by Cara Violet
“I do as I wish.” That tone of hers had become aggressive all over again.
As much as Kaianan’s folly and bickering was amusing, a part of Dersji wished she was at times more obedient. She questioned everything, all the time. A trait of defiance her parents blamed him of.
“That’s what scares me.” Dersji clicked his tongue. “Stay away from dwelling on things that don’t concern you.”
“It concerns me, when I have a future on this unstable planet.”
Dersji was ready to leave, it was time for Kaianan too, there was no future for them on Rivalex. He’d exiled here, but after the disaster of the first civil war he experienced twelve years ago, and it was likely there would be another, he decided, once Kaianan had her transformation and ventured to the Felrin system with him for her Shiek Verticals, then they’d stay living there. Whether her parents or even Kaianan approved, he didn’t care. She had to get better at Kan’Ging, and this planet, with its internal turmoil, was a distraction.
“Fix your top knot, will you.” He scrunched his nose up at her messiness. “As usual, you look like an unkempt spinster.”
“Hey!” she said, tying her knot around the top half of her head in a bun, holding her blade between her knees. “I am not unkempt, nor a spinster.”
“Likely story … always on the defensive. Typical.” He raised four fingers, and summoned her to proceed. With an unimpressed grin, she set her feet. He lifted his blade. “Let’s have a go then, shall we?”
She strode forward in two diagonal steps across the line Dersji had drawn. Automatically he struck down with his wooden blade and immediately evading him, Kaianan counter attacked and jump kicked him in the ribs.
Dersji fell back, holding his stomach, then grinned. “Well, we are learning.”
“I’m always learning, my Liege.”
And there was that mouth. “You certainly need to learn to shut that trap of yours.” He reached into his white tunic, extracted a Felrin onion, which he had harvested the season before, and took a bite out of it, remaining expressionless.
“I’ve learnt from the finest,” she said smartly.
She had a point. Over the last few years of teenage tantrums and foul-mouthed Vernacular; she had more or less likely turned into a female version of Dersji. Dersji never did well leading by example.
“How can you eat that?” She winced toward him. He ignored her and took another bite. “Are you even listening?” the sound of her nasally tone made him scowl.
That vocal sound was horrendous, it was one thing that got on Dersji’s nerves. Not to mention when Xandou and Kaianan both got going. The sound of them whining was painful; they talked so much they could probably damage ear drums.
“The question is,” Dersji said critically, “are you listening? All you seem to do is talk.”
“What do you mean? Of course I’m listening.” Her voice turned vicious. “All you talk about is how I’ll excel at Kan’Ging, how I’ll pass my Shiek Verticals and then pass the Liege Verticals. Like I’m some sort of gifted Felrin. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk!”
Dersji dropped his jaw. He studied her prancing about like a slithering Ebel. The irony of the girl was beyond him. Maybe he could put her back in the Swamp to join them? “Tut, tut, tut. Stop whining, this is a significant break from heritage, we’ve been given a great blessing to share this bond—”
“You’ve been given a great blessing, my dear Liege.”
“Ha,” He almost chocked as onion pieces flew out of his mouth. “I was directed right into that trap.” The memory of somehow bonding with Kaianan as a toddler still haunted him.
“A trap, huh? That’s what you really think. Now you’re stuck with me, huh?”
Kaianan was right on the Felrin coin there. He was stuck. Stuck the moment they bonded. Stuck in training her, stuck in being surrounded by the squabbling Gorgon and Xandou, and forced to be a part of the Felrin hierarchy all over again. Of course he was trapped. But that didn’t mean he was going to abandon her training, nor would it deter him from the objective he had been given as her Liege.
It might have taken him two years to make peace with it and two years to find his long-lost patience. It didn’t change the fact, Dersji had always been a man of his word. This bond, seventeen, almost eighteen years of it, had meant a lot to him. Didn’t she see that?
“You must understand …” he tried to begin.
“I don’t want to hear another pity story. This,” she said, pointing to her Rivalex Mark, BI, on her shoulder, “I definitely had no choice of. So as far as you being stuck with me as a Menial, I am the one stuck tied to a prophecy.”
