finished up and set out breakfast, I tried as little as mortally possible to think about Yvera and what she’d said.
The accusations she made, really: that Sarah was a burden at best, and hinting at her being far worse. Just before Sarah had interrupted, Yvera had been implying that something or someone was obviously giving the Devourer the confidence to strike so boldly. If Yvera had been any more direct, with anyone but me in absolute privacy, that level of accusation could have triggered a hearing before the Tree.
The Tree of Flame didn’t take false accusations of collusion with the Devourer lightly. Our survival was too dependent on our unity for Her to allow us to turn on each other with suspicion or greed, so every case was brought directly to Her for examination and judgment. Not only could She discern the truth of the matter, She could detect any taint of consumption. If the accused was innocent in intent but unknowingly influenced, She could burn away the taint and free the victim. If the accused was guilty in deed and in heart, judgment was left to Her. If the accused was innocent and clean, the Tree’s judgment fell on the accuser, and Her punishments for knowingly false accusations were severe.
With all of this being common knowledge, serious accusations were rare, and anyone with sense and good intent would know to be as certain as possible before making them. Yvera should have known better than to even hint at such a thing.
Underneath my simmering anger, though, I was baffled. My rightwing and best friend wasn’t normally this blind. True, she didn’t trust easily, but she had good instincts and could recognize a genuine person when she saw one. She and Sarah had wildly different personalities and skill sets, but couldn’t she see what value Sarah brought to the table?
She’d called Sarah a burden, just because she was smaller and less experienced. Perhaps part of that was my fault: all my personal focus and all my guidance to my wings regarding Sarah had been to protect and care for her. I was the one who always emphasized her vulnerabilities. It took a metaphorical knuckle-wrap on my head from Avva, as usual, to remind me that my focus had been too narrow—doing as much harm as good when it came to her wellbeing and development as a leader.
Hopefully this morning would help change everyone else’s view, too. Including Sarah’s.
Once I’d sat down and started digging in, telling Sarah to do the same, she asked if Yvera was coming. She didn’t seem the least bit bothered speaking of her, which probably meant she was telling the truth when she said she hadn’t heard anything. Which was good.
Like I’d said to Sarah, I wasn’t excusing my friend, but I didn’t want Sarah’s self-esteem to take a hit just because Yvera was under a lot of strain right now and saying things she wasn’t really thinking through. Plus, with one thing right after the other, I was sure Yvera hadn’t made a great impression on Sarah these past few days, and since I hoped to keep both of them in my life for some time to come, I was invested in trying to get them to get along. Somehow.
One miracle at a time, I thought to myself with a sigh. That was yet another project for after we all survived the invasion.
“Probably not,” I said in answer to Sarah’s question. “She said she ate before her practice this morning.”
If she gets hungry, she knows she can eat the cold leftovers after we leave, I thought angrily. She knew me better than almost anyone, meaning she’d know to steer clear of me for at least a deken or two while I cooled off from her “message.” What she was counting on was my reason then kicking in, allowing doubt about Sarah to enter my thoughts.
I snorted. Sarah looked up questioningly, but I just shook my head.
If Sarah was an agent of the Devourer, I’d eat my tail, and that wasn’t just my emotions doing the thinking for me. Of all people, I knew the voice of a Tree, and I’d heard one speak to Sarah and declare Her intention to make Sarah Her Heir. If we couldn’t trust Trees to be able to pick out who was trustworthy and untainted among us, well—we might as well surrender to the Devourer now.
Really, what was Yvera thinking?
Kor stumbled, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen, mumbling something about food. I ignored him, since there wasn’t much point in trying to converse with him at this stage, but I gestured absently to the free plate next to me.
“Morning, Kor,” Sarah said politely.
He gave her a baleful look and muttered something that sounded impolite enough I elbowed him.
“Wha’?” he said, blinking at me with slightly more focus.
“Eat,” I said simply, pointing to the food I was piling on his plate.
Kor scowled as he picked up his fork. “Whatchu think ‘m herefer? The thimulashing covosashion?”
Sarah just blinked at him. “That didn’t even translate for me.”
Don’t bother, I told her silently. Incoherent, remember?
She mouthed an “Oh,” then refocused on her food. But I caught a grin tugging at her lips, and I knew why. After being put down intellectually by Kor all day, I often found comfort in knowing that in the morning, the tables would be turned.
After a few dek of digesting food, Kor looked up and blinked at Sarah as if noticing her for the first time. “Yo hair. Iz shiny.”
I choked on a bit of tsha I’d been swallowing, but it was worth it. Oooh, yes. I lived for these mornings, in which Kor could make even my bumbling compliment sound graceful by comparison.
Sarah visibly struggled to keep a straight face. “Yes, thank you. The lights did it this morning.”
“They dith? Inthasting…” Kor said thoughtfully—with his mouth full of mashed ukka. He swallowed, blinked, and declared, “I’d like to observe.”
“Next time, I’ll see if you’re…available.”
“Good,” Kor said solemnly, and returned his focus to his plate.
