by Riley Storm
Smiling, Kasperi started stretching, relishing the feeling of tight muscles pulling and popping as they loosened up in preparation for a much-needed workout. “Need to work off some steam.”
“Someone got you pissed off?” Kirell twirled and slashed, blocked, and then shuffled back as he spoke.
Kasperi eyed the movements critically. Kirell was not the most adept swordsman he’d ever come across, but the Captain was still a cut above the majority. Perhaps he would make a good sparring partner. The two had never trained against one another before, so he didn’t know what his former boss was like in a fight.
“No, not that kind of steam,” he said, then relented at a questioning noise from Kirell. “I uh, oh man, this sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, but I got a kiss on the cheek today.”
He watched Kirell intently. The Captain did an admirable job of not bursting out into laughter, but he wasn’t entirely successful. A soft snicker of amusement accompanied some serious twitching of his face. “On the cheek, you say?”
“From my mate,” he growled, limbering up swiftly, eager to take his swords from his back and put them into motion. “It was a good sign, okay?”
Kirell nodded and this time, remained silent. “Of course. Whatever you say, Kasperi. But why not go practice some magic instead?”
He snorted. “Seriously? The Magi has this idiotic notion that I have some sort of inborn talent with magic. I think maybe he’s starting to lose it. I’m good with artifacts, I’ll not argue that. But there’s nothing in here,” he growled, tapping his chest. “My skill is with the blades. They are what I love. What I am good at, best at,” he stressed, only then realizing how much he didn’t want to give them up. “That’s why I went to the Assassin. I could still use them there.”
“Well, that and the other reason,” Kirell said quietly, looking around the room but making it appear part of his routine.
Kasperi inclined his head in agreement. “Yes, that and the other reason.”
“Was there any progress with that while I was gone?”
“No,” he said, moving closer. “Not a thing. I never got close enough, if I had to guess. Whoever it is, they’ve kept themselves hidden this long by not making any rash moves. Why would they start now?”
“Time’s running out,” Kirell said, moving quickly through a flurry of positions.
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly that. The House is coming together again. Slowly, but it is. We’re firming up positions, not just Title Holders. The Guards are not only up to full strength, we’re nearly at double strength now,” Kirell said, dropping the sword and facing Kasperi.
“Double? Why?”
“Queen’s orders. Says we’re going to need them. I’ll probably be bringing us to triple strength in the near future.”
“What does she think is going to happen? A war with Canis?”
Kirell shook his head. “Her…thoughts, are that this is bigger than Canis. Something else is out there.”
Kasperi noted how Kirell carefully did not say the word fears, though they knew it was just that. The Queen feared that something was coming, and she wanted her House in order to face it. That was why Kirell, Kasperi and the others were so hellbent on finding the traitor, the one who had organized the uprising that had robbed Ursa of so much of her strength. They needed unity, to have Ursa strong, and ready to weather whatever storm was approaching.
“So who’s watching Kvoss now that I’m not?”
“It’s being handled,” Kirell said calmly. Then he pointed at the swords on Kasperi’s back. “So you going to use those, or are they just ornamental now?”
“Ha!” he barked, slipping a sword from its sheath, gripping it in his right hand. Then, without warning, he slid forward, slashing at Kirell.
The Captain jumped back, avoiding the strike instead of blocking, and then immediately lashing out, trying to disable his sword hand with a deft cut. It wasn’t what Kasperi expected, but he ducked low and spun with his initial strike, forcing Kirell to jump over his blade.
Steel crashed upon steel, Kasperi blocking over his head as the Captain struck downward even in time with his jump, blade hitting blade just as his feet found the floor. Kasperi pushed upward, his legs easily overpowering Kirell’s arms, until they were both in a standing position once more.
“The Magi really thinks you’re a magic user?” Kirell said with a puff of air as they danced around one another, practicing their footwork.
“That’s what he said. He said, “I’ll train them both”, right in front of the Queen and everyone else.”
Kirell came at him with a quick flurry of strikes, and then tried to deliver a kick to the midsection. It missed, and Kasperi paid him back by reaching up and slipping the other blade from its sheath.
“Dammit,” Kirell muttered, his ploy backfiring as the dual blades weaved a pattern, dancing like extensions of his arms. “You’ve gotten even better with these.”
“I’ve been training a lot.”
“No kidding. You might not think you’re a magic user, but you’re damn magic with them. I’ve never seen anyone so skilled.”
Kasperi advanced, hands moving on their own, weaving an impenetrable barrier in front of him as he drove Kirell back across the room. “Losing to Klaue in the Trial of Champions was embarrassing. I’m a better swordsman. I should have won, but I got cocky, I forgot my surroundings.”
“You still wish to be Champion?”
Kasperi shook his head. “No. Klaue is the best for that. He is better in the other disciplines. I just don’t like losing. I’ve been working hard since. Things are coming easier. More naturally than ever before.”
“No kidding,” Kirell said, breathing harder as he tried to defend. “I’ve never been beaten this solidly by you before. Usually, it takes you another few minutes.”
