For the first thirty minutes, Rhyn showed Sloane several different sequences, which began to get faster and faster as he repeated them. Each time she met his blows without hesitation. Then, he would switch to something new.
After an hour Sloane was sweating profusely. Rhyn barely looked like he’d been exercising at all, which only aggravated her more. She was starving and hadn’t eaten since the day before. She had a few pieces of rashi in her pocket, but she decided she’d almost rather go without food than eat that stuff again. She was so sick of it and had begun to daydream about fat juicy steaks, roast lamb and pretty well any other meat dish she could think of. Hell, she even started craving the protein bars they fed them on the Explorer—it had been way too long since she’d had a decent meal.
She was hoping that Rhyn would stop for breakfast soon. She didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, or for him to think she was weak for wanting to stop and refuel. But these people kept forgetting she needed food, and it was getting incredibly frustrating having to constantly remind them.
As the sky became lighter, other men joined them in the yard and began a series of different warm up exercises. Few bothered to glance in their direction, and Sloane felt incredibly grateful they didn’t all stop to watch her. Rhyn was currently moving at such a slow pace, she must’ve looked like a complete novice as he painstakingly took her through the motions.
She hated feeling so thoroughly underestimated, so when she saw the opportunity arise, Sloane struck out at him, rapidly switching from defence to offence.
He grinned. ‘You want to fight now, do you?’
She could feel the attention of the other men on them and answered him by lunging forwards, aiming the tip of her sword at his chest. Rhyn parried, and for a moment there was a flicker of concern in his eyes. He had only just deflected her blow.
She grinned back at him. Before he could recover, Sloane struck out again, swiftly moving from one sequence to another, never stopping for breath. The entire yard was silent now, except for the metal clang of their two swords and Sloane’s heavy breathing, as she attempted to move faster and harder than she had ever gone before.
The expression on Rhyn’s face had transformed from one of mild interest to intense concentration as he watched her fight. She was quick and moved like a dancer as she wove her sword through the air. He clearly hadn’t expected such skill but wasn’t about to let her prove him wrong.
With inhuman speed he turned the fight around on Sloane, and began to advance on her. She could feel her edge slipping as he moved faster and faster. She was on the defence and moved further backwards as his blade hissed through the air at her.
He lunged out unexpectedly, and Sloane had to dive out of the way of his sword. She could feel the slight gust of air as the blade narrowly missed her face. The fight wasn’t going how she’d hoped.
As she attempted to rebalance her stance, a handful of snow hit her in the face. What the hell. She scrambled to wipe it off, but Rhyn’s boot came flying into her chest, and she was hurled back through the air. She landed hard in a thick bank of snow, and when she wiped the snow from her eyes, she found the pointy end of Rhyn’s blade directed at her chest.
‘You cheated!’ she accused, moving his blade away with her hand so she could climb to her feet. The other men in the yard laughed and turned back to their exercises.
‘You need to be more aware of your surroundings,’ he replied. ‘And I did not cheat.’
Sloane glared at Rhyn and turned away from him to pat the fresh snow from her clothes. Her pants were still damp from the snow that had melted on them earlier in the morning, and she wasn’t too keen for them to get wet again.
‘Just admit it; I’m better than you thought,’ Sloane said.
‘You’re cocky and not nearly as fast as you should be.’
‘Unlike you, I’m only human,’ she responded, scowling at him. ‘We do have limitations.’
‘You may be only human,’ Rhyn said, as he watched her. ‘But, if you only ever see yourself that way, you’re not going to improve. I’m the youngest person here by many years. Some of these men have trained for centuries. Yet, in the short time I’ve trained, I have come to be the best because I believed I could and worked for it.’
He sheathed his sword and took Sloane’s from her hands, before he continued. ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘You are very good at fighting. But why settle for good when you could be brilliant?’
She opened her mouth to respond, but no words came to her. Was he right? Was she being complacent? Was she just happy being good? She wanted to come back at him and tell him he was wrong, but she worried there was truth to what he was saying.
‘We are done for today. If you wish to continue, you must be willing to try and improve. If not, feel free to sleep in tomorrow. I won’t waste my time with someone who isn’t making an effort.’ He didn’t wait for her response, turning instead to walk over to the other men who were training.
Sloane stood there, spluttering for words and feeling slightly dumbfounded, as she watched him leave. She couldn’t believe he didn’t think she was trying. She wanted to be a brilliant warrior; she thirsted for it like she needed water or air. Perhaps he was right though. Perhaps training with the Unfaih could make her better. Perhaps it could make her as fast as him. The thought excited her. It made her nervous and eager to come back tomorrow and spend another morning with Rhyn.
She almost growled aloud as his words ran though her mind again though.
Not trying—she would show him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sloane’s training with Rhyn wasn’t easy, and he seemed dedicated to finding new ways of torturing her each day. He had a collection of smart-ass remarks designed to goad her into training harder. He challenged her and angered her so much that each time she left her training, for a brief moment, she considered never returning. She always came back though.
