102 – Merge

Sera was standing on the roof above the courtyard, looking at Alexandra.

How long had she been there?

Alexandra tore her eyes away and looked at Kashin. Her teacher’s expression was unreadable, but she thought that, maybe, he pointed her out on purpose.

After all, if she wasn’t keeping an eye on her, Sera had no reason to be hiding on the roof. She couldn’t have known that Alexandra would come here today. She couldn’t have known her skills were ready to merge.

Zamar took a step back, moving closer to the wall, and Sera jumped down into the courtyard.

She gave Alexandra a look. “The Magus will be delighted to learn that your skills are coming along so quickly.”

Alexandra tightened her grip on her weapons. Paranoia or not, Sera was suspicious.

Sera turned to Kashin. “He’ll be less happy about other things, teacher.”

Alexandra looked at Kashin. “What other things?”

Kashin’s expression didn’t change. “The mood of the Magus is of little importance. Grab a spear and a dagger so we can get started.”

Alexandra saw Zamar’s eyes widen at the casual mention of the Magus. She still had difficulties reconciling her image of Raymond with what he had become.

Sera picked up the two weapons. She was responsible for the spear and the dagger. Kashin had the sword and the axe, while Alexandra wielded the mace and the sickle.

“Use only Combat Sense and your weapon mastery skills,” Kashin instructed.

“I have Sure Footing. I can’t deactivate it.”

“That is fine. Do not hold back your strikes. We can endure,” Kashin said. “Let’s start.”

Kashin moved, sword rising from his hip in an arc that held no impatience, no excess. The axe was quiet behind him. Alexandra raised the mace and found her teacher had already redirected the blade. She scrambled to raise her sickle. The impact ran up through her arm to the elbow.

Sera hit her from the right. Spear butt. Shoulder.

Alexandra stumbled forward. Fuck, I need to focus.

She let Combat Sense lay both Keepers across her awareness. Position, angle, distance: she knew where they were, not what to do.

Kashin again. His sword cut through the air slowly. Yet, somehow, she couldn’t escape it. When she moved, the sword followed. Inexorable. She couldn’t widen the distance. She faced it, caught the sword with her sickle, and found the axe already reaching at the end of the sequence. The head of the axe grazed her shoulder.

Alexandra threw her body to the side to avoid a thrust of Sera’s spear. The blue-robed Keeper pivoted and planted her dagger into her forearm. Just the very tip.

She stepped back. Sera’s spear shaft found the back of her knee. She lurched.

Kashin was there, the flat of his sword unhurried across her ribs.

Sure Footing kept her upright. Her breathing was heavy.

“Fight back,” Kashin said, indifferent.

She stopped moving backward.

She’d been approaching the fight wrong. Just because she was fighting a Platinum and an Emerald didn’t mean she had to be on the defensive. She tightened her grip on the sickle and moved for Kashin.

His sword came in an arc. She stepped past it and caught the blade on the inside of the sickle’s curve and pulled. The axe followed. She leaned into it. Hit his forearm with the mace. He didn’t react.

Sera closed her retreat with one step. Alexandra pressed anyway. She threw her weight into the mace, aiming for the spear shaft. Sera pivoted and reached with her dagger, scraping Alexandra’s elbow. The Keeper had to take two steps back to avoid a swipe of her sickle.

“Better,” Kashin said.

She rolled her shoulder out and took stock. She’d landed one strike. The mace and sickle still felt like two separate problems in her hands. She had a vague sense there was something she was missing about how they fit together, but it stayed vague. Then there were the other four weapons to integrate into her style.

She gritted her teeth and charged at Sera, trying to close the distance before the spear could find her. Sera sidestepped with ease, and Alexandra felt the dagger nick her wrist as she passed.

She spun. Kashin was already there.

His sword came from the left. She caught it on the sickle and shoved it aside. He let the blade carry and brought the axe up behind her deflection. She ducked. The axe passed over her head. She drove the mace at his knee, and he was gone, back two steps, the sword already resetting.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Sera’s spear found her shoulder again.

Alexandra staggered.

You are not going to beat them. So stop trying to beat them.

She wasn’t fighting to win. She was fighting to merge her skills.

Kashin moved. She raised the mace, not to stop the sword but to occupy it, and pivoted into Sera’s space. The Keeper pulled her spear back and stepped left. Alexandra followed the step, pressed with the sickle. Sera’s dagger came up. Alexandra let it scrape down her forearm and shoved her elbow into Sera’s chest.

Sera made a sound.

Kashin’s axe caught Alexandra across the back. Flat of the blade. She pitched forward, and Sera caught her with the spear shaft across the collarbone, and she went down on one knee, weapons still in her hands.

“Up,” Kashin said.

She got up.

*

It was the fifth time she went down. She stayed down for a moment longer than the others.

Not from exhaustion. The sun had peeked through the clouds. She wasn’t tired. She was looking at the packed dirt in front of her hands and thinking about how she’d caught Kashin’s sword on the sickle eight times, and she still didn’t know what to do after.

She looked at the mace in her right hand.

She looked at the sickle in her left.

She’d been using them as though they were interchangeable. As though they’d been chosen at random.

They hadn’t been.

She got up again.

*