“Thanks,” Kasperi said, batting aside the final defense and tapping Kirell lightly on the side with the flat of his sword, to indicate formal victory.
“But if you’re with the Magi now, shouldn’t you be working magic? Training for that? If you put the effort you’ve put into your blades into that, you’d be the finest magic user this House has ever seen, I’d wager.”
Kasperi appreciated the compliment, but he didn’t want to stop. “All he has me doing is reading books. How am I supposed to train? I didn’t read books to learn how to use the blades. I just picked them up and practiced. But I can’t do that with magic, because I don’t possess magic,” he snapped, turning aside, directing the anger at the room, not at Kirell.
“Have you tried?”
He barked another laugh. “Yeah, sure, the first day. He told me to just use magic. Then he said the same to Amber. She dusted me. Twice. Because I have no magic.” He whipped the blades around in a vicious circle, a serious of moves nobody else in the House could duplicate. “This is what calms me. Comforts me. My swords.”
Kirell, ignoring the blurring razor-sharp steel, stepped closer, resting a hand on Kasperi’s shoulder until he dropped the weapons. Breathing hard, he shuddered, his anger at the situation showing through.
“I know,” the Captain said calmly. “But if you can use magic, that would be big for the House. A second trained magic user? Do you have any idea how rare that is?”
Kasperi nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“We need that, Perri,” he said quietly, using the nickname only an extreme few were allowed to use. “Canis has several proteges to their Magi. If we are going to end up fighting them, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
“So what you’re saying,” Kasperi whispered. “Is that I need to give up the blades?”
“Of course not,” Kirell said forcefully. “That’s not what I’m saying and you know it. You just need to re-evaluate your priorities. Alter where most of your efforts go.”
Kasperi stepped back, then twisted, the blades disappearing into the criss-crossed sheaths on his shoulders. He’d come here to get in a workou
t, to try and burn off the excess energy Amber’s kiss had instilled, and instead, he was confronted with a truth he’d been putting off, ignoring.
Kasperi was a blademaster, quite possibly the premiere swordsman in the shifter world. That was who he was. What he was. It was his identity. Everyone who knew him knew how good he was.
Where would he be without that? Who would he be without that? The thought upset him, rattling him to his core in a way he’d never experienced before. It was like giving up a fundamental part of his identity, without receiving something in return. Kasperi knew he had no magic, that it wasn’t a part of him, despite whatever crazy nonsense the Magi insisted on.
“I need to think,” he rasped, stumbling toward the door, torn by what he wanted, and what his House needed.
Could he possibly do more good for Ursa by training with the Magi? Was Kasperi the swordsman no longer needed?
Feeling lost, he wandered out into the Manor, seeking guidance, and finding none.
15
“Time to get up.”
Amber blinked, slowly coming out of the deep sleep that the combination of collar and extra-comfortable bed had been providing her for the better part of a week. She’d not felt this good in a long time. Sleeping well, eating properly, it was starting to pay dividends. She’d put on some weight as well, no longer feeling as gaunt and hollow, though it would be a while before her figure filled back out.
If ever. She was doing so much walking now. The hallways of Ursidae Manor were oversized and made for people twice her size, and nowhere was close to the quarters within which she resided.
“Amber.”
She groaned. “This is the worst hotel wakeup call ever. Where’s the soothing ocean noise?”
Kasperi didn’t reply. She frowned. Something had happened to him at some point after he’d given the staff to her. While she’d gone for a quick walk around the hallway to question her decision to kiss him on the cheek, Kasperi had gone somewhere else. When he’d come back, he’d been subdued. She tried reaching out, but he wasn’t letting her in. Hell, he wasn’t letting her close. Since then, things had been basically perfunctory. They’d awoken, read their books, eaten, gone to bed. She was getting bored.
Which is why she was glad that today was test day. Of course, how she was supposed to be better with her magic after doing nothing but reading about it for four days was beyond her, but it didn’t matter. She was excited to try to master it. Terrified too, but anything was better than this dull routine.
“So, when can I get a room with a view?” she muttered, exiting the bedroom, clad only in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, the only attire she possessed besides her serving uniform from Lola’s.
“You know you can’t be on your own,” Kasperi said, sitting on the couch, which was also his bed. “Kvoss still wants you dead before you turn into some evil demon from his nightmares. If I’m not around to stop him, then your day is going to be much worse than a bad alarm clock.”
Amber bit her tongue. She was not going to start the morning bickering with him. Besides, he was right, little though she liked to admit it. Twice now, they’d caught some of Kvoss’ goons, the Asps, stalking her through the Manor. They’d kept a distance, never coming close, yet ready to pounce the instant she made a mistake.
Yet another reason to never take this collar off. With it on, I can live somewhat free. With it off, every minute I risk becoming something horrible. Tell me again why I was excited about this test today?
“You know, I hate how it seems to be a foregone conclusion that I’m going to end up as some sort of uber-killer mad mage. Like, do people have so little faith in me that I can learn how to control this?”
“Yes,” he said bluntly. “Most do.”
“Most,” she said in bitter agreement. “Not you though.”
“Nor the Magi.”