Her eyes weltered. Dersji grimaced. “Why are you taking this so depressingly today?”
“Depressingly? I’m being a realist,” she said, half-exasperated, half-confused. “No-one even knows what the damn thing means.”
Dersji remained quiet—she was right; angry and volatile as usual, but right; no-one knew what the Rivalex Mark meant. There was a lot of speculation, but nothing of substance or anything supported by hard evidence.
Holom, it was Xandou who had been the most forthcoming about what he knew.
But having a Menial that was destined to fulfil a prophecy was not only a huge burden but entirely confusing to her future. He’d read the plaque over a thousand times, standing over it in the Hunted Gorge, debating each sentence and what she had to do with it, and still he couldn’t put it together. Not that it worried him too much these days. Her Shiek judgements were close, and the sooner she became a Shiek, the sooner she would be equipped to deal with this period of so-called enlightenment and be ready to blossom into a Liege.
Furthermore, Dersji was hopeful this would stop Xandou fawning over her like the love-struck bodyguard he’d become.
“Maybe it means Big Imbecile,” Kaianan said as if she had been enlightened right there and then. “That would fit my crappy blade work.”
“Fask of a Harpy, that’s an insult to me,” he said angrily. “Maybe it means Be Ignorant. And stop deliberating on things no-one knows anything about.”
“No-one knows anything about? There’s a whole scripture written in my name, Dersji.” she snapped.
He didn’t want to hear it. They had work to do. The Rivalex Mark and that prophecy was an enigma. He didn’t want to spend any more time on it.
“Where’s your manners today? Worry about your Verticals,” Dersji’s face turned serious as he said it. “The better you become, the easier you will be able to use the Kan’Ging aura. You’re destined to become a Liege, Kaianan … you need to believe it.”
“Sir, you say it as if I care,” she said spitefully. “You know what I believe …” She placed a finger on her mouth in thought, “I have a nice-looking tattoo.”
“Ah, to holom with you,” Dersji spoke heatedly, not impressed she was having a sulk. “Why don’t we just cut it off your flesh then, if it’s only for show?”
Her face screwed up. “How does Saffie even put up with you?”
“She’s old and senile …” Dersji searched through his thoughts of his overzealous pet attacking him but instead would smack herself into walls or furniture when she took flight, “… Bird brains, you know; probable acceptance of her stupidity. Not like you.”
Her hands went to her hips. “You’re always going to be this daft, aren’t you?”
“Why not? You don’t take it seriously … isn’t life but a game?” Dersji, who’d lost all want of further conversation with her, held his onion in his mouth, reached around for another wooden blade on the Manor ground, and began juggling the blades, shifting his feet in the grass like fire-crackers.
“What are you doing? Excuse me—”
“Hmmmm hmmm hmmmm,” Dersji’s incoherent speech went on via the onion wedged in his mouth, drowning out Kaianan’s whiny discourse.
“Shut up Dersji, you’re supposed to help me … help me work out who I am … the Rivalex Mark or the loyal Menial, and between either of them,” she
sounded defeated, “I don’t think I’m ready for the Shiek Verticals or the enlightenment…”
Dersji creased his forehead and both wooden blades landed on his head, shooting the onion out of his mouth. “Dammit!” He chewed on his last mouthful.
“Geez, you weren’t this bad as an anklebiter.” He said, remembering all the times she would indeed try to take chunks of skin off of his legs with her teeth during their first training sessions. Four-year-old Kaianan had a healthy biting appetite. He shuddered just thinking about it. “Perhaps you were …”
“I’m old enough to know better, sir. Shouldn’t we prepare for the worst? Like failure?”
Dersji searched the fear all over her face. She was on the cusp of her Shiek Verticals and now she was preparing to fail?
“Your words are poison, Kaianan. What have I taught you?”
She blew out the air in her mouth. “Our level of strength is not in our body or aura which both must be trained, it’s in the way you train, in the attainment of a peaceful and pure mind.”
