session.
I didn’t expect her to show up at my dorm.
I’m so focused on getting out the door to head to the library that I don’t notice her until she calls my name. She has her phone out like she’s about to call me to come down and meet her.
I sigh and walk over. “I didn’t know you made house calls.”
She smiles. “I don’t, usually.” I let her guide me to the grass beyond the sidewalk. Today her glasses are Carolina blue, and her shawl is cerulean and gold paisley.
“Let me guess. You’re here to tell me not to run away from my feelings?”
“I actually just came to check on you after yesterday. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I hike my bag up on my shoulders.
She looks like she has more to say, but decides not to. Instead, she wraps her bare arms more tightly in the shawl. “I realize our sessions together have been very unorthodox.”
I raise a brow. “You think?”
“You’re suffering right now, Bree. More than I realized.”
I look up at the sky. “Isn’t that what grief is?”
“I think you are suffering from traumatic grief now, and if you continue as you are over time, you’ll likely develop a condition called Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder. Panic attacks, or something like them. Your anger, your distrust of new people, your obsession with the circumstances of her death, and your inability to truly live forward? These are all classic symptoms of PCBD.”