The Chalice of Malvron by Elisabeth Wheatley

Author:Elisabeth Wheatley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avowed Publishing and Media, LLC
Published: 2018-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

“Strike, strike, lunge—no, no, no.” Cyrilius backed away, shaking his head. “Attack from the shoulder, not the wrist. Now, again.”

Janir sighed with frustration and returned to her place five paces back.

They were in the storerooms, somewhere they didn’t expect to be bothered. They had cleared an area large enough from them to spar and Cyrilius had been giving her lessons for the past hour.

It had been two days since the encounter with the elf. Janir still hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him or give up the stone he had given her. It laid over her heart, tucked safely beneath her shirt.

Nobody had mentioned the elf to her since. She didn’t want to think about him anyway, though most her thoughts wandered to him if she wasn’t careful.

Kanicaid leaned back on a few sacks of flour, his wounded foot elevated. Cyrilius’s range of motion through his arms was still limited, but he was well enough to teach Janir.

Janir prepared to attack again, karkaton at the ready. They used real rods now. Cyrilius brushed off Kanicaid’s advice to the contrary, saying that he had enough control not to hurt Janir and there was no way she would be hurting him.

Cyrilius braced for the exercise, then straightened. “What are you doing?”

Frowning, Janir checked her foot placement, her grip on her rods—

“Why are you staring at me like a sheep dog?”

Janir balked. “I was watching your eyes.”

“Why? What will they do to you?” Cyrilius retorted.

Janir wasn’t sure what he meant to say.

“I swear no one has ever been killed by an eyeball, Janir.”

Janir paused, not sure how to reply.

“When you become more proficient, you can stare down your less-experienced opponents as an intimidation tactic, but right now pay attention to my hands. My weapons.” Cyrilius motioned for her to attack again.

Janir watched Cyrilius’s karkaton this time. She saw his right hand move a fraction and managed to block his blows twice before he won their little match.

“Much better.” He offered a half-grin of a approval, the closest he’d yet gotten to a smile. “One of the most important things to remember—whatever you do, do it quickly and with full force. One of the easiest ways to give your opponent an edge is by hesitating. Don’t think too much.”

Janir nodded, storing that away along with the growing list of his instructions.

“Ah, well. Enough pummeling each other. Here, Kenistrith wanted you to practice with these.” Kanicaid tossed a bag no bigger than a fist to Janir, who had to drop her karkaton to catch it.

Cyrilius scowled when her karkaton hit the floor.

Janir hastily picked them up and stored them at her belt before he could say anything. Curiously, she untied and peered in the mouth of the bag.

Earlier, she had sensed the faint glow of magic, but had assumed it was a fluke or some stray enchantment leftover from Zhamarza’s work. Inside the pouch were two glowing pebbles and three blobs of water the size of walnuts. The blobs of water simply floated inside the bag, not touching anything else.

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