Sarah’s chest was shaking with suppressed laughter, so I decided to get her out before Kor became fully conscious. He hated being laughed at, and he could hold a grudge like nobody else.
“Alright, Sarah,” I said, standing up. “If you’re done, then follow me. We’d better get started before we lose too much daylight.”
“Are we leaving already?” she asked, standing quickly.
“What?” Kor asked, looking up with his most alert blink yet. I estimated he was now at seventy-percent capacity, and thus entering the danger zone.
“Not just yet,” I assured them both. “We’ll give Kor a bit more time to wake up while you and I work on something.”
“Good,” Kor grunted again, shoving more food in his face.
on?” Sarah asked curiously as she followed me out.
I took a deep, steadying breath. “Do you remember what the Tree said to you last night about…Her Heir needing to return with me to help Avva drive off the Devourer?”
“Yes,” she answered quietly. Which told me she understood some of the implications, and their seriousness.
Still, to make sure we were on the same page, I elaborated out loud. “That means that, if you accept what She offers you, you’ll be going straight into danger. Even if I’m able to keep you perfectly safe over these next ten days, we know we can’t spare you from that much. Again, even then, Avva and I will keep you as safe as we can, but I’ll be torched before I bring you into a battle without preparing you as best as I can to defend yourself.”
She was quiet for a few moments, and I let her process. “I agree,” she finally said with a sigh. “But Ben…what can I do?”
She gestured to herself, then to me. “Compared to you, I’m.…”
“Stop right there,” I said sternly, holding up a finger. “This is partially my fault. I’ve been so focused on making up for your vulnerabilities that I haven’t tried to pull out your strengths, but from now on, that’s what I’ll try to do. Keep me accountable: if I slip up, call me out.”
When I met her gaze to show her I was serious, her lips twitched. “Alright. What strengths, though? Other than the fact that I seem to be able to charge up at night.”
“Don’t underestimate how realms-shaking that is by itself,” I pointed out. “It could be the very reason you’ll be needed at the battle. The Devourer is attacking on literally the darkest day possible: a winter solstice and a solar eclipse.”
“Really? Ugh, that’s.…” Sarah trailed off in horror.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “We can send warriors through sungates to other places to regain their strength during the eclipse, but that tactic has problems of its own.”
“The gates,” Sarah whispered, glancing fearfully at me. “If they fail.…”
She understood so much already. Smart, and with a good memory, she was putting the pieces together faster than I’d wished her to for her own sake.
“Yes,” I said simply, throat tight.
“But I’m just one person,” Sarah protested. “Sure, maybe I could have more power than you would at night, but what good could I do in the grand scheme of things? How am I supposed to tip the scales?”
I would a thousand times have rather told her that she shouldn’t worry, that she could stay back, somewhere safe, while others risked their lives to defend all worlds from the Devourer’s hunger. Not her.
But I couldn’t.
Instead, I said grimly, “That’s what we’re going to figure out.”
“We’re going to the armory,” Sarah realized as we passed through the arch that led to the meeting hall on the left and on the right.…
“I suppose with all the steel it has on display, that’s as good a name as any,” I mused as we walked into the room to the right. “But its main purpose isn’t to store weapons.”
“Then what?” Sarah asked.
I stepped into one of the inlaid metal rings on the floor, crouched, and brushed my fingers along the rim, giving it some of my energy to activate it. Sarah yelped and jumped back as a magical field of the same silver color shot up around me, encasing me in a translucent dome about forty feet in diameter. At least this worked like it was supposed to. This circle, this training floor, was as familiar to me as my own bedroom.
Even if I was used to gold.
With one flex of my fingers, I summoned a ball of fire to my palm, wound back, and hurled it with shattering force at the far edge of the dome. The ball exploded against the surface, sending sparks and tongues of flame everywhere. My lips twitched as I watched the remnants fall, and I wondered what the Moontouched who had made this room would have thought of the Heir of Flame making the first scorch marks on their spotless floor. But the dome had held perfectly, and that had been the point of my demonstration.
I pointed at the unscathed magical surface. “To train, holding nothing back. Without bringing the mountain down on top of us.”
Sarah’s eyes were wide, her fists clenched. Since I hadn’t strengthened the shield to the point at which it blocked sound or smell, I caught a whiff of salty sweat mingling with her cool scent.
My hand fell back to my side, and my flameheart chilled. I took one step forward, then realized that might be the opposite of reassuring, and froze.
“Sarah.…” I said helplessly, not knowing what else to say or do.
At the sound of my voice, she blinked, then shook herself. She laughed shakily as she rubbed her arms. “Sorry, I’m fine. You just…startled me. I don’t know how, but I keep forgetting you’re.…”
“A torched idiot?” I supplied ruefully.
“No,” she said with surprising calm. “Dangerous.”
I blinked. “How in the Six Realms could you forget that?”
No one else I’d ever met could. I was the Heir, and the son of Kavarian Sunfilled, for Flame’s sake. To everyone else, that meant something.
She laughed, the sound normal and relaxed now. “I dunno. Most of the time, you’re just…you.”
Flame above, I was doomed—and what was worse, I was in deep enough that I no longer cared.