“And what gives you the ability to overcome obstacles that no one else can?”
“… self-mastery of the pure mind.”
He couldn’t take his eyes off her, she seemed scared, like he’d never seen her before. “What of our mind, Kaianan?”
She was running her fingers through her hair, averting her gaze from his.
“Answer me,” he said curtly.
“Everything that becomes, is predetermined by our thought process.”
“Correct, so why are you being like this? There should be no confusion at all about who you are. You’re sounding doubtful for some reason.”
“That’s because I am.” Her head was in her hands and she ran her fingers into her hair and scrunched the strands between her fingertips.
“You’re ready to give up?!” Dersji advanced a step, feeling his deep-seeded fury rush to his face, no longer hidden under his calm exterior. Her eyes had resurfaced and faced him. “Tell me, why are you playing the victim?” She could barely open her mouth before he silenced her. “Enough,” Dersji said furiously. “Keep your thoughts on the Verticals and nothing else. Don’t speak or I shall cut your tongue from your throat, Gorgon.” This time he reached behind him and unsheathed his metal blade from his scabbard.
Kaianan gulped staring at Dersji. Did he just pull metal out? He had never used his Liege blade in training—Kaianan had never seen the blade used. Was he possibly going to kill her? Certainly a maiden or nurse was close by to mend her if he took her arm off? Anyone? Well there were a few Gorgon guards watching from the bailey wall, they would have to protect her, right?
Before she could set her thoughts straight, Dersji lunged toward her and she mechanically lifted her blade as metal met metal. Back and forth, Kaianan’s heart raced defending his drip-fed attacks. It was like he was toying with her, feeding her all the conventional combat strokes of the Kan’Ging.
“You have been disciplined in the Kan’Ging aura, Kaianan, why don’t you call upon it?” He spoke confidently. He side-swiped his blade far left, slashing open her sleeve on her upper right arm and Kaianan gasped. “Use the Kan’Ging, Kaianan. Consume yourself,” he commanded.
As much as she was sweating, she knew he was right. If she couldn’t pull it off now, when could she? She jumped up and radiated a deep violet aura around her body, it flowed like a shimmering forcefield of sparks and formed, wrapping in the exact shape of her figure, stopping inches from her skin. It looked like a protective layer, an additional skin, with purple flames every now and then, shooting out.
In concentration, she reached out to the bluestone bailey wall, and using the Kan’Ging to move the Siliou, the violet aura latched onto the bailey wall guard’s dagger staffs and brought them soaring through the air to Dersji. Dersji stood there; ten flaming violet dagger staffs speared downward stopping a few inches from his face.
She saw him smile. “Better,” he mumbled.
She felt relief wash through her—she’d actually executed it. As soon as she widened her cheeks in a smile, the distraction cost her. The daggers dropped to the grass and her Kan’Ging aura suddenly disappeared.
“What was that?” Dersji’s face was downward to the ground and at the daggers.
She didn’t know what happened. “It was a mistake.”
“Are you happy with that?” Dersji said venomously. “You’re celebrating your coming of age and you’re still making mistakes? Do you know the cost of this? You’re supposed to be a warrior, Kaianan. You need to be able to get through the Verticals. I’m sick and tired of repeating myself. Where is your head at?”
It was her coming of age, Dersji was right. But did he forget she was still just a girl under all the tunics, chestplates and slacks. That her calloused hands and messy hair didn’t stop her from being a girl; a girl who felt miserable about her coming of age, who thought she could never measure up to the Felrin, who cried over a prophecy that she didn’t understand and whose public scrutiny made her outright believe she was worthless.
Not forgetting the conversations between her parents, Xandou, and Dersji, about what to do with her. Dersji had been fighting for her to stay with him, Xandou, to stay with him, her parents wanted her to just behave and stop publicly embarrassing them. No-one at any stage ever asked her what she wanted.
“I’m trying my best, Dersji.”
“Mistake after mistake, Kaianan, you’re failing.”
“Well this it, it’s over for me. This is all I can do. Fail.”
