“What? Why?” Elan took a step back, affronted. “I know the moves! I did them right, I know I did!”
“You did indeed,” Simone told her. “You did them perfectly, with skill and precision. If you had another two or three times your body weight behind you, those would have been the strikes of a journeyman blademaster at the very least.”
Elan was puzzled by the statement, missing the look of shock and slight chagrin from Caleb at that pronouncement.
“Then…why?”
“Because your father’s blade style ill suits you, child. You don’t have his size or his muscle,” Simone told her. “For you we need speed, precision, and a more flowing motion. Come, let me see your blade.”
Elan hesitated, but stepped forward with halting steps until she was in front of Simone. Reluctantly she extended the weapon, pommel first as she’d been taught. Simone accepted it, turning it away from Elan and hefting it so she could get a good feel for it.
“Acceptable,” she said finally, handing the weapon back. “You may start with this blade, but until you master the new forms, I believe that for match ups with Caleb, we’ll focus on stave practice.”
Elan looked puzzled while Caleb groaned audibly.
“I hate stave practice, Simone,” he moaned.
“All the more reason to practice, then,” she responded with a grin that indicated far too much pleasure in the moment.
Elan had a suspicion that she was not going to enjoy this training near so much as she had the time she spent training with her father. She grimaced slightly and looked with some trepidation to where Simone was retrieving a pair of staves for the two of them.
Yeah. This isn’t going to be fun.
Chapter 10
If anything, Elan realized in short order that she had been massively underestimating just how very unpleasant the experience turned out to be.
Her knuckles were bloodied, arms and legs were sporting bruises upon bruises, and she really wanted to be doing anything other than the small chores she’d been assigned by Simone after they’d finished. Still, she’d been fed and her injuries treated, so she would not have felt right begging off even if she’d been given the option.
The work was light, however. Simone had insisted on that as a nod to both her treated injuries and the bruising she’d picked up at the hands of Caleb.
He’d been properly apologetic about it, she reflected on that. He reminded her of her father when he’d done something he knew her mother was not going to like. Elan didn’t know what that meant. It was beginning to dawn on her that everything she knew about human interaction came entirely from her parents and…bizarre as it seemed to her, that wasn’t normal.
Most people had dozens, even hundreds—a number that honestly boggled Elan’s mind to the point where she secretly doubted it was a real thing—of people who they took their example from.
That seemed so…abnormal.
She didn’t really know what to think about it. It felt so very alien.
For the moment, however, she had simply decided not to think about it at all. She elected instead to just focus on the immediate instead: learning what they could, and would, teach her…doing what chores she was asked to, and practicing those things that her father had taught her as though he were still there.
Perhaps his sword style was not for her—Elan didn’t know if she really believed that yet—but she would practice it religiously anyway. It was his legacy for her. She wouldn’t let it be lost. The skills her mother had taught her as well, they would not be neglected. She had learned all she knew of surviving, of living, from her mother in the time before her father came.
Elan hadn’t realized at the time just how important those skills were. They were just the things she had to do, chores.
She knew better now.
The one thing she was most intent on continuing, however, was her steps into the Dreaming.
Having achieved that lofty goal once, even under such painful circumstances, Elan couldn’t help but feel like a starving woman presented with a feast she hadn’t been fully aware of, just out of her reach. Now that she’d had a taste, she couldn’t go back to fasting.
So, after finishing her assigned chores and enduring a surprisingly uncomfortable meal in which she stared more at the table than she ate, uncertain as to how to act around entirely new people, Elan retired early to rest, recuperate, and hopefully to dream.
*****
She woke, screaming.
She couldn’t hear her own voice, and it took several long seconds before Elan realized that no sound was coming out, though her mouth was open and she was sitting up. Her screams still rang in her ears, but with no reactions from anyone else in the small home, Elan had to assume that they were from her dreams.
She couldn’t remember what she’d dreamed. The details were gone. The fear, that was still with her.
Elan didn’t understand it; she’d never felt that sort of fear before in her life. Not even when she saw her…what was left of her parents, not even when the demons staked her out and left her to die.
She hadn’t had time for fear then.
Now, she had nothing but time, it seemed. She didn’t know what to do now. Should she remain here? Learn? Leave and hunt down Venadrin?
A shiver ran through her as she sat there, cold sweat drying on her body.
The terror had snuck up on her in her sleep, and Elan didn’t know what to do about it. She couldn’t fight that, she had no idea how. It wasn’t human; it wasn’t demon. It was something deep inside herself, and her father had never told her how to fight…herself.
Elan, shivering, lay back down and curled up under the thin blanket.
Sleep wasn’t going to come easily, she knew, if it came at all.
Eventually, she drifted off again into a fitful sleep, rolling on the mat that separated her from the ground.
*****
Venadrin knelt at the foot of the pulpit that lead to the black throne, head practically touching the floor as he waited for the lord to take notice of his existence. It was something the man hated with every fiber of his being, kneeling there, both hoping and dreading that this…thing…would notice that he even existed.
If he had his way, he would kill them all.
Demons, humans, practically every living thing he had ever been in the presence of. None of them were worth the air they wasted with each useless breath.
However, that was beyond his power and he knew it.
So he knelt there, forcing patience to win over disgust, and waited.
Finally, he felt the presence of the Fal lord turn onto him with a weight that was almost palpable.
“So, human, what report do you have for me.”
It was phrased as a question, yet had none of the intonations of one, making it clear that an order had been given.
“My Lord,” Venadrin said quickly in response, “I have left detailed reports of the settlement’s defenses with your generals. It will be a costly fight. They have prepared as well as might be expected, but victory is assured.”
The lord observed him for a time, then spoke again. “Of course it will be costly, human,” the lord chuckled. “Were it not, I would already have eliminated them. I will look over your detailed reports and let you know if I have use of you again.”
“Of course, my Lord.” Venadrin bowed deeply again before backing away as he recognized the dismissal for what it was.
Venadrin paused at the exit to the room as a small demon rushed past him and called to the lord, excited beyond reason in Venadrin’s opinion. No being should be in either a rush, or excitement, to be entering the presence of any Fal lord…to say nothing of the beast at his back now.