To hide how her simple explanation had made me feel, I said gruffly, “Well, try to remember. Because I’m not always going to be able to give you a warning before I have to throw a fireball—or worse.”
“Point taken,” she said firmly. “All the points. I have a lot to learn, this is a training ground where you can teach me, and you’re dangerous—because you have to be.”
“You are too,” I said. “Don’t forget that, either.”
“I don’t feel dangerous.” She looked to where the fireball had hit, at the scorch marks on the floor. “I can’t be you, Ben.”
I dismissed the dome with a gentle tap and approached her slowly, but she showed no sign of trepidation. She looked up at me with complete trust—such a stark difference from her fear from before. Or had it been fear? Something of it lingered in her eyes, but trust couldn’t mingle with fear. Unless it wasn’t fear at all, but…awe.
Shoving aside my own torrent of self-centered feelings, hope burning hot among them, I focused firmly on her. I kneeled on one knee in front of her, making her head higher than mine.
I gave her a crooked smile. “Sarah, do you really think the Seven Realms need two of me?”
Her lips tugged into an answering smile. “Personally, I think you’re pretty great.”
It’s not about you right now, I chanted to myself. It’s not about you.
Still, I couldn’t help widening my smile. “Let me put it this way, then: do you think the Tree of Ice needs an Heir like me?”
That gave her pause. Her smile faded. “I guess…not.”
“Why would that be?” I prompted patiently.
Flame, I was sounding like my father.
She huffed at being forced to state the obvious, as I had done many times before. “Because she didn’t choose someone like you.”
When I simply waited with a small smile, she finally finished the statement, her voice quiet. “She chose…me.”
“Exactly. Which means that you—” I tapped her gently on the forehead. “—are what we need. I feel that to the core of my flameheart. There’s something special about you—many somethings, probably—that I don’t have, that I can’t offer the Seven Realms. You are what we need, Sarah. Today. Tomorrow. In ten days. In fourteen, forty, eighty years. You might not be right now what you need to be then, but you have the seeds inside you, and you have until then to grow them, with Her help. For what it’s worth, you have all of mine.”
Her eyes glistened. To my surprise, she threw her arms around me, nearly making me lose my balance.
“Thank you,” she said thickly, resting her head on my shoulder.
“Er…you’re welcome?” I tentatively put my own arms around her. “Flame, Sarah, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“Yeah, you did,” she said with a laugh, pulling away slowly. Though I regretted the distance, I warmed at how her hands lingered on my shoulders, and how she seemed content with mine on her hips.
Teasingly, she said, “You can’t just say things like that to a girl and not expect her to cry.”
“Uh…sorry?” Was that what I was supposed to say?
All I knew for certain was that I was not supposed to be thinking about how close her lips were to mine.
She wiped her eyes, sniffed, and smiled. “They’re good tears, don’t worry. I needed that.”
“Well, good, then, I guess,” I mumbled. Then, because I had to put some distance between us or I would do something that would ruin the gift I’d somehow given—Friend, friend, friend, not about you, you’re her friend—I pulled back and rose to my feet.
“So,” I said, clearing my throat. “Time to brainstorm.”
She blinked. “About what?”
I smiled crookedly. “How you can be dangerous.”
She followed me to the wall of weaponry. “Ben.…”
“Step one,” I said, ignoring her. “Finding some weapons that work for you, so we can train you on them. I don’t expect you to be good at it from day one, but the sooner we start, the sooner you can have something that is more likely to do harm to your enemies than to you.”
“Very comforting,” Sarah muttered.
“Except for that pep talk to start you out, it’s not my job to be comforting.”
She sighed. “It’s your job to keep me alive, I get it.”
I grinned at her. “So glad we’re on the same page.”
I lifted a large battleax down from the wall with both hands. She eyed it sidelong. “You gotta be kidding.”
I chuckled. “In a way, I am. See, something like this—not for you. But just because it’s one of the biggest and meanest looking things on this wall doesn’t mean it’s the deadliest.”
That got her thinking. She pursed her lips and scanned the wall. “What is, then?”
I had already done my scan for this lesson, so, after putting the ax back, I went straight to a bit of leather, picked it up, and handed it to her.
“What’s this?” she said in puzzlement.
“It’s a sling. You put some pebbles in here, swing it around—”
“Oh, I see. I’ve heard of a sling before. I’ve never held one in my hands, I guess.”
She examined it for a few moments longer and then raised an eyebrow at me. “This is the deadliest weapon?”
“Think of it this way: sometimes, you don’t need to take out broad swaths of monsters, as that battle ax is meant to do. Sometimes you just need to kill the one who’s the brains directing the rest, with something small, quick, fast, and ordinary, something that lets you keep your distance, something that’s light, something that’s harmless looking. If a sling is what you need and can use, then yes, it’s the deadliest thing here.”
“But you could apply that logic to practically anything here,” Sarah said impatiently.
I just gave her a look and waited.
It didn’t take her long. She huffed and handed the sling back to me. “Which means there’s no right answer here. I get it. Except I’m fairly limited when it comes to things I can use.”
