Chapter 35: Target Practice

Justiciar Hale had a courtyard behind his house with a stone well in the middle of it, and by the second hour of training, Kai had hit the well, the back door, two flower pots, and Garrick, but not once had he hit the straw dummy Sunny had set up at the far end.

"Again," Sunny said.

"I’ve done it forty times," Kai said, rubbing his wrist. "It’s not going to start working on forty-one."

"You do not know that," Sunny said. "That is why it is called practice."

Sunny had decided at breakfast that if Kai was going to stand in an arena against the champion of the Iron Father, he was at least going to stand there knowing which end of a spell came out first. He had dragged everyone out into the courtyard before the bread was even cold, and now he stood beside the dummy with his arms folded, looking patient in a way that made Kai want to throw a flower pot at him.

[He is very handsome when he is disappointed]

"Whose side are you on?" Kai whispered.

[Yours. I am only making an observation]

Kai sighed, planted his feet the way Sunny had shown him, and pointed his finger directly at the center of the dummy’s straw chest.

"Minor Smite," Kai said.

The blast of golden light shot out of his finger, flew towards the dummy, and then curved upward at the last second like it had remembered an appointment somewhere else. It hit the copper weathervane on top of Hale’s roof, and the weathervane spun around so fast that it whistled, flew off its pole, and came crashing down into the well with a loud splash.

Everyone in the courtyard stared at the well for a long moment.

"That is forty-one," Elowen said from the bench by the door, where she was polishing her sword.

"Thank you, Elowen," Kai said.

"You are welcome," Elowen said. "I did not want you to lose count."

Garrick sat on the edge of the well with a cold cloth pressed against the lump on his forehead from attempt number twelve, and he looked down into the water with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"At least you’re getting more height on them," Garrick said.

Mira was sitting on the back steps with her father’s ledgers piled beside her, sorting them into stacks for Hale, but she had stopped pretending to read a while ago. Every time Kai missed, she pressed her lips together and looked very hard at the page in front of her, and her shoulders kept twitching the same way they had at the palace.

"Your shoulders are talking again," Kai said.

"They’re not saying anything," Mira said, turning a page she hadn’t read.

Princess Seris was the only one who looked completely serious about any of it. She had traded her stolen maid’s dress for a pair of Hale’s late son’s riding clothes, and she was sitting cross-legged on the grass with a small notebook in her lap, writing down every single miss in careful handwriting.

"What are you writing?" Kai asked.

"Where the spells go," Princess Seris said, without looking up. "If you cannot hit what you aim at, then the spells must be going somewhere for a reason. I want to know what the reason is."

"The reason is that I’m bad at this," Kai said.

"That is not a reason," Princess Seris said. "That is an excuse."

[I like her]

"You like everyone who insults me," Kai whispered.

[That is not true. I also like Garrick]

Justiciar Hale came out of the back door just before noon with his cane in one hand and a rolled sheet of paper in the other, and he stopped to look at the empty pole on his roof where the weathervane had been.

"That was my grandfather’s," Hale said.

"I’m really sorry," Kai said.

"I never liked it," Hale said, and he handed Mira the paper. "The King has seen the ledgers, Lady Vallen. He has sealed them in the royal archive, and a warrant has been issued for the High Priestess in the name of the crown. Every gate in the city has her description, though I suspect she is long gone by now."

Mira read the warrant twice, and then she folded it very carefully and tucked it inside her dress, right over her heart, next to her father’s letter.

"Thank you," Mira said.

"Do not thank me," Hale said. "Thank the man who keeps missing things." He turned to Kai and leaned on his cane. "I have also learned something about the Iron Father’s champion, and I am afraid you will not enjoy hearing it."

"I haven’t enjoyed anything you’ve told me so far," Kai said.

"His name is Brannoch," Hale said. "They call him the Unbroken, because he has fought in that arena forty-three times and never lost once. The Iron Father blesses his champions with skin as hard as forged steel, and there is not a blade in Veyrath that can cut him."

The courtyard went quiet, and even Seris stopped writing.

"So what do I hit him with?" Kai asked.

"I was hoping you could tell me," Hale said.

[You could hit him with anything, Kai. You will simply hit something else]

"Not helping," Kai whispered.

That afternoon, while everyone else went inside to argue about strategy, Kai sat alone on the edge of the well and opened the little golden window in front of him. If he was going to walk into an arena against a man with steel skin, he wanted to know exactly what he had to work with.

[You have 14 divinity points]

"Show me what I can buy," Kai whispered.

The window filled with glowing words, and Kai read through them one by one, each more useless than the last.

[Minor Aim (20 points): Improves the accuracy of all spells. You do not have enough points.]

[Lesser Ward (12 points): Creates a shield of light that blocks a single blow.]

[Minor Cleanse (8 points): Removes dirt, stains, and unpleasant smells from the user’s clothing.]

"Twenty points," Kai whispered. "Of course it’s twenty."

[If I am honest, I am not certain Minor Aim would work on you]

"Why not?" Kai whispered.

[Because I do not think you are missing by accident]

Kai stared at the window for a long time, because he didn’t know what to say to that, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what she meant by it.

"Buy Lesser Ward," Kai whispered. "If I can’t hit him, I can at least not die."

[Skill learned: Lesser Ward. Divinity points remaining: 2.]

That night, Kai couldn’t sleep, so he climbed out of his bedroom window and onto the flat part of Hale’s roof, right beside the empty pole where the weathervane used to be. The city was quiet below him, dotted with lanterns, and somewhere off to the east, he could see the dark shape of the arena rising above the rooftops like a giant stone bowl.

He wasn’t alone for very long before he heard the window creak behind him and turned to see Mira climbing out after him in her borrowed nightgown, moving across the roof tiles like she had done it a thousand times.

"Old habits," Mira said, sitting down beside him with her knees pulled up to her chest.

"You really did sneak out every night," Kai said.

"Every single night," Mira said. "Usually to sit on the roof and look at the city. My father always knew, but he never said anything."

They sat together in silence for a while, close enough that their shoulders were touching, and Kai found that he didn’t mind the silence at all.

"Are you scared?" Mira asked.

"Terrified," Kai said. "Steel skin, Mira. The man has steel skin."

"You’ll miss him," Mira said, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. "And then something will happen, and it’ll be fine. It always is."

[Kai. Her heart rate is very elevated. So is yours]

Kai turned to look at Mira, and she was already looking at him, close enough that he could see the lanterns reflected in her eyes. Neither of them moved for a long moment, and then they both started leaning in at the same time.

Warm light burst out of Kai’s chest, and Syraphim appeared on the roof right between them, floating in her thin white dress with her halo rings spinning.

"I would like to point out that it is past midnight," Syraphim said. "Which means I have ten new minutes."

Mira jerked backwards so fast that she nearly slid off the roof, and Kai had to grab her arm to stop her.

"Your timing is terrible," Kai said.

"I know," Syraphim said, and she didn’t look sorry at all. "But I found something, and I did not want to wait until morning to tell you."

"What did you find?" Mira asked, still red all the way to her ears.

Syraphim pointed down at the courtyard, where the iron challenge plate from the Vallen estate was leaning against the wall beside the well, because Garrick had insisted on bringing it back with them.

"When the man drove that plate into the ground, I saw his hands," Syraphim said. "I have been thinking about them ever since. There was a mark on the inside of his wrist, very small, the same mark the servant had at the palace."

Kai felt his stomach drop all the way down into his boots.

"A golden sun," Kai said.

"Yes," Syraphim said. "The Iron Father did not challenge you, Kai. The Radiant Church did."