Ysai escorted Kai and Rae back home to drop off the items Rasia bought from the market. When Kai unwrapped the package Rasia had given him, he found it full of scorpion jerky, gonda meat, and dried vegetables. He had no idea when in the market she had acquired all this food and, quite frankly, didn’t want to know in case the sentries came calling.
Kai cooked lunch for the three of them. He felt obligated to feed Ysai as well, considering the food had been illegally acquired. Plenty of food was leftover to supplement other meals, but after some consideration, he scraped a little off his plate, not very noticeable, but it made him feel less anxious.
After lunch, they left for the training fields.
The practice fields were fairly empty since most of the hunting kulls were out of the Grankull and everyone else was still busy with preparations for the upcoming ceremony. Rae had brought their toy windship and slid it down the hills of sand to chase it to the bottom. Watching them, Kai wished he had more opportunities to take them outside to play instead of being stuck in the house all day.
“How about we warm up a bit?” Ysai suggested. He shuffled through the dulled practice blades piled into a large carapace bin for general use.
“Oh, sure,” Kai said, more than a little intimidated. Ysai and Aden had often competed for the top marks of their generation—which would have been Kai’s generation, too, if he had succeeded in his first Forging.
“Show me first position of the scorpion path,” Ysai said when he tossed Kai a blunted practice sword.
Kai caught the sword upside down by the worn hilt and stared at it, hoping the blade could somehow tell him what Ysai was talking about. “Rasia didn’t teach me any of that.”
Ysai’s eyebrows furrowed, and then he bent over a great bellow of laughter. Kai clutched the sword to his chest, uncertain if he had already done something wrong. Ysai straightened and wiped at tears in his eyes. “Of course, she didn’t. She is the person who showed you how to steer a windship only one time, and then left you to figure out the rest on your own. I don’t know how you managed. What sword fighting has she gone over with you?”
“She said there wasn’t a lot of time to teach me the basics, so she . . . attacked me and I tried to survive?”
“You’re a good sport,” Ysai said amused. “She’s not wrong, per se. You don’t have a lot of time to catch up, but throwing people off a cliff doesn’t always work with everyone. Rasia doesn’t comprehend how talented she is sometimes. She’ll watch something, and move through it, and get it. Because she can figure out things on her own, she assumes everyone else is the same way, and then finds herself frustrated when they aren’t. I’m impressed you’ve been able to keep up with her, but you’re lacking so many of the basics that it has probably been more time-consuming for you to flounder on your own. Come at me.”
The balance of the practice sword differed from Rasia’s dual-khopesh and tah’s dragonsteel blade. It was a lot heavier than what Kai was used to. It didn’t sit comfortably in his hand, but Ysai stood there waiting, and Kai didn’t want to disappoint him. He lunged forward.
Ysai angled his torso and Kai’s attack swept past. He almost stumbled when Ysai’s sword tapped flat against his back. But unlike Rasia, who would have continued to press her attack, Ysai paused to correct Kai’s stance. “When you lunge, most of your momentum should come from your back leg. Keep your elbows up. Bend your knees. Now, again.”
Kai tried the lunge again. This time, he snapped forward faster. When Ysai evaded and aimed for his back, his body no longer fought against him. He had the stability to quickly switch and evade the blow.
They exchanged several more strikes, and every time, Ysai paused to correct Kai’s mistakes. Against Rasia, Kai had been fighting a vicious tide where he barely managed to keep his head above water, but sparring with Ysai was like being tossed a floating palm to learn how to swim. He adjusted, widened his stance, and loosened the tension from his shoulders. He started correcting himself before Ysai had to tell him.
Kai saw an opening. In that brief moment, it was Rasia’s brutal lessons that had his body reacting long before his thoughts processed the practice sword had slashed across Ysai’s arm. He stilled in surprise at the hit.
Then Ysai flashed a brilliant grin and swept Kai off of his feet. He hit the ground and squinted up into the sun, until Ysai blocked the blinding light and offered a hand. Ysai hefted Kai up and called for a water break.
Kai was relieved for the momentary pause. He breathed heavily, yet Ysai hadn’t broken a sweat. In the span of a drum, he had learned more technique than Rasia had ever taught him, if any. Kai kicked at the hard-packed dirt of the fields and admitted, “She’s a terrible teacher.”
Ysai laughed, bright, with the same tone of Rasia’s carefree abandon.
“I don’t know if I have the bones to break it to her,” Kai said, mostly to himself, but it sent Ysai off into another roll of laughter.
Ysai snickered. “If you ask me, that mountainous ego of hers can bear to be knocked down a little.”
“How did you ever survive growing up in the shadow of it?”
“By being taller than her.”
A laugh cracked out of Kai, and they both shared knowing smiles. Most people didn’t like Rasia, and their complaints and criticisms were often harsh and pointed. It was refreshing to joke around with someone who genuinely cared for her.
