Chapter 021

Every fight is against yourself. Control, Harker. It’s all control.

“This is idiotic, human,” Stillwater growled. Harker ignored him and put his foot onto the fence.

“If you think I’m helping you, you’re wrong!” The Gilken folded his arms and turned away. “Those things can’t hurt a refined body, even on the Surface.”

My body isn’t refined. Not even a little. Not that you need to know that. Harker took a breath but didn’t stop climbing into the ring. That wasn’t news he was keen to hear.

He kept an eye on the stickjak as he crunched across the hay. It stood in the center, half bent with its arms hanging loose by its knees, like a child’s toy flung carelessly across the room.

“I’ve never fought one of these before,” he admitted. The three Talented stood at the fence, a different shade of eagerness on all of their faces. “How do I—?”

“Just get closer,” Sven said with a grin. “It’ll wind up.”

Given no other option, Harker took several confident strides into the center. It was the part he had to play now; he couldn’t allow the other Talents to see him sweat.

On the last step, the stickjak glimmered with a wash of familiar blue-green. Water flowed into its limbs, tracing through the gaps between the bundled sticks of its arms and legs. It straightened with a snap, and it was all Harker could do not to jump. Arms banded by leather and cloth straps lifted up, the “fists” just a bundle of leather and dangling ribbons. It turned toward Harker and tilted its empty head, moss dangling from the edge.

“Hello to you too,” Harker muttered. “So I just attack it?”

“Do your worst,” Sven said, nudging Anita. She gave an eager smile.

The stickjak advanced.

Harker backed away in a circle, pulling his knives free. The others had used weapons. He couldn’t see a reason why he shouldn’t too.

The stickjak rushed in. It stomped forward with powerful strides that scattered dirt and hay in its wake. Harker dove into a roll, evading its first jab before scrambling back from its sweeping kick.

The stickjak followed.

It’s stronger and faster than me. He barely evaded another swing, the ribbons from its leather mits slapping against his face. But that’s nothing. I can handle this.

“Sovereign Sight.”

His Talent spread outward three feet before he stopped its expansion. It hovered there, feeding him dizzying information as the construct swung a jab toward his midsection.

Harker moved backward, fighting to right his tilted vision. The world spun only slightly as the disorientation wore down, but every step was a gamble. The stickjak moved closer with every powerful stomp, and Harker got away by thinner and thinner margins.

Details flared through him. The rush of air from the stickjak’s punches, the smell of hay, the gurgle of Water…

Gurgle?

The construct struck three times in quick succession. Harker took two hits straight to the chest, knocking him flat on the ground with a grunt.

“Oh no.” Stillwater said, tone flat. “Don’t hurt him. Not my idiot human.”

Harker grunted, rolling out of the way of the stickjak’s heavy stomp. Dirt cascaded over him, sliding off his cloak and sweater as he stood. Details danced all around him, vying for his attention, but there was only one thing worth focusing on. The gurgling.

It’s Water…

He wanted to throw up, but held back. He ran, keeping just ahead of the stickjak’s attacks—he could feel the air its leather mits pushed ahead of itself, like a soft warning against his weak flesh. It was all a distraction, though.

Water was bubbling. Not his, or any Talented—it came from the stickjack itself. From its chest!

He twisted, retracing his steps back toward the construct. The thing didn’t react like a person would—instead it swung both fists down like a hammer. Ribbons caught the air and bindings creaked, pulling his attention…

Harker sliced with both knives. The leather along its elbows held for only a moment before they ripped free, sending dozens of sticks scattering in every direction.

“Hey! That’s expensive!” Sven yelled.

Harker didn’t care. The stickjak reeled backward but Sovereign Sight was already piercing the stickjak’s body. It peeled away its reinforced shell of cloth wrappings and treated wood, exposing its insides to every bit of Harker’s awareness. It was a mesh of confusing parts, shapes and functions he’d never seen before. One, however, was obvious. An oblong vessel, connected to a series of tubes, and half-filled with refined Water. The tubes extended outward and down, through its chest and belly toward its limbs, and it gurgled fiercely as the stickjak tried to recover from its broken arms.

The join is chipped. With enough force, I could—

“Faster!” Sven yelled, but this time, Harker was certain it was not to him.

The stickjak sped up. It whipped its disjointed arms at him one after the other, lashing him across the back. But without elbow joints, it couldn’t properly reach him, and they were no more than glancing blows. Harker dropped low and spun around its body, angling toward the spot he’d seen. That he could still see.

The construct’s kicks and punches were fast, but its ability to turn was not. It creaked after him, only half facing his direction when Harker darted close, knife first. It kicked up, missing his chin by the barest of margins, and Harker stabbed straight for the chipped join between sticks.

Glass shattered.

Its leg froze half-way back to the earth, its heel only inches away from Harker’s head.

Water poured from the creature’s chest like lifeblood, and its head slumped onto its chest before it collapsed.

“Sacred Depths,” Anita whispered.

Harker cut off his Talent. Swallowing, he mustered the strength to straighten up, sheath his blades, and face the trio.

Johan and Anita clapped, the latter hooting with impressive volume.

Sven, however, was a thunderhead. His face was red and his brows tried their best to meet above his narrow nose. “What did you do?” He hopped over the fence, rushing to the side of the stickjack. “You broke it!”

With a few deft movements, the young man opened a near-invisible panel in the stickjak’s side. Pieces of its innards fell out, knocked free by the tubes that had sprayed its interior with glowing Water. The glass vessel at its heart was shattered. “You broke its reservoir? How…? I-I don’t know if my dad can fix this.”

“Calm down, Sven. Your father is a Talented man. He can figure out…”

“No! No. Maintaining this stickjak is—it uses so many resources. Father will be furious!”

Harker looked between the three of them. He’d half expected an outcome like this. His hands never left his knives. “I thought you wanted me to fight it?”

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“Yes, fight it. Use your weak Talent, hayseed!” Sven clutched pieces of glass, still wet with evaporating liquid. “Not destroy it!”

Maybe it was lack of sleep, or maybe it was the needling by a malicious Eidhrin all night, but Harker couldn’t help himself. “You said to do my worst. This was the clearest path to victory.”

Sven stood up, putting his red face inches from Harker’s nose. “So you don’t care about anyone else, huh? I think it’s time you use that trash Talent on a real opponent.”

Harker took a single step back, hands never moving from his knives. “No.I have no interest in fighting you.”

“You don’t got a choice!”

Sven swung. The strike was reckless and wild, telegraphed from a mile away, and Harker leaned away from it.

“Sven, stop that!” Anita shouted from the side, but her angry friend ignored her.

Sven closed the distance—or rather, he tried to close it. Every step he took was another movement Harker made away, slipping from range and across the training pen in wide circles.

“Stop dodging and fight!” Sven spat.

He wasn’t like Kaz or Mert—Harker noticed that right away. If the boy had refined himself, it was likely just his skin. His muscles seemed to give him no great speed or strength, and unlike the stickjak, he was only human.

Harker could handle this.

“As you wish.” He ducked under the man’s guard, tripping him before driving a fist into his solar plexus. “Unf!”

Sven grinned as Harker massaged his fist. Skin refinement confirmed.

He sliced the flat of his other hand directly at Sven’s throat. The boy choked, clutching his neck as he stumbled back.

Skin refinement is almost always thinnest at the throat, eyes, and ears. Harker grinned. There’s always a weakness.