“Probably not as much as you think,” I corrected. “Let me be the judge of that. Go on. Look everything over. Point at whatever speaks to you, whether or not you think it’s practical, and I’ll let you know if it is.”
“Whatever ‘speaks’ to me,” she grumbled. She half-heartedly paced a bit in front of the display.
I had to admit the variety was overwhelming. Maybe that’s why it was all out like this, instead of being stored more sensibly in an armory, as Sarah had assumed this was. Maybe it was for this very moment: for Sarah to see all the options at once and discover which was for her…and which was not.
She stopped pacing and looked back at me, troubled.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, already breaking my promise to not be comforting by gentling my voice.
She sighed. “They’re all…weapons. Meant to kill, I mean, or hurt, at the very least. I can’t look at them all without feeling sick.”
Ah, yes. I thought this might be an issue. Being half Peacegrowth, I’d had to work past this as well.
I took down a broadsword, the one Yvera had admired earlier, and I brought it to Sarah and kneeled in front of her again, holding the sword out on the flat of my palms so she could study it.
“This is a beautiful blade. I don’t know if you know anything about smithing.…”
She shook her head.
“Then just trust me when I say it’s among the finest craftsmanship I’ve seen. The balance, the edge.…” I shook my head as I stood up and stepped back so that I could move with it, giving it a few swings, some passes through a few stances. It could have been made for me, like an extension of my arm. I straightened, holding the hilt with both hands and the blade upright, almost touching my nose.
“Magnificent,” I said simply. “But.…”
I set it gently back in its holders on the wall. “Worthless, all the same, if you just look at the blade.”
“What do you mean?”
“It has no soul,” I said firmly. “In the end, it is just a lump of metal with a bit of rocks, resin, wood. It simply is. And what it is, is of no worth if we forget its intended purpose: to protect souls. To guard our greatest treasures.…”
I met her eyes, and she gazed back soberly. “Each other.”
Could she hear in my words, see in my face, what I would give to keep her safe?
I looked away before she could see too much. “The Battlebloods are our greatest defenders and warriors, and we rely on them dearly, yet any culture that revolves around bloodshed is in danger of loving it for its own sake. So, they have a strict code that each of the ones who decides to take up the call must solemnly swear to, and their Lady judges infractions severely. Yvera took the oath, and when I became Heir, I also became an honorary member of the clan, so I did too.”
“What is it?” Sarah asked quietly.
I shrugged. “It has many more nuances that I’ll not bore you with right now, but the essence is in the first few lines: I will spill blood only to save it from being spilled. I will not kill unless those I protect will be killed. I will put my feet on the path to battle only if it is the way to peace. I will be strength for the weak, fire for the flameless, a shield to the scaleless.”
Perhaps it was time I reminded Yvera of that part of her oath.
I finished quietly. “I will give my life willingly, if my Tree asks it of me, for the good of all the Realms.”
It had never occurred to me, until that moment, that Avva made that oath, when he became Heir. As did Avvi when she married him. The Tree could have simply called on their oaths. Instead, She gave them a choice.
Sarah came up to me and, to my surprise, twined her fingers with mine. When I looked down at her, her brown eyes gazed up at me with surprising fierceness. Now there was a bit of the fire I had been hoping to awake, and somehow I’d done it without even trying.
I realized how when she spoke. “You’re going to be fine. We are all going to be fine.”
I smiled with more force than I felt. “Of course we are. All of us. We’re here to make sure of that. Starting with.…”
Sarah groaned. “Step one.”
But when she pulled away, there was a more determined set to her jaw, and that gave me relief.
Still, she stood a bit helplessly, looking at the overwhelming variety.
“Try closing your eyes for a moment,” I suggested.
When she raised an eyebrow at me, I grinned. “Just trust me.”
She sighed, but she did as I asked.
“Now, take a few deep breaths.”
She did, and slowly, her shoulders relaxed, her chin came to neutral, the line between her eyes smoothed.
“The greatest warriors are the ones who make certain they use their strengths rather than compensate for their weaknesses. What are your strengths, Sarah?”
“I don’t know!” she said in frustration.
“Then let me help a bit, to get you started,” I said calmly. “You’re fast. I’ve seen you run, remember?”
Her unexpected burst of speed that first time, when she’d run from me, had nearly given me a heart attack. So had her brave run over the dark mesa to an invisible gate, though fear had mixed with pride in my flameheart that time.
“Not as fast as you,” she muttered, clearly remembering as well. “Or Yvera.”
“So you won’t be able to outrun the two of us,” I said with a shrug. “But I bet you my month’s stipend that you can outsprint Kor.”
That brought a small smile to her lips.
“Fortunately for you, Yvera and I are unusually long-legged. You won’t often be facing a person or creature that can outrun you: and if you can run, do. That’s the second secret: a fight avoided is a fight won.”
She nodded, eyes still closed.
“So you’re fast,” I repeated. “And agile. You could one day maneuver like I could only dream. But I’d prefer that until you have more stamina and experience in combat that you keep your distance.”