“Do you think I have a shot at the kull tryouts?” Kai asked.
Ysai stretched his arms and thought for a bit. He said, “Some of these kids have held practice swords since they were ten-till. I can teach you all the technique that I can, but you’re never going to catch up by the time of the tryouts. But, you only need to win two fights, and I think you have what it takes to surprise them. After all, I’ve heard you’ve beaten Rasia once or twice. You and I can work on the rest.”
Kai blinked at Ysai, surprised by the offer. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
Ysai shrugged and looked over at Rae playing in the sand. “Today has been far more interesting than I thought it would be. I’m thinking of transferring posts. Of course, if that’s alright with you.”
A knot swelled in Kai’s throat. To have a sentry who saw this job as more than an easy paycheck, who carried Rae on his shoulders and spoke to Kai like a person, was more than he could ever hope for. He tentatively said, “If it’s not too much trouble. You should know, Nico has a growing number of enemies.”
“Oi-yo, Rasia mentioned that. Aden-kull might have more names than I, but I can still knock him off of his feet. My skills are wasted standing guard around the shipyards, and your family needs the protection.”
“Honestly, you’ll probably end up carrying Rae on your shoulders most of the time.”
“The perfect practice for more important things,” Ysai waggled his brows, and Kai couldn’t help but to smile. Ysai and Rasia even wag their eyebrows the same way. It reminded Kai of being around his twin cousins, Jilah and Ashe. Even though they weren’t identical, their expressions often had a shared language all their own.
“You and Jilah-shi are putting in an application for a child?” Kai asked.
“We would like to. We want to move out of the house first, but there have been some complications with our housing application. Someday, we hope.”
Ysai signaled the end of their break. They resumed their sparring while they waited for Rasia to meet them. Ysai stopped correcting Kai so often and let Kai paddle around on his own to get the rhythm of it. Out of nowhere, the rhythm sped up too quickly, a brutal reminder Ysai had been going easy on him. He struck an unrepentant knee into Kai’s groin.
Kai’s eyes watered, and he collapsed to the ground at the pain. He didn’t think it was possible for someone to have their balls kicked into their stomach, but Ysai certainly tried. Ysai grabbed the top of Kai’s shroud, catching hair as well, and twisted Kai to face him. His easygoing swagger flipped to a vicious terrifying sharpness. This sharpness Kai hadn’t seen before, different from the hot rage of Rasia’s temper.
“I like you. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Rasia needs that. But if you fucking seed my little jih again—if you ever again put her in a position where she has to poison herself or risk the back alleys, I will cut your dick off and shove it down your throat till you die choking on it. You understand me?”
Kai swallowed down the pain and faced Rasia’s big jih. It didn’t feel right to shake and quiver in terror, not when her jih’s anger was wholly justified. He collected himself, looked Ysai in the eye, and promised, “I understand.”
Ysai released Kai’s shroud.
“I know Rasia isn’t easy, and I’m glad someone is looking out for her. Even after the Naming, even after the Grankull prescribes her gonom, you’ve got to be sure. Rasia gets so caught up in things, she forgets. Despite her best efforts, that’s who she is. You need to remind her every morning to take her gonom. Every morning. I don’t care if you’ve got to slip it in her tea.”
“I will.”
“And if you have any questions about sex, please don’t make any more fucking assumptions. I am here. Ask me. There is no question in the world that I haven’t heard from Rasia already. I will not tolerate any more mistakes. No more fuck-ups. Got it?”
“I understand, Ysaijen the Unbowed.”
“Ysai-ji,” he corrected.
It was more than a correction. It was acceptance and approval from the most important person in Rasia’s life. Kai wanted nothing more than to consider this face a friend, but he found it hard to accept. “Isn’t that too presumptuous? What if Rasia changes her mind about me?”
Again, Ysai laughed. “A lot of people claim Rasia gets distracted easily. They don’t know her. She gets distracted with things she doesn’t care about, but when she has a mission in mind, she’ll stop at nothing to see it through. Nothing could have stopped Rasia from slaying that dragon, but she stopped for you after the lake. Do you know how many people in Rasia’s life she is willing to stop for? You’re jih’s kulani. I believe it.”
“But that’s not what I want. I don’t want her to stop for me. I want to keep up.”
Ysai leaned forward, as if to tell Kai a secret. “You might be the only one who can. Don’t mean I won’t kill you though. You might be her kulani, but she can do fine all by herself.”
“I’ll do better. I promise,” Kai said, spine straight. “No more fuck-ups.”
“Good, ‘cause Rasia will hate me for it. She seems rather attached to your dick.”
“I am rather attached to it, too.”
“She said you were funny,” Ysai smirked. Then he nodded up.
Kai scrambled to his feet, and they returned to their sparring match. Except this time, every hit left a harder bruise than before. Ysaijen the Unbowed was nice enough to teach you how to defend yourself, then he would kick your ass, and smile while he did it.