Chapter 20: A Smaller Opening

Chapter 20: A Smaller Opening

Mira Duforte looked at the four steel pieces on the bench, then at Silas.

"Those come apart?"

"They’re already apart."

"I can see that. I meant when you’re using the long version."

Silas loosened the cloth around the last piece. "Eventually. I haven’t practiced changing it quickly."

Mira reached toward one, stopped short of touching it, and glanced at him. He nodded. She picked it up by the smooth rear section and turned it beneath the light.

"Strange," she said.

"They weren’t made for you."

"I hadn’t offered to buy them." She put it down as Ferrow approached.

Silas had booked another short practice session, expecting the moving targets. Ferrow, supervising the afternoon floor, had watched his first few passes and asked whether he intended to spend his entire education fighting that particular machine. Mira had been waiting for a partner nearby.

Neither of them had sounded especially pleased with the arrangement.

Ferrow placed four fitted blunting sleeves beside the steel. "These stay on. Low speed, torso touches only. I call a stop, everything goes down."

She had Silas demonstrate that he could halt and lower all four pieces before checking the practice wards on their padded jackets. Mira rolled her left ankle once inside its support.

"No hard landings," Ferrow told her. "You can work on changes of direction without launching yourself across the court."

"I know."

"Then show me."

They took their places inside the marked lane. Mira carried a short practice sword. Silas raised the four pieces and arranged them within a few paces of himself, keeping one close to his right side.

His bruise was mostly quiet until he turned. He adjusted the jacket so its lower fastening didn’t press on the sore spot.

"Ready?" Mira asked.

He nodded, and Ferrow started them.

Mira advanced with her sword low. Silas sent one piece toward her left shoulder and another toward the space she would have to cross if she stepped away. She checked her approach, lifting the sword to meet the first.

He brought a third piece around her other side.

For a moment, he had her.

Then Mira’s raised sword dropped. She stepped toward the attack instead of retreating, turned outside the first piece, and came at his unguarded left side. Silas tried to bring everything back. Two pieces crossed paths, forcing him to stop one before it struck the other.

Her sword tapped his jacket.

"Stop," Ferrow said.

Silas lowered the steel. Mira returned to her mark, looking much too satisfied for someone who had done so little running.

"You followed my sword," she said.

"You put it in the way."

"Yes." She reset her grip. "I wanted you to."

Oh, very good. Shall I applaud?

He kept the thought to himself. Ferrow was watching, and he wanted another attempt more than he wanted the last word.

This time, Silas waited for Mira to move first. She approached more slowly, testing how far the nearest piece would follow. He held it back. When she stepped right, he shifted his formation with her.

Mira paused, then moved left.

He reacted too sharply. Three pieces swung toward the new approach, including the one meant to remain beside him. Mira saw it leave and cut back through the gap before he could restore it.

Her sword stopped against the padding over his stomach.

Silas stared down at it.

"You’re allowed to move your feet," Mira said.

"I am moving them."

"After me."

Ferrow called a rest before he could reply. Silas sat on the bench and drank, watching Mira tug her ankle support into a more comfortable position.

She hadn’t needed Air Impulse. That annoyed him more than losing the touches.

He could hold six little rings steady while someone poked at them, yet a girl changing her mind about which way to walk had made him nearly collide his own weapons.

Ferrow crouched to inspect one of the blunting sleeves. "What happened to the piece you kept back yesterday?"

"It followed the others."

"Why?"

"Because I lost track of it."

She set the piece on the cloth. "Give yourself less to track."

Silas glanced at the four pieces. "Use three?"

"You can keep four. You don’t have to attack with all of them."

"I wasn’t attacking with all of them."

"You meant not to," Ferrow said. She stood. "Duforte, give him a moment to set up before you begin."

Mira nodded. She had taken her water bottle from the next bench and was trying to open it without putting her sword down. After a brief struggle, she tucked the sword under her arm and twisted the lid off with both hands.

Silas watched, unreasonably comforted by the sight.

On the next exchange he sent only one piece forward. A second stayed between them, available if Mira knocked the first aside. The remaining pair floated nearer his body.

Mira feinted right. His leading piece followed her sword a little before he caught himself and stopped it.

She came left. This time he had something waiting there.

The defensive piece turned her blade outward. Silas could have attacked her exposed sleeve, but he had to check where his first piece had gone. By the time he looked back, Mira had withdrawn.

She tried again from closer in. He defended the first touch and lost the second when his heel caught in the sand.

"Better," Ferrow said as she stopped them.

Silas spat a grain of sand off his lip. "It didn’t feel better."

"You made her work for it."

Mira brushed a loose strand of hair out of her mouth. "A little."

The admission was small enough that he believed it.

They rested again. His breathing steadied while Mira sat with her left leg stretched out, sword resting across her knees. Someone in the next lane dropped a shield with a crash, and both of them turned toward it.

"I keep expecting you to rush," Silas said.

"I’d like to." Mira glanced at the support around her ankle. "Ferrow would have me walking lines for a week."

"So you can do all this without your Talent."

"I had lessons before I awakened, Rooke."

Of course she had. Her family could afford them. So could his, probably, though he wasn’t sure how much instruction the original had received or how much he had bothered to listen to.

He got up when Ferrow called them back.

Mira changed her approach again. She batted his forward piece aside, expecting him to recover it. Silas let it drift a little farther than he liked and kept his attention on the guard close to his chest.

Her sword came in. He deflected it and stepped back, avoiding the place where his heel had caught before.

There was a gap beside her elbow. It was smaller than the openings he had tried to manufacture by surrounding her, but his second piece was already near it.

He moved it forward just far enough to touch her jacket.

Ferrow called the stop.

Mira looked at the contact mark, then lowered her sword. "That one counted."

"I was there."

"I noticed." She took a breath and rolled her shoulder. "You finally left something behind."

Silas lowered the pieces onto the bench. He wanted to try again immediately, which was usually how he ended up making a sensible amount of training unpleasant.

Ferrow checked the clock. "Enough for today. Both of you."

Mira returned her sword to the rack while Silas removed the sleeves from his weapons. Her ankle held up as she walked, though she was favoring it slightly now.

"Your last touch," she said on her way past. "You could have taken it earlier."

"I was busy not getting hit."

"That does take practice."

She left before he could decide whether she had meant that as advice. Silas wrapped the set, returned his jacket, and went home with one clean touch to set against the three she had landed on him.

He found himself thinking about that one all the way back.