Was that right? Was I letting my fears hold her back?
But she nodded in relief. “That feels right to me, too.”
Praying I wasn’t leading her in the wrong direction, I said, “Good. Follow that feeling, then. A long-range weapon of some kind. If the Moontouched who made this training room for you knew what you would need, what would they put there for you that you could use from a distance? Something you’re maybe already familiar with? Something that wouldn’t require too much training before you could use it to defend yourself?”
I was eyeing the lightweight crossbow as I spoke, but I followed my own gut and kept my prompts vague. This had to come from her, after all. Besides, even that crossbow might take her a bit of strength training to be able to draw by herself, and it wasn’t so useful when the enemy was closing range.…
Her face scrunched in thought. “Well, that would be.… But surely there isn’t.…”
Her eyes opened, searching without expectation. Then her eyes suddenly widened, falling on something in the corner of the room. Far from the crossbow.
“What?” I asked.
Without answering, she walked to that corner, and I followed. I saw many options in that area, including some throwing knives that maybe I could get her started on, but she reached for something that escaped my notice until that very moment. Which was odd, considering I had never seen its like before, and I thought I had been meticulously trained in every weapon known in the Six Realms.
It was made of silver metal burnished matte, perhaps for better grip or to not be as reflective. It had a handle that Sarah grasped to take it down, then another, perpendicular portion above the grip that protruded inches beyond her knuckles. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to do. Was it some kind of bludgeon?
“What is it?” I asked, baffled.
“So, you haven’t seen something like this?” Sarah asked, seeming unsurprised.
“No,” I said in consternation. “Have you?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “It’s called a gun.”
“An Earthren weapon?” That made me feel better and worse at the same time. If I didn’t know what it did, how was I supposed to train her on it? Or keep her from harming herself?
Her lips twitched. “I guess you could call it that. One of the deadliest inventions of man.”
Since she’d said that her kind made weapons that could level cities, that didn’t make me feel better.
“You know how to use it?” I asked in a level tone, trying hard to hide my unease.
“More than I would like,” she said with a frown. “Mom and Dad don’t like guns. They wouldn’t allow any in our home, but when Michael moved out, he got one. He took me to a range a few times, taught me how to shoot it. He said Mom and Dad had good intentions, but that times were changing, getting more dangerous. He said he wanted me to be able to defend myself.”
She met my gaze and shrugged. “He took his older-brother protective duties seriously even before he became a cop.”
Well, he had earned himself many points in my ledger for that. One would hope, then, that this protective brother would know what he was about in handing her one and showing her how to use it.
“What does it do?”
“Well, it’s meant to shoot ammunition.…” At my raised eyebrow, she clarified. “Er, think hard metal objects, like stones for the sling. It shoots them so fast that, depending on the gun and the distance involved, the bullet can go clear through someone.”
I stared at her, but unfortunately, I could imagine such a wound all too well. Drakón skilled in magic could do such a thing: take a pebble and thrust it with power so fast and with such force…but that took finesse, and usually more control and power than it was worth. Especially since, if the intended victim was prepared and was wearing the right armor, they could defend against it easily enough.
“What about shields, armor?” I asked. “Can something stop it?”
“Some things can, but the armor is expensive, heavy, and bulky, so usually only soldiers and police use it. I think it is mostly just for the torso, to protect the most vital organs, but I’m not sure about that. Most times, there’s really nothing you can do against a gun, except get it away from the shooter or take them out first. We don’t have magic, like you do.”
“I see,” I said grimly. No wonder it would be such a devastating weapon.
Perhaps it was just the sort of edge someone like her needed in my worlds. Why else would it have been there? Why else would she have been drawn to it? I took one breath, asking the Tree for one simple answer.
A question so simple—just a yes or a no—had a low enough cost that I only felt a mild drain on my strength to open the connection for just a single moment. When my flameheart warmed and surety filled me, I sent Her a silent thanks and straightened.
I expected that to be all, but the Tree added something more in farewell. Trust. You are right to be wary of such a thing, but trust in Us. Trust in her.
Then Her presence faded.
“Well,” I said calmly, hopefully showing no sign I had doubted. “Want to try it out?”
“Really?” Sarah said in apprehension. “You really think this is it?”
“Oh, I’ll get you trying some other things, don’t worry,” I said with a crooked smile, putting a hand on her shoulder. “But this is the only thing you’ve already used, right?”
“Yeees,” Sarah said, drawing out the word as she examined the smooth metal device in her hands, turning it this way and that. “Sort of? It’s a gun, but I’ve never seen one quite like it. For one thing, they don’t normally have this.”
She ran a finger down the clear crystalline strip inlaid in each side of the barrel.
“For another.…” She pulled at it from a few angles, brow furrowed. “I can’t get the magazine to come out—the part where you load the ammunition.”
She looked all around where the gun had hung and down on the shelves below. “For that matter, I don’t see any ammunition.”
“What if it doesn’t need ammunition?”
“Of course it needs.…” Sarah straightened suddenly, looking up at me with widening eyes. She looked back down at the gun, then back at me.