“Right. The Magi.” She didn’t put much faith in that, since he seemed like a bit of a nutjob to her.
Kasperi’s opinion was the only one she valued, and of late, even he’d been acting strange. Once again, she was tempted to ask, but didn’t. It wasn’t the right time.
“He means well,” Kasperi said, as if hearing her thoughts about Korred the Magi.
“Sure. But tell me he doesn’t seem on the edge, to you? A little wacko?”
“Maybe,” Kasperi said noncommittally.
“Whatever. I just wish there were better accommodations. It’s…weird, staying with you.”
“How is it weird?”
Besides the fact you can barely meet my eyes lately?
To her surprise, she had a hard time coming up with a reason after that. Not wanting to broach the subject yet, she struggled for an answer, only able to come up with something really lame.
“Sometimes, the room smells like wet fur.”
To her complete surprise, Kasperi snorted in what sounded suspiciously like amusement. “Just be glad you don’t live with the Canim, it’s much worse.”
“I find it hard to believe something smells worse than you,” she said without thinking.
“I do not stink,” he protested, half-turning, looking at her.
Amber froze, shocked by the sudden emergence of his mood. Had this been what he needed all along? A return to form, where they threw barbs at one another?
“You’ve just been exposed to it for so long you’ve gone nose-deaf,” she said.
“I don’t believe you.”
She smiled. “No, but you believe in me, Kasperi, and that’s why I put up with it, even if I don’t understand why you do.”
Kasperi got up and came around the couch, sitting on its back and meeting her gaze. “Does it matter?”
“Everyone else is suspicious of me. Some even want me dead. Yet you…you always take me at my word. You believe what I say. You trust that I can do this, you encourage me to believe in myself, knowing I don’t. How can you be so faithful? So blindly trusting?”
“It’s simple.”
She blinked. “Uh, it is?”
Kasperi smiled for the first time in forty-eight hours, though it was still a closed-lip expression. Progress, though, and she would take it.
“Have you lied to me?”
“No.”
He shrugged. “There you go. Why should I doubt you, when you’ve only ever told me the truth?”
Amber tried to search for a hole in his logic, but couldn’t come up with one. It wasn’t an answer to her question, and yet it didn’t let her pry either. He was dancing around it, not willing to answer it directly, and Amber was more interested in keeping him talking, and potentially even smiling, than she was in getting a straight answer.
Part of it was as simple as he said. If he trusted her, she should let him. It wasn’t her right to question his decision really.
“I know you have the potential to go either way,” he continued a moment later. “I’m not blind to that, in case that’s what you’re thinking. It’s not blind belief in you. It’s an opinion formed after talking with you for the past what, five days now? I’ve taken the measure of you. I believe you can do this.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s not to say you aren’t high risk. But you know this, and I think that makes you more ready and willing to do what’s necessary to ensure you don’t go down that path. You want to learn how to harness your power, so that eventually you don’t have to wear that.” He pointed at the silver collar around her neck.
Subconsciously, she reached up and touched the collar, the metal still cool to the touch on the outside. Her fingertip ran over the various etchings of symbols she didn’t recognize or understand, but that somehow kept her power at bay, preventing her from having to fight its effects.
Amber’s mind felt stronger than it had, rested, ready to take charge, but she still hated the weight of it around her neck, and the way it was the first thing people saw when they looked at her. It was like a symbol of her weakness, and few bothered to look past it, to judge her based on the rest of her.
>
“I think I’m going to go take a nice long shower,” she said at last, changing the topic.
“Okay?”
“What?”
Letting his shoulders rise and fall, Kasperi made a noncommittal noise. “I don’t know. Why the emphasis on nice and long?”
She smiled. “Just hoping that maybe this will rust and fall apart,” she joked, tapping the collar.
“Well, don’t be too long. We should be off somewhat soon, especially if you want to eat before the test.”
Glancing at the clock, she frowned. “We have plenty of time.”
“I want to make a stop at the armory, pick up some body armor for this time,” he joked.
Amber laughed, more of a giggle than anything. “I promise, I’ll go easy on you.”
Kasperi’s eyes lit up at her laugh in a way she’d not seen since just before she’d kissed him on the cheek. “If you don’t, will you kiss it better this time?”
“Maybe,” she said swiftly, not even thinking her response through.
Kasperi’s nose flared slightly as he took in a deep breath. Heartbeat soaring, Amber licked her lips, unsure of what to say, or what to do, where to look. So, she didn’t do anything.
To make matters worse, Kasperi also didn’t. He seemed as frozen in shock as she was, neither of them having anticipated the conversation steering in this direction, and now totally unprepared for the consequences of unguarded words.
“Um, I’m going to take that shower now,” she said, tossing a thumb over her left shoulder.
“Bathroom is over there,” Kasperi said, pointing off to her right.
Amber looked back where her thumb was pointing. Right at the door to the bedroom.
As if things couldn’t get any more awkward…
“Yeah. There.” She caught his eyes one last time, still not able to get over how similar to her own they were, though larger, slightly more set back into his skull, but that green…it was like looking into a mirror.
