By the time Max returned, I was clawing at the walls.
It was amazing the sheer speed at which I swung from weak and ill to feeling like I was crawling out of my own skin. In fact, I felt so good, so energetic, that it edged on unpleasant — like something was just a little bit off, like my blood was running hot. My heart beat fast even when I was sitting still.
So when Max got back, when he showed me the weapons he had gotten from Via… I think I must have looked a little insane, because he hesitated to even let me hold the sword. He did, though, and I cradled it in my hands as if it were a child. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And that name… Il’Sahaj. Blade of no worlds. Blade of all worlds.
Just like me.
If I had been able to stop myself, stop my thoughts, for even a fraction of a second, I might have been moved by it. I didn’t think that Via so much as looked at me when I first met her, let alone saw me as worthy of something like this.
I unsheathed the blade again, feeling the carved bronze handle beneath my palms, trailing my eyes over the dancing silver and gold. Something inside of me purred at the sight of it.
“We haven’t had very much training with swords.”
Max had continued to give me some rudimentary combat training throughout our time together, but not very much of it, and always with much shorter blades than this.
“No,” he said. “I probably should have… if I was thinking right, we probably should have done more. Considering your plans.”
I looked up, and he looked away.
Our gazes still had only brushed each other’s since I woke up. He wouldn’t really look at me. And I supposed I understood that. Even those brief scuffs were heavy with words that weighed on my heart like lead.
I considered all of those words now, everything that I wanted to say to him. Considered how I might tell him how sorry I was for what had happened to his family; how to tell him how much it meant to me that he came back for me. Considered how I might ask him what might happen to me
— to us — next, considering the creature that now lived inside my mind.
But all I could hear was my own rapid heartbeat pounding in my ears, my muscles twitching.
I could try to say all those things… or I could move.
I stood up, pacing, Il’Sahaj clutched in my hands. “We can begin now.”
“Begin… training?” “Yes.”
“Are you feeling—”
“I’m feeling like I cannot stay still for another minute.” I turned on my heel to face him. A wry smile tugged at one side of his mouth. The left, as always.
“You need something to throw yourself into.”
I let out a small breath. He understood. Of course he did. I nodded, loosening a bead of sweat that pooled at my temple.
“Well then.” He picked up his own weapon, curling his fingers around it gingerly. “Fine. If you can do it, I can do
it.”
 |
I WAS SO SOAKED with sweat that the cotton of my shirt was plastered to my back, strands of loose hair clinging to my wet cheeks and neck. And my heart throbbed and throbbed and throbbed.
Once, as a child, I found a little baby rabbit — one left alive after the entire nest had disappeared. It was so small, so fragile, that its whole body trembled with its heartbeat. And each beat was so rapid they all blurred together like hummingbird wings.
That was what my heart felt like. A thousand beats for each breath.
I wasn’t scared, though. Quite the opposite. I felt hungry. I felt ravenous. Powerful, like my blood was boiling in my veins.
Max brought me down to a training room, and I threw myself against that wall with everything that I had. Il’Sahaj sat unused against the door, a sight that infuriated me every time I looked at it. He had given me a sparring stick instead, which I now swung with as much force and precision as I could muster through a series of exercises.
“It’s all about control,” he told me, as he blocked one of my strikes. He used his staff, though he kept the blades sheathed, saying that he needed to get re-acquainted with it. “Just like magic.”
Control. Control. Control. What wasn’t about control?
I threw myself into it further — faster, harder, losing myself in the repetition and the scream of my arms, my back. If it hurt enough, I wouldn’t have to think anymore.
A grunt escaped through my teeth at the impact as another one of my blows smacked against Max’s bronze staff.
“Don’t push yourself too hard.”
I opened my mouth and let out a laugh. A laugh that sounded a little sour, a little acidic — a little too frantic.
Max hesitated just barely, a concerned wrinkle between his brows. I seized upon the opening to push forward. Another swing. Low. He almost missed it.
“Tisaanah—”
I nearly landed another strike. But just as quickly, he turned on his heel, flinging my own force against me, pushing us both against the wall. Our breaths panted and mingled into the air between us, where our staves collided.
He looked at me now. Looked at me with searching, wary intensity. Satisfaction slithered up my spine.
“You feel like everything is running too hot,” he said. “Right?”
Right, I thought, but something inside of me devoured the word before I could acknowledge it. Something that lingered between rage and desire and hunger.
“I’m fine,” I hissed. “You cannot be gentle with me. I’m not done.”
I was capable of anything. I could do this. And he gave me this little wooden stick, as if I would hurt myself with something real?
Ha!
I slipped down, freeing myself beneath his arm, skimming his side and dancing backwards. Dancing— that’s what it was. A series of steps. Deep in the back of my mind, a key slid into a lock. They all lit up against the whitewashed wooden floor, like the map of my mind had been laid out before me.
Max spun as quickly as I did, ready to block. He was fast. It was beautiful, how fluidly he moved. Almost predatory. I wondered what he looked like when he wasn’t holding back. He had been holding back in Tairn. And he was certainly holding back now.
Crack.
Wood collided with metal, splitting the air as he blocked. “That’s enough. Take a break.”
No.
Not enough. Never enough.
I was so focused that I didn’t feel the grin split my face as I pulled back only to lunge again.
And again. And again.
I knew exactly how to move, even in ways unfamiliar to my muscles. My mind pulled the steps from somewhere, fed them to me in numbers like I had known so well in Esmaris’s court.
1, 2, 3, 4…
The cracks of impact came faster and faster. He only blocked, never struck.
I let out a grunt as I surged forward with a particularly vicious leap, and as our weapons met, I could feel the strain of his arms absorbing the impact. I grinned at him, but he met me with scorching stone.
The whorls on his staff ignited with liquid fire, and the staff split cleanly in two.
He sidestepped in one smooth movement, sending me tumbling to the floor with a snarl that sounded nothing like myself. My sparring stick snapped as I collided with the floor.
As I fell, I flung out my arm and sent a spiral of air curling around his legs, sweeping his knees out from under him.
I pounced on him the moment he hit the ground, my skin relishing the coolness of the floor as I planted my palms over each of his shoulders, my broken stick still clutched in my hand. I had draped myself over his torso, our breaths heaving against each other.
“I won.”
Gods, I forgot how much I loved exceeding expectations.
My hair dangled down, having escaped from my braid, now tickling the tip of Max’s nose. I smiled and smiled, but he still looked at me with that solemn, searching look. I relished his gaze, then dragged my own over his jaw, his sweaty throat, down to the apex of his unbuttoned white shirt. So damp that it clung to his skin, revealing every twitch or ripple of the muscles beneath.
I felt no satisfaction from my victory. No, I was hungry, hungry, hungry.
Not enough. Never enough.
“That wasn’t all yours,” he said. “I recognize some of those movements.”
I wasn’t listening.
His hands gripped my shoulders — as if to hold me in place, stop me from moving any closer.
“Tisaanah, look at me.”
Look at me, look at me, look at me.
My head lifted, slowly raking my way back up his body, all the way up to his face.
And with that same movement, I realized my hand was clasped around the broken sparring stick, the sharp end pressed to the underside of Max’s jaw.
And I realized that it was not my voice — not my voice — that flowed over my tongue as I said, “I am looking, Maxantarius.”