“What?” I asked, spreading my hands.
“Everything in this place,” she said slowly. “It’s been recognizable to you as being from your worlds, your magic, your technology. Or it’s been a blend of both our worlds, like the fridge, or the showers, or the automatic lights. Or it’s been something completely other, something only the Moontouched could have created, by themselves—like the helping lights, or the moongates. But it’s never been entirely mine. Or…Earthren, however you want to put it. If this had been what I thought it was, in its entirety, that would have broken the pattern. But you know what? I don’t think it is. I think you’re right: I don’t think it shoots ammunition.”
She looked down at the thing in her hands as if seeing it for the first time. “But then…what does it shoot?”
I shrugged helplessly. “Your guess is as good as mine—probably better.”
Sarah bit her lip. When she spoke, she seemed like she could hardly believe she was saying the words. “I guess the only way to find out is…to try it out.”
“Let’s do it,” I agreed.
I strode to the west wall, where there were metal rings inlaid just as they were on the floor, except in sizes ranging from a few feet to ten across. I brushed one of the ten-foot ones, and the silver field of energy snapped into existence, filling the circle.
“That’s my target?” Sarah asked uneasily.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as I walked back to her.
“Ben…gun ammunition is made of metal. If they bullet off that stone wall.…”
“First,” I said pointedly as I reached her. “I thought you said it didn’t shoot ammunition. Second, nothing is going to bullet. That field entraps anything that hits it: stones, arrows, bolts, spears—all of it. They’ll just stick like womasps in aldew.”
“I have no idea what either of those things are.”
I chuckled. “Whatever hits it will stick, alright? But, just in case.…”
I led her to the hundred-foot marker in front of the target. Then I crouched a moment to touch the barrier line. The faintest field yet sprung up as a straight, floor-to-ceiling wall that stretched across the whole room. It was so translucent, you had to focus to even tell it was there, but it was, shimmering like a soap bubble.
“Don’t be fooled by how delicate it looks,” I said. I summoned an arcball to my hand with a slight shift to scales and back. “It’s flexible enough on this side to let things through…”
I threw the rubber ball, just as I had the fire one. It flew straight through the barrier without the slightest resistance, but when it bounced off the far wall and careened at an angle back toward the barrier, it bounced off as if the barrier had been just as hard as the stone wall it first hit.
While the ball lost momentum by pinging around the space on the other side, I grinned at Sarah, whose jaw had dropped, and finished my sentence. “…but strong enough on the other side to not let anything come back.”
Sarah’s eyes followed the ball’s trajectory and shook her head. “When we get to Earth, remind me to introduce you to a sport we call baseball. I think you’d like it.”
“If you say so.” My gut said we wouldn’t have time to play games. “My point is, we’ve taken all the precautions we can take.”
“All except the hearing protection, I guess,” Sarah said with a sigh.
“Hearing?” I asked curiously.
“Guns are loud,” she explained, holding out the weapon. “At least the ones I’m used to. It’s like setting off a tiny explosion in your hand, and that would echo in this room like a thunderclap. I don’t know what this one is going to do, but.…”
I shrugged. “Better safe than sorry, I guess. May I?”
I reached out tentatively, remembering the last time I’d had to convince her to let me do magic on her ears.
I needn’t have worried. She immediately stepped toward me. “Sure. What are you doing, though? I mean, how is it going to work?”
“I’m going to create another barrier, sort of like all of these, but this one will block out sound, and because it doesn’t have any sort of anchor, I’m going to have to focus constantly to maintain it. It’s a quick fix just for this experiment. I’ll pull out some stuff I have if it looks like we’re going to need it.”
She frowned. “Why not just use it now, and save your power?”
I grinned. “Because it’s a bit of a goopy mess. I assumed you’d want to skip on risking your hair if you could.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I guess I do. I don’t care personally, but I’m not sure my helpers would forgive me if I messed it up.”
Nor would I. She was beautiful normally, but when I’d first seen her rush into the kitchen, wearing that clinging sweater, with her dark brown hair in a crown shining like stars…my stomach had dropped, and it had been surprisingly hard to keep my eyes on Yvera.
Yvera had a bit of a point about the practicality of it, but I was also having a hard time caring.
“So.…” I lifted my hands again.
“Go ahead,” she said, looking at me with perfect trust. The contrast from before warmed my flameheart.
I cupped both her ears in my hands and brought a sheen of power to the surface of my skin. I shaped it to her ears, focusing on what I wanted it to do: block sound, protect her delicate membranes. Then I hardened it in place and pulled away. Even after I let go, I felt a constant invisible pull from each of the gold casings around her ears, to which I gave a constant trickle of energy, and would for as long as the experiment lasted.
I hadn’t mentioned to Sarah that I could create an anchor for my power, much like the metal lines in the floors and walls were, but that would involve my blood again, and though she might trust me now, if she disliked my expenditure of power for her sake, she would dislike my bleeding for her even less—even though the amount of power spent would be about the same, if you counted what I’d need to heal. With the blood, I would just have to concentrate less—one payment of power and done—which made it the better choice in my mind, but I wasn’t going to bother trying to convince her of that.