As hard as it was, she loved pushing her body further than it had ever been pushed before, and she surprisingly began to respect Rhyn. He worked just as hard as she did and never once missed a training session. He was an incredible fighter and he became the level she measured herself against. She wouldn’t be happy until she was just as good as him, as impossible as that seemed.
Rhyn still wouldn’t allow her near the castellum at any time other than during her training hours, so she hadn’t had a chance to search it. She had explored the village countless times without finding the rift, so she felt certain it had to be in the castellum. Time kept slipping away from her though, and she was growing increasingly anxious with each day that passed with no sign of the rift.
She felt dread in the pit of her stomach every time she thought of her crew. It had been weeks since she was taken. The men would have stopped searching for her, and others from the Explorer would have joined them on Aeris. She worried about Ash. Had he been found yet? Had something bad happened to him? Her gut told her he was still alive, but she didn’t know if that was only wishful thinking.
Her worries made it difficult to sleep at night, and she could feel her anxiety to return to Aeris clawing at her. She was beginning to feel desperate, and desperate people did stupid things. She couldn’t mess up though. Not when she was finally starting to gain Rhyn’s trust.
It wasn’t just Ash’s disappearance that kept her up at night though. Ash may be missing, but he was strong and had been trained to deal with unexpected situations. Rowe, on the other hand, would be withdrawing further and further into her shell, and Sloane highly doubted their father was taking care of her.
She hated to think of her sister alone on the ship with the Captain. Rowe didn’t see their father the same way Sloane did and was too kind to believe he’d abandoned them when they were younger. Sloane saw his actions for what they were though. If he loved his family he never would’ve left them undefended. Especially when he had enemies who would happily use his family against him.
‘What’s wrong?’ Rhyn asked, at the end of tra
ining one day.
Sloane shrugged, her tired arms aching as she wrapped her cloak around her shoulders. She’d need to remember to warm down more thoroughly next time.
‘You don’t seem yourself today,’ he continued.
‘I’m just missing my family a lot today.’ She pulled her jacket in close, suddenly feeling the cold.
‘I imagine it is hard to be away from your mother and father,’ he responded. Was that sympathy in his voice? She glanced over at him, but his eyes were distant and it was impossible to tell.
She shook her head. ‘Hardly. My mother is dead, and my father has a history of abandoning us when we need him the most.’
Rhyn looked confused. ‘Who is it that you miss then?’
Sloane looked up to the dark clouds that rolled high above. She tried to imagine she could see past them, high up into the heavens, to the ship she knew Rowe was still on. She had no idea how close or how far away the Explorer might be though. All that connected the two worlds was the rift. She might not even be in the same galaxy as her sister. Still, she tried to picture the ship hovering just above their heads.
‘My sister Rowe,’ she sighed. ‘I left her on the spaceship with our father, and I worry about her.’
‘Why?’
Sloane hesitated. She didn’t like talking about things so close to her heart with Rhyn, but she was tired of keeping everything to herself. It had been so long since anyone had shown an interest in her past.
‘She trusts him; our father,’ Sloane said. ‘She doesn’t accept that he is the reason our mother died. I need to be there to protect her; to make certain she’s okay.’
‘What happened to your mother?’ he asked.
He wasn’t pressuring her when he asked, and it seemed like he wanted to support her, which caused Sloane to frown.
‘My father has had enemies for as long as I can remember,’ she began. ‘He was in the military before he became captain of the Explorer. He used to go on secret missions for weeks at a time and would never tell us anything about them. He left our family unprotected and wasn’t there when our house was attacked. My mother was killed and my sister was captured and tortured. It took him weeks to track the men who took Rowe…’ her voice choked as she tried to get the words out. ‘When he found her, she saw him as a hero; not the man who abandoned us.’
Sloane slowly shook her head, her eyes hard as she recalled the actions of the man she hated so much.
‘When Rowe came back, she wasn’t the same. And not just because of the scars. My father sent us both to live with our aunt, leaving us again. I couldn’t stay at her house and pretend that everything was okay. I wanted to learn to fight. I wanted to be able to protect the ones that I loved, so I went to the Academy and swore to myself that I would never be vulnerable again.’
‘What happened to your sister?’ he asked.
Sloane shrugged. ‘Rowe stayed with our aunt. She was too afraid of the outside world to come to the Academy with me. At least with our aunt she was safe and well cared for. She was happy living there, so she stayed while I was at the Academy.’
Sloane glanced down at her hands, trying not to feel the rush of guilt that flooded through her every time she thought of leaving Rowe with their aunt. She had begged her sister to come with her to the Academy, but Rowe wanted to be shut away from the rest of the world and insisted Sloane go without her. It still broke her heart to think of the years they had spent apart, but it had given Sloane the skills she needed to protect her sister.
‘Anyway,’ she continued. ‘Just as I was about to graduate, things got really bad on Earth. Our father decided he actually wanted to be a parent again. So he brought the two of us, and my brother, on this mission.
‘I don’t trust him and I worry constantly of the ideas he’s putting in Rowe’s mind. She wants to believe the best in him and doesn’t see his selfishness; how he always puts himself first.’
