“What about Silk?”
“What?”
“Silk, that’s its name. Silk, because it feels like cold silk.”
“Like chuck,” he says, turning and marching away. “If it gets a name, I’ll pick what it is.”
Playfully, I bump him with my shoulder, managing to tread in the water instead of on the stepping stones.
The cold is worse than before. How did Killian dunk me under in this and not kill me? Clearly, I’ve been stealing other parts of their Saber-ness.
“You just said chuck,” I whisper.
“To stop you naming this thing.” He grunt-chuckles.
I smile. “Let’s call it Chuck.”
“No.”
Which makes me snort. Poking Killian is fun.
We keep walking to the back of the cleared space that’s been claimed for sparring and drawing blood.
“So, what are we doing?” I ask, shaking the water from my pants leg.
“Training.”
I rub my hands together in mock excitement. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
He looks down at me, still setting a cracking pace towards the tree line. “Liar.”
“Nope.”
“I’m not training with you,” Killian says.
“I’m not giving you a choice,” I bite back.
“Good.”
Sometimes he’s more painful to talk to than Seth – and that’s saying something.
He leads me all the way to the far side of the grassy space that used to be a crop of some kind. Maybe wheat so she could make her own flour. Or maybe a mixture of things like wheat and corn. There’s no sign of what it was now, and being winter it was probably harvested long ago. In its place grass has grown quickly, thick and lush and alive like a carpet under my feet, fueled by magic.
He draws a blade into each hand, one of which is mine, and he swivels it for me to take.
“Close combat,” he says.
“What happened to self-defense?”
He smiles wickedly. “Defend yourself against me in close combat. If you can’t use our powers, then you must focus on speed and instinct.”
He begins to stretch, and I become his mirror, pushing my body to the limits and finding all the places that pull pleasant pain from my muscles.
“Ready?” he asks.
I don’t get to answer before he attacks. I don’t even have a chance to get up off the ground. He lunges right, and I snatch the blade from next to me and try to dodge left. But he’s already there. I jump back, barely seeing his kick in time to correct myself. Then his punch in time to duck and roll.
The wall is a constant fear.
Don’t knock myself out. Don’t knock myself out.
But holding a hand up to feel for it seems like the perfect way to invite Killian to try and cut the thing off. When I feel it with my feet, I instinctively propel backwards. I don’t trip, don’t fall, or hurt myself in any way. Excitement bursts inside of me. I have an advantage.
My only advantage.
I dodge again, this time using the blade to block. He flicks my weapon to the side, coming in fast with a flash of cold steel that nicks through the fabric on my stomach.
I jump back, gasping and heart pounding and already sweating. The shirt’s ripped, but there’s no pain, no blood.
Disappointment drops to the pit of my stomach.
He’s going easy on me – which breaks my Killian mold. He can’t change now; I won’t let him.
His blade swings towards my right shoulder. Trying to force me further back from my weapon in the grass. I let him, running in the wrong direction – hard and straight at the wall. Guessing where it should be, launching myself in the air and using the solid surface to flip me up and over his head. My flip’s good. Bending my knees as I land and barely containing my whoop of triumph – because right beside my foot is my weapon.
Yes!
His smile, pure joy and just a little impressed, is more disarming than the man charging at me. I almost don’t get out of the way of his boot in time, dodging left and popping up behind him.
But before he can turn to mount his next attack, I thrust out and up, feeling resistance for the barest second.
Feeling my blade nick shirt and arm.
He cocks his head to the side, inspecting the tiny cut I just put into his bicep.
“Not sorry,” I say. “You fight like a toddler.”
His lips pull into a smile, his body moving into a fighter’s crouch, and the green in his eyes pierces right into me. Pure joy. No Darkness. No power. Just Killian and me and challenge.
I’m challenging him.
For once I don’t care if I get hurt – I may even want to get hurt. And I don’t care if I hurt him either, because if I feel like this, then there’s no reason why he shouldn’t join me.
The notion is like a shot of adrenaline on its own.
I take the bait. Lunge in close with my blade raised but instead land a punch to his jaw.
Where the chuck did that move come from?
Pain streaks across my knuckles, and I grimace, gasp, and enjoy it.
I don’t stop – he doesn’t stop. Sweeping me off my feet then kicking my hip while I’m still in midair. I smack into the wall, then the ground, and damn, that hurts good. He charges, I roll, find my feet, and thrash upwards – cutting through his pants and drawing blood on his ass.
I snort. “Still not sorry.”
He doesn’t even stop to inspect the damage, which is a little disappointing. “Again,” he orders.
“My pleasure,” I counter.
The dance between us continues. Each block or hit, each cut I take or make, makes me feel more connected to my own soul than I possibly can be at the moment, and to him. Just Killian and me and no other existence in this whole entire world.
So I thrust again, a delicious sting drawing my mind away from useless thoughts. Clearing it. Emptying it. Focusing it.
I’m sure I’m puffing and panting, stumbling, and all of those other things I was doing last time Killian left cuts in my flesh.