“Are they working?” I asked.
Sarah watched my lips move, but she just blinked. Louder than necessary, she said, “If you just asked if they’re working, then that’s a definite yes. Geez, I can’t hear anything. Except a ringing.”
That’s your mind compensating for the silence, I told her with my inner voice.
“I figured.”
Well, I said, gesturing to the target. Have at it.
She frowned at me. “Aren’t you going to do your ears, too?”
No. Before she could protest, I said firmly, My ears are a bit…tougher, and any damage to them will heal within moments at this time of day. Besides, if neither of us can hear, how are we supposed to know how loud the gun is? That’s kind of an important detail for us to be aware of.
She scowled, but she turned toward the target. She paused for a moment, brow furrowed, and then walked beyond the hundred-foot mark and took the few more steps to come right up against the barrier. Then she tentatively probed the end of the barrel through the barrier so that the tip, where I presumed something would shoot forth, was beyond it.
“Just in case,” she told me, looking over her shoulder. “And…just in case, stay behind me.”
I nodded. What I didn’t say was that I had power tingling at the surface of my skin, ready at a second’s notice to throw up an additional shield around her.
She settled into a stable stance, bringing both hands to the handle of the gun.
Wait, I said quickly as something occurred to me. Just give me a second to alert Kor and Yv.
Sarah nodded and relaxed.
Normally, communicating with an inner voice was a bit like directing an arrow of thought to your target, as I had just done with Sarah, but private communication required knowing your target’s location. I could see Sarah, so that made it easy to use my inner voice with just her. Had anyone else been in the room, they wouldn’t have heard a thing. However, not knowing exactly where my wings were, I instead had to cast a wide net, projecting my inner voice far and wide, akin to indiscriminately shouting—except with my power carrying the silent message, it went much further than a shout could.
Kor, Yv. Don’t be alarmed if you hear a loud noise from the training court. Sarah and I are experimenting with something.
Their replies were immediate and typical.
With what? Yvera demanded.
Without me? Kor said in consternation.
I tuned them out and nodded to Sarah. She looked back at the target, raised the gun again, resettled, and took a deep breath. Then pulled the crossbow-like trigger.
The inlaid crystal strips flared white, I saw the faintest and quickest of blurs, and I heard a soft thwap. But that was all. Sarah slowly lowered the gun, keeping both hands on it, and stared at the target, as did I.
A slightly misting shard of something stuck out from somewhere near the outer ring of the target.
“What is that?” Sarah asked.
“It’s cold, whatever it is,” I said, straining all my senses, including tapping into the map of heat I could feel through my flameheart. I felt a void of warmth right where the shard was.
Sarah looked back at me. “What? Did you say something?”
I waved the shields on her ears away. “You won’t be needing those. That’s quieter than even a bow. As I said, whatever it is, it’s cold. Freezing. My guess is ice.”
Sarah stared at the gun in her hands as if it were about to come alive and bite her. “I am holding…an ice dart gun.”
I wasn’t sure what a dart gun was specifically, but dart seemed as good a description as any for the tiny ice shard.
“Did you feel a drain when you shot it?” I asked, eyeing the now steadily glowing white strips on the gun.
“Yeah,” Sarah said wearily. “A big one. Seems a lot of effort for just one shot.”
“Maybe not. Try taking another and see if it drains as much.”
“OK,” Sarah said slowly. She raised the gun again, sighted, and pulled the trigger.
This time, because I was waiting for it, I felt the tiny flare of power, the temperature drop around the gun and even Sarah, the cold rush of energy rocketing from the tip. This time, the shard appeared a few feet closer to the center of the circle.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Sarah said in relief. “And the kickback is almost nothing—nothing compared to what I’m used to.”
My hunch was right. “The drain wouldn’t have been as much because—”
“What in the hellwinds is going on?” Yvera cried, rushing into the court. Her sharp violet eyes took stock of the situation in an instant. If the setup of a training court was as familiar to me as my bedroom, to Yvera, it was her mother’s womb.
“Ben, what is that?” Yvera demanded as she strode over to me, pointing at the weapon in Sarah’s hands.
“Sarah says it’s called a gun,” I said calmly, folding my arms and giving her a look that was a wordless command to cool the torch down. “We think it’s a magic-class precision stealth shooter with short-to-medium range and—for now—ice projectiles.”
“We do?” Sarah said in confusion. “And…for now?”
I inwardly sighed. I’d been trying to win Sarah some points in Yvera’s ledger.
Kor burst into the room, hair wet and mussed, shirt untucked, gasping. “What…did I…miss?”
“Let me see that,” Yvera snapped, going to Sarah.
“Yv,” I said quietly. She would know from my tone that would be her only warning.
She paused. Then she held out her hand, and, from between clenched teeth, she said, “Please?”
Oh, this is going to be good, Kor silently said to me as he came to my side. A smirk was on his lips, and his eyes were bright. Yvera may have known weapons, but Kor knew magic—and this was perhaps more of the latter than the former.