Rhyn hesitated before he responded. ‘It sounds like your father sacrificed a lot to help protect your people. Sometimes protecting the ones you love means sacrifice. Maybe he didn’t think you would be the ones to bear that sacrifice?’
‘He knew exactly what he was doing,’ Sloane responded, glaring at Rhyn.
‘You left Rowe aboard your ship. How is what you did any different?’
‘It just was,’ Sloane said, unable to come back with an adequate response. She didn’t think he’d understand that she was doing it for her sister.
‘You’re avoiding my question. Why was leaving your sister to go to the World of the Woods so different from what your father did?’
Sloane gave him a look so filled with loathing, any other sane man probably would’ve run a mile and then just kept going. ‘I had to go because my brother went missing on Aeris. I wasn’t out seeking glory or thirsting for a fight; I was trying to keep my family together. I am nothing like my father.’
Rhyn looked surprised by her answer. ‘It sounds like you and your father both had similar motives.’
‘Who even asked for your opinion!’ she shouted at him, causing several of the other men in the yard to look over. ‘What do you know about my motives; about his motives? You may be a prince to these people, but that doesn’t mean you know more than the rest of us. You are in charge here, I get it, but that doesn’t make you wise. You’re just a boy, and you can keep your damn opinions to yourself!’ She turned and marched away, heading towards the gate so she could return to the village.
Sloane was so angry with Rhyn, she wasn’t even certain what she’d yelled at him had made any sense. All she knew was that she was over his attitude and over being his prisoner. She wanted to go back to her crew, and back to the ship. She wanted to see her sister again and find her brother. She was sick of being Rhyn’s personal punching bag.
She trudged through the snow, as she walked across the plateau, irrationally kicking at any large clumps she came across. They exploded into powder each time her foot connected with them, and taking her anger out on the snow seemed to make her feel a little better.
She was halfway to the edge of the cliff and the stairs that led down to the village, when she felt a strange sensation in her left leg. It felt hot and cold all at once and ached terribly. Sloane glanced around before rolling her pants up to take a look at the leg. There was only the faintest scar from the Braky scratch there, but nothing else looked wrong with it.
She rolled her pants back down and went to continue on her way to the village, but she cried out the moment she put pressure on her leg. Agonising pain shot up her calf, and her leg throbbed with such agony she could barely stand.
Sloane looked around for help, but she was about midway between the castellum and the cliff edge. There was no way she’d make it down to the village. She doubted she’d be able to make it back to the castellum easily either, but she turned and began to hobble back towards it, gritting her teeth and trying to keep the tears from welling in her eyes with each step.
She was getting close, when she heard the deep, brassy echo of the warning horn across the plain. Her stomach dropped, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. There had been a Braky sighting.
This wasn’t good. She had no weapon on her, and she was struggling to walk. She tried to move faster as she struggled towards the castle, but her left leg was becoming increasingly difficult to hobble on. It was heavy and stiff beneath her. Chills ran along the skin on her leg, and her veins burned like they had hot lava running through them.
She looked over her shoulder to the cliff edge. There was nothing there, but still she powered forwards. She couldn’t risk it. She couldn’t face one of those monsters again. Not like this.
A keening high-pitched wail echoed across the plain. It was filled with so much desperation and intensity; Sloane’s blood ran cold.
They were here.
She threw her body into a run, not caring about the pain she felt or the shuddering that went through her leg every time she landed on it. She glanced over her sho
ulder again. There was movement at the edge of the cliff, and a pair of glowing red eyes appeared. Then another.
Sloane pushed herself harder. She had to get to the castellum. She had to make it back before they got to her. She was so close to the gates now, she only had a little further to go until she made it. More haunting wails began to fill the air, and a chorus of Brakys began to snarl as they made their way to the top of the cliffs.
Sloane cried out as she fought against the agonising pain that exploded in her leg. It was so bad now that she felt close to passing out. Taking a look over her shoulder, she could see the creatures gaining on her. Their legs moved solidly beneath them, charging with such power and purpose as they chased after her.
Even when she got close to the gate, she didn’t slow down, and she didn’t glance back. Her eyes focused only on what was before her. It was useless to look back because she had no way to defend herself if they caught her.
When she finally reached the gate she threw her fists against the solid wooden door, which was already shut.
‘It’s Sloane. Let me in!’ she shouted. She could hear the men from within the walls of the castellum, but the gate did not move.
‘LET ME IN!’ she shouted even louder, her desperation clear in her voice as she banged her fists against the solid wood. Again the gate didn’t move.
She quickly turned her back to the gate and looked for a weapon, but she was surrounded by nothing but snow. Her heart beat wildly and her palms grew sweaty. The Brakys were getting closer now; their snarls growing louder; their hideous faces becoming clearer. There must have been a hundred of them, and the pain in her leg only got worse as they drew nearer.
Sloane backed up further until her back hit the door. The Brakys were barely fifty meters from her. Forty. Thirty.
She’d never been one to give up, but she had nothing to fight with besides her bare hands, which would be useless against the foul creatures. She squared her shoulders all the same. She would not go quietly.
In Ice We Burn (The Liftsal Guardians Book 1) Page 18
