She leaned back and stared at me from beneath a furrowed brow. “That doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” I said, putting an arm around her shoulder and pulling her close. “We’ve got all the time in the world to figure it out.” She nodded as she snuggled against my shoulder, and I closed my eyes and rested my head on hers. Dancing light from the noontime sun shone down through the trees and warmed my face, tempered to perfection by a gentle breeze blowing through the forest. This is where our life starts. With our task for the day completed early, I was entirely content to do nothing but enjoy the moment of peace. The comforting metronome of Lia’s gentle breathing beside me combined with the beautiful weather was too much for me to bear, and I quickly dozed off.
A soft tapping on my knee woke me some time later. “Lux? Are you awake?”
“Mhmm.”
“I need to ask you something.”
The worry in her voice dispelled my midday drowsiness, and I sat up with one final yawn. “What’s on your mind?”
“It’s my parents,” she answered. “After you fell asleep, I started to think about all of the places I want to go on our adventures. I want to explore Lybesa, and visit Doram, and see the Eastern Forests, but every time I thought about leaving, I felt this knot in my stomach whenever I imagined saying goodbye. After everything that’s happened, I just…” she trailed off, shaking her head, “I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right to leave them unprotected anymore.”
The thought had crossed my mind as well, but the out-of-the-way location of their new house had mostly assuaged my worries. She clearly had more to say, so I nodded for her to continue.
“I know we can’t just stay here and watch over them forever; I think I’d go crazy if they were the only people I could talk to.” She looked away towards her hands and fidgeted nervously. “So, I was thinking that, maybe...we could train Marin to fight. Like we do.”
I felt an immediate, visceral rejection of the idea in my stomach, but I clamped my jaw shut before I could protest out loud. “I’ll be honest with you, Lia: I hate the idea. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad one.”
She looked up at me with wide eyes. “Wait, really?”
“Really,” I nodded, letting out a deep sigh. “Marin has been nothing but kind to us since we met her. She risked her life multiple times to make sure we all got to Lybesa safely, and she hadn’t even known us for a week. Obviously, she’s a good person.” I took a moment to fight against the reflexive clenching of my jaw before I continued. “How I feel about Val shouldn’t influence the decision.”
Lia hugged me tightly. “Thank you, Lux.”
“Don’t thank me yet; there’s a chance that Marin won’t want to learn how to fight,” I said, patting her on the shoulder. “And if she does, we can discuss teaching her about magic later. I’m still not sure we should teach magic to anybody, let alone Val’s sister.” I flinched as the words left my mouth. “Not that that matters.”
She put a hand to her mouth to hide her grin. "I know she'll say yes. She keeps telling me how much she wants to help, and how she, uhm, how much she admires me for being strong."
"That settles it, then," I said, grinning at her blushing cheeks. "You'll be the one to train her."
"M-me?!" she asked, recoiling in shock. "I don't know how to train anybody! I'm still learning things from you!"
"Oh, nonsense. You're the second best fighter in the entire world, Lia." I paused for a moment and raised my eyebrows up and down until she laughed. "As long as I'm around, I'll make sure you never stop learning new things, but that doesn't mean you aren't ready to be a teacher. I'm learning new things from you every day, too, you know." I stood up and stretched my folded legs. "Besides, it's not like I won't be around. I'll be sparring with both of you all the time."
“Okay,” she answered, clearly still uncertain. After a moment she shook her head and jumped to her feet with a sudden burst of energy. “No. I’m going to do it, and it’s going to go great!” she exclaimed, pumping her fist.
“That’s the spirit!” Her enthusiasm quickly spread to me, and I began to look at the prospect of training Marin in a more amenable light. As I smiled down at her, I realized for the first time how low the sun had dipped during my nap, and I looked back in the direction we had come. “If we want to make it back before dark, we should probably go now.”
As we started our trip back through the woods, I scanned out ahead of us to find our exact destination and was amazed to find that the path to the Corells’ clearing was already nearing completion. The large work crew swarmed like a colony of ants along the road, clearing lumber, packing down the freshly bared earth, and felling trees. They moved with an impressive level of efficiency that explained Elise’s confidence in her promise of the project being finished by the end of the week. By the time we reached the clearing, the contractors were removing the last of the felled trees via the newly created driveway.
Marten was busy discussing the impending build with the foreman, so Lia and I waited quietly at the edge of the clearing until Marin and Hana arrived. It took a considerable amount of effort from all of us to draw Marten away from the project, but we