I knew them both, especially in combination. But, still feeling some of the embers from my temper this morning and thinking Yvera needed the lesson, I stayed silent.
“Sure, I guess,” Sarah said with a shrug. She showed the gun to Yvera, pointing to the parts as she mentioned them. “You point this end at the target, and you pull this—”
“I think I can figure it out,” Yvera said irritably, snatching the gun. “I’ve been shooting crossbows since before you knew your letters.”
With one hand, she pointed at the target, sighted, and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. Nothing…except the gun flaring white hot and Yvera dropping it with a hiss and a string of colorful curses. It hit the stone floor with a loud clatter, and Sarah winced. Kor shook with suppressed laughter, but since he valued his life, he kept it in.
“Are you OK?” Sarah gasped, tiptoeing to peer as closely as she dared at Yvera’s hand.
“Fine,” Yvera hissed, stepping away from her, but I knew from the way she held her pink hand that it would be stinging with a shallow burn.
She glared at Sarah as I felt her send a surge of energy to her hand to heal it. “You knew it was imprinted, didn’t you?”
“Imprinted?” Sarah said in bafflement.
“No, she didn’t,” I told Yvera coolly, arms still folded. “I was just explaining that to her before you so rudely interrupted us.”
She turned her gaze to mine, a wounded look entering her eyes, but chagrin was also there, and she looked away when I only raised an eyebrow. She knew she was the one at fault here.
Sarah, apparently, disagreed. “Ben!” she snapped, pointing at the gun on the floor. “You knew that would happen?”
“I guessed it would.”
“You should have warned her,” Sarah scolded as she crouched cautiously over the gun.
“She shouldn’t have needed the warning.”
Even if she couldn’t have guessed at a distance that the weapon was imprinted, as Kor and I did, she should have felt it as soon as she touched the gun. But for her own stubborn, blind reasons, she’d ignored the warning signs and tried to use it anyway. That was the arrogant idiocy that got a rightwing and her leader killed. Hence why I wasn’t feeling guilty, and why Yvera was so furious—with no one right now more than herself.
“You can pick that up,” I continued quickly, since I saw Kor looking as if he wished to elaborate, and Yvera was already suffering enough without him rubbing it in. “It should be cool to the touch for you.”
Sarah prodded the gun with a finger, and finding it just as I said, picked it up gingerly and rose with it to her feet. “What do you mean, imprinted?”
“Meaning just what you saw and felt. That gun was probably always meant for you, but the first time you used it, you sealed it as your own. That’s why the first shot took so much out of you, on top of giving it a full charge. From now on, only you’ll be able to use it.”
Which gave me a great deal of comfort. A powerful weapon was only good if you could make sure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands.
Sarah ran her hand along the barrel, over the white glow. “These strips.…” She glanced at me. “They weren’t white before, were they?”
“No, they weren’t. That’s what made me suspect it had imprinted on you. Think of them as like the doorgems at the last hold, except that gun will have to be melted down before it will answer to anyone else.”
Sarah’s eyes widened. “You mean it won’t shoot—at all? For anyone else?”
I shook my head. “It’s a common feature of magic-based weaponry. You give it its power, you focus its purpose, so it bonds to you—like molding itself to your unique shape.”
“What do you mean, focus its purpose?”
“It shot two ice shards, probably because that was the simplest thing it could do with what you gave it, but another property of magic-class weapons is that their greatest limitations are usually how much imagination and power you put into them. At the very least, you could give the ice specific properties. Sharpness, hardness, or accuracy, for example. Perhaps even light.”
Sarah cocked her head as she listened intently to me. At the last suggestion, she blinked. “Why would I want my darts to glow?”
Yvera snorted at this lack of tactical imagination, but I ignored her.
“Say you were separated from us momentarily.” Flame forbid, but both she and I needed to plan for that contingency. “If it wouldn’t attract unwelcome attention, you could use the lights to guide us back to you.”
Her face cleared. “Oh! Like a signal flare.”
“Or perhaps you wish to track your target in the dark,” Yvera muttered.
Sarah grimaced, and I sighed. I had been trying to start her thinking along the nonlethal lines for a reason.
“Yes, yes,” Kor said with slight impatience. “That’s all wonderful. Give it another shot, will you? So I can observe this time.”
Sarah rolled her eyes, but her lips twitched as she met my gaze, and I wondered if she were remembering Kor’s less articulate request from not too long ago, which Kor had probably already forgotten. He tended not to remember his mumble state. Or so he claimed.
“Alright, Kor. For you,” Sarah said dryly, and she aimed and fired.
And hit just a foot shy of center.
With a weapon like that in her hands, that she already was looking confident using and rapidly improving in, that no one could use against her if they got it out of her hands…I was feeling better already.
“Next time,” I murmured. “Think accuracy. Imagine it hitting center with all your might.”
Sarah nodded grimly without looking away from the target, sighted, and pulled the trigger.
With a soft hiss and thwip…the shard hit dead center.
Kor and even Yvera stared at the slightly steaming shard, which they would know full well had traveled with enough speed and force to pierce through a heart.
Oh, yes. Much better.