“Then fail better!” Dersji’s loud voice pierced her ears. She blinked back tears. “Don’t stop, it’s not over, don’t let up. You must be able to outlast your opponent. The only person you are against here is yourself. Don’t get side-tracked.”
The words were floating around in her head. Kaianan batted her large green eyes at Dersji in scorn and flicked her long brown hair back. She hated he was the one person who never agreed with her. He challenged everything she did. She’d always had this odd magnetism over people, a carnal attraction, and it helped her get her way with everyone else, but not with Dersji. Dersji was not one to take to her burlesque charm.
Her shapely body, supple skin, big eyes and alluring lips didn’t work on him. He looked at her as if she were still five.
“Don’t let that overconfidence of yours go to your brain either, that was second-rate, at best.”
Kaianan felt her face flush with anger. “What do you want from me, old man? This is all I have to give!” She squeezed her blade between her hands and ran at him.
“What are you trying to prove, Kaianan?” Dersji had lifted his metal blade straight at her. She had to slow down, and when her blade struck his, fear went through her. “Stop overthinking this! You’re heading backward!” Dersji was still shouting as he kicked her in the stomach and she landed on the grass, rolling a few times before coming to a stop. Breathing heavily, she held her winded belly. “You are possibly the worst Menial I have ever trained. Worse than Xandou with your incompetence. Do your ears even work? Wait … are you crying? I thought we had gotten past your nervous whiny discourse?!”
Her emotion was brimming inside of her. From missing out on enjoying her berry pastry and being unsure about how she was going to get through her Verticals and face the prophecy coming at her, Kaianan rose from the ground a dirty mess and knuckled down tighter on her hilt.
She was sick to death of the same condescending crap the daft man fed her. For how long had she had to put up with him being so unpredictable? Like the time he set ten traps in her bedroom and nearly killed her when she opened her wardrobe. Or the time he set fire to her robe without her knowing and she cast herself into the Swamp to extinguish it, only to be severely bitten by several Ebel and end up needing three weeks to recover to consciousness. Her whole life she gave him everything she could and she was never good enough. She couldn’t take it anymore.
Kaianan sucked up all her energy, igniting once more in her aura, and abandoning ca
ution, she ran at him.
Dersji’s face was a thousand words watching his Menial come at him like a possessed child. Was this all she was capable of? Absolute garbage? He circled on her, and as easily as spreading his lips apart to smile, he blocked her attack, elbowed her in the face to put out her aura and kicked her helpless body to the ground. He cursed under his breath, disappointed in her lack of skill, in her lack of aggression, holom he was disappointed in the self-doubt that reared its ugly head in place of hers.
He walked toward her, towering above her in agitation. “With a combination like that… even the damned Seevaars have better coordination … and they’re bloody blind.” Dersji had become furious. He stared at the thin sharp edge of his blade. He got closer to her neck –
Blue light blinded him before he swung the blade to her throat.
An array of blonde hair and azure robes appeared. Xandou, who’d grown significantly taller than Dersji ever anticipated, had ‘ported in. He unsheathed a blade from his decorative scabbard and launched it at Dersji.
“What in Giliou’s name? Dersji!” Xandou cried and Dersji let their blades meet.
Dersji could see the same disillusioned look cross the young man’s face when he first met him and scoffed at his perfectly square azure tunic. It was like the boy had never seen a day of battle in his life.
“Still running around after your princess, are you?” Dersji’s voice was condescending and he narrowed his eyes, pushing the Giliou’s blade away.
“Are you absolutely mad?” Xandou said in a fit of rage. “Are you seriously using your blade on the Princess? This is the tenth time you have endangered her this week, and this time you have metal out.”
Dersji withdrew. Xandou drew his shoulder-length blonde locks back over the shaven scalp of his right side, behind the thick silver rings that ran along his ear, and leant down to assist Kaianan, pushing his white robe behind him. Dersji, holstering his blade, watched his Menial scramble around in the dirt like a legless Seevaar.
“Should I report you for the sake of keeping my Princess alive?” Xandou’s crystal blue eyes flared.
