~Chapter Twenty-Seven: Roth Gerr~

“I can’t beat her,” Eola said the next morning. “I don’t know enough.”

Patrice nodded sagely from the couch. “Finally, she starts to understand! You’re in over your head, Eola.”

“So, if I can’t beat her, I’m going to treat this like a learning experience. I need to understand the process well enough to get through the spell-trading. After that, I can make a fight out of it.”

“Eola…”

“I’m serious,” Eola said quickly. “The spell-trading’s going to be easy. I can survive that part by planning and preparing, but I need to know exactly what I’m up against. Can you duel me?”

“Absolutely not,” Patrice snapped. She forced herself to relax a moment later, but the facade had slipped, and Eola caught the flash of fear. “That would be a…bad…idea. For both of us. What I can do is officiate the practice bouts so you know exactly what honor duels look like.”

She stood up, and before Eola could stop her, pounded on Colin’s door. “Time to get moving! We’ve got work to do.” Then she stopped. A malicious-looking grin spread across her face, and she took the three steps to Roth’s door and rapped her knuckles against it.

The sound of harp music stopped almost instantly as Patrice stepped back, and the door popped open. “What?” Roth asked, glaring from under his mop of dark hair. He only wore pants, and Patrice’s face flushed crimson. So did Eola’s. The boy’s muscular torso and arms were covered in scars. Some looked like stab wounds, while others were longer, thinner cuts. All had been healed without the use of magic, leaving a spiderweb of dark, raised scars across his body.

“We’re, uh…” Patrice trailed off.

“I’m dueling Catrine Andrese in six days. Patrice must’ve thought it’d be funny to ask you for help. Sorry,” Eola said quickly, looking down.

Roth’s eyes narrowed, and his door slammed shut. Patrice glanced at it, then at Eola. “My bad,” she whispered.

“Sure,” Eola said quickly. She retreated to her room and worked into her armor and sword-belt, stretching out as quickly as she could. The whole thing was embarrassing at this point, and Roth wasn’t going to help them. He had no interest in them. No interest in anything but his harp, his singing, and the magic he made with it.

Of her three suitemates, he was the biggest enigma. Eola couldn’t understand him at all; he didn’t want their friendship, and he always seemed angry about something. And Eola definitely wasn’t going to ask about those scars, even if she was curious. Desperately curious.

Maybe Patrice would ask about them. She didn’t mind putting her foot in her mouth.

After a minute, Eola’s armor finished embracing her, and she stepped back into the common room. Patrice was still sitting there, and so was Colin. Roth—of course—was nowhere to be found. But the harp hadn’t started again. Eola walked to the door, held her fist out to knock, then hesitated.

“What are you doing?” Patrice stared at her, mortified.

Eola knocked. “I’m sorry. If you do want to help, we’ll be out in the hedge maze.”

Then she turned and opened the suite’s door, and both Colin and Patrice followed her. It was time for battle.

Patrice dragged her foot through the snow, forming a rough box a few dozen feet wide and long. Then she scratched a single line through the center. “You two, stand on either side. We’re going to go through the entire dueling procedure. First, safety. For this practice, you’re both using nothing but Child’s Magic, and you’re banned from using anything that hits harder than, say, a snowball thrown by me.”

She knelt, built a snowball, and threw it at Eola, then lobbed a second at Colin. “Got it?”

Eola rolled her eyes and brushed ice off her shoulder. “Sure. I’m not planning on blowing up Colin or anything.”

“Good. Now, you’d both declare your weapons, but since this is a dry run for practice, we’ll skip that step. It’s boring anyway. Next, you pace off. Seven steps should give us the right distance, more or less. Go, then turn. Wands or hands only. No swords yet.”

Colin took off, stepping quickly. The snow crunched under his feet, and he said, “Ready,” while Eola was only halfway to her designated spot. The cold morning air wormed its way under her armor, even with her blue Varin’s Academy cloak over the top, and she regretted getting all suited up for this. Warm clothes would be better—at least for the first bits of a duel of honor.

Then she turned. Colin’s hand hung at his side, glove off and fingers turning a little red. She had her wand gripped in her own wool glove, and her eyes narrowed slightly at her opponent.

“Great. Spacing looks fine. The next step is acknowledgement. Both sides offer a bow. Catrine’s going to give you the most, uh, anemic-looking bow she can. You want to do the same. This isn’t a duel to the death over a mortal insult or anything. It’s basically a playground squabble—but still serious. No need to be too formal.”

Colin bowed, and Eola did, too, inclining her head just enough to call it one. Her breath hung in the air around her face, and it felt like ice was forming on her eyelashes already.

“Perfect. Now, Colin casts his spell, and Eola defends herself. As soon as that’s done, Eola gets to respond if she’s not knocked out of the fight.”

“Wait,” Colin said, holding up a hand. “We’re really doing this?”

“Absolutely. Why wouldn’t we practice the real thing?” Patrice said. “Begin.”

Eola didn’t hesitate. Her Safe Shield sprang up between her and Colin, and she turned sideways in a fencer’s guard to tuck as much of her body behind it as she could. She’d seen duelists use similar positions, and while she wasn’t as fast as they were, she was faster than Colin.

The spell Colin fired was a simple one—a jet of water that blasted across the improvised dueling pitch, steam pouring off it as it cooled. By the time it hit Eola’s Safe Shield and both shattered, ice fragments splashed across Eola’s face.

She waited a beat, glancing at Patrice. The only indication she got was the other girl’s hand waving in a circle. The motion screamed to get on with it.

Eola got on with it.

Colin’s need for perfection almost got him knocked out of the duel. He was still working on his Safe Shield rune when she finished her Mage’s Hand—the rune was simple, and it couldn’t hit hard enough to actually hurt him. She filled the four-fingered Old Alemic symbol, and a hand slightly larger than hers zoomed across the snow-covered hedge maze, balling itself into a fist, and slammed into Colin’s shoulder.

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He spun. One hand hit the ground, and he caught himself.

“Good job, Colin!” Patrice said, applauding. “If you’d hit the ground, I would have had to call the fight.”

“I kind of wish you had,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing!”

Eola glanced down at her sword belt. “So, now that we’ve both survived the other’s spell-trading, we duel like Y’aer intended? Swords, spells, and all of that?”

“Normally, yes, but neither of us can keep up with you in that kind of duel, and you’re going to have a hard time matching Catrine. She’s grown up as a duelist, and in a less formalized setting—“

“I won’t be able to counter her scent magic,” Eola finished. “I’m working on that, but…well, it’d help if I knew which spells she usually used. I’ve got a pretty exhaustive list of Child’s Magic in my spellbook, but…the one time I saw a scent mage fight, my dad could only negate her because she hadn’t aimed directly at us, and even then, it was only a blocking spell, not opposing magic.”

Patrice hesitated. Then she sat in the snow. “I can’t tell you her spells. I swore an oath. Violating it would get me in all sorts of trouble.”

“Not if no one knew,” Colin said.

“It’s a ritually-sealed oath. They’ll know. I can’t even tell you my family’s spells, but they’re both doozies, trust me. They’re outstanding—just not for dueling. Keep us the powerhouses of the Lake of Shards, though. But, no, House spells are very, very secret.”

“Oh.”

Eola let herself nod once. “Let’s do it again. I want to be as comfortable with the duel as I can get before I have to fight Catrine.”