Wait For Me

The war, which had tenuously been at an impasse, began again with passion. A stray arrow had a lot of power.

Enri had to stop training me and put me in with the ground troop trainees.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to oversee your training myself, but I have other things I need to attend to.” She set her hands on my shoulders and squeezed. “I believe in you, Kaiya. You’ll do great things.”

From there, I spent most of my days with Iljana who, after getting scolded by Zann, was a little nicer in his teaching. I wouldn’t consider him a good teacher, but it was better than him dumping me in the forest and hoping I would survive the experience.

“You’re sorely lacking in finesse,” Iljana said. “You need a firmer stance, not a rigid one.”

“Firm, rigid—be more specific.”

“I’m being as specific as I can.” He walked around me, looking over my position. We were working on fighting with terra, and it involved a lot of body movement. What I did in the forest didn’t happen often and usually only in times of duress. Couldn’t imagine why I’d pulled it off.

Iljana sighed as he stopped in front of me. “You need to relax. Rigidity is important. You can’t move what you can’t face, but terra isn’t just rocks and mountains. It’s mud. It’s soil. It’s trees and grass and leaves. Keep that in mind. Try it again.”

I took up my stance again, feet firmly planted and trying to feel the ground. Despite how much equipment was in the training grounds, much of it was natural, likely made my terra mages. I thought back to the forest, the swaying leaves and hardpacked ground. The way the trees themselves reached out to help me.

With practiced movements, I bent my arms at the elbow and pulled up. A solid slab of dirt pushed out of the ground and created a wall in front of me.

“Better,” he said. “But you could be faster. Again.”

When I wasn’t drilling with Iljana, I was drilling with Vanli, the leader of the regular troops.

It was clear upon the first meeting that Vanli didn’t like me any more than Iljana did, but she didn’t seem to like anyone.

When Enri introduced us, she was wrapping up a meeting for new recruits. It might have been interesting to listen to, but I was more interested in all the people. I spent most of my time with higher ups doing one-on-one training. Being with a large group would be a first for me.

“Vanli,” Enri said, walking up to her as the recruits filtered out of the room. “I’ve mentioned Kaiya before. This is her.”

Tall and built like a brick house, I had to crane my neck to look at her. She took up all the space in the room, the sheer power she had radiating off of her like a miasma. Not like a mage, no. I couldn’t feel any magic from her. Just the raw power of being at her physical peak was enough to intimidate anyone. I was sure she could break my arm without breaking a sweat.

Vanli looked me up and down, expressionless, and turned to Enri. “She’s the one?”

“Yes. I would continue working with her, but I have other things to do, and I trust that you’ll do right by her.”

She circled me and I had the feeling of being an art project again. “Not in bad shape. Could be better. You have any experience in combat?”

“Oh, you’re acknowledging me now? No, I’ve never even been in a fight.”

Vanli frowned. “We’ll have to change that. Follow that group to the training barracks. I’ll get you to where you need to be. I expect you here on time every other day.”

I turned to Enri. She looked tired. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Good luck.” I walked off to where the rest of the recruits were going, trailing behind. I didn’t know what they knew about me and if I could be a relatively normal part of the group, I would like that.

I was not so lucky.

Whispers started as soon as people noticed me in the back, stagnating the flow of foot traffic. One of the commanding officers barked at them to continue forward and another of them stayed back and fell in step with me.

He gave me a quick once over as we walked. “So, you’re going to be our savior, huh?”

“I wouldn’t put it like that, but yeah.” I kept my hands stuffed in my pockets. “I was hoping they wouldn’t know.”

He laughed. “People have known who you were since your arrival. There’s no hiding it, especially from us military types. Shame you don’t have any combat training, though. Would have been something to have you on the front lines sooner.”

“How can you tell?”

“You look anxious just by walking with me. I doubt if you’d seen combat, you’d be so nervous right now.”

“Ah, well. Not really something I can help. I’m Kaiya, by the way. Sure you know that, though.”

“I didn’t know. And no one’s ever said your name. Just Surqui.” That tracks. “I’m Sanyr.”

“No clan?”

He shook his head with a small chuckle. “Clans don’t matter here. Save that for your magic teachers. Vanli doesn’t have pity for anyone, let alone reverence for nobility.”

He was right about that. Vanli made sure I was treated just like everyone else: I was trained until I couldn’t walk every day I was with her.

We ran laps around the training field, did pushups, sit ups, pullups, burpees, and the obstacle course as a warmup before getting to the meat of it. I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one having a hard time keeping up.

After that, we moved on to hand-to-hand combat by splitting into ten companies each under the instruction of a different commander, and I had the privilege of being with Vanli herself. I assumed it was because Enri asked, but it was quickly revealed that they held a lottery, and I was just so lucky.

“Before I trust any of you with a sword or an arrow, I need to know you can hold your own in a fight without it.” Vanli walked up and down the well-formed lines of recruits with her officers standing at attention behind her. She looked at us like we were worms to be crushed under her boot. “We will run these drills until they’re burned into your memory, and you can do it in your sleep.”

If not for the flexibility training that Enri had incorporated into our one on ones, I would have perished. I couldn’t kick high or turn fast or even punch very hard. But I could reach without too much of a struggle, and that was more than I could have hoped for.

Dummies were set in front of us as she demonstrated the sequence. Left punch, block, right kick, left hook. I had never thrown a punch before, and I knew I was about to disappoint her.

“What was that?”

“Something wrong?”

“Everything. Your stance, momentum, aim. You’ve never been in a fight, but I was expecting more than this. What did you do before this?”

“I was a scholar. I was going to be a teacher.”

She sneered. “Pansy work, then. That explains your lack of skill. Look and learn. Corek!” A short, well-built woman came forward. Her head was shaved, and her dark eyes seemed to be in a perpetual scowl. She made the stark contrast between her dark skin and bloodred uniform look good, whereas I couldn’t help but feel washed out by it. “Show this girl how to throw a punch. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Corek looked mildly annoyed but did as she was told. “You need to find your center of gravity and balance on that. Watch.” She stood with her feet a shoulder’s width apart, bending her knees. She was at an angle to the dummy, with her right hand close to her face. Stationary, but not planted. “Power doesn’t all come from your arms or torso. It mostly comes from the legs. Line up, and punch.”

Faster than I could track, she punched the dummy, and it reeled back, but not far enough to fall over. “Now you. Throw a punch.”

° ° °

There was a sense of urgency that settled over the palace as my new training continued. It had been important to everyone before, but now that soldiers were being sent to active combat again, the pressure was mounting.

Iljana laid off the insults while we trained, working my combat skills into my training. Most of what I could do was based on defense—I needed to stay alive on any battlefield.

As the third week came to a close, we started mock battles. I wasn’t expected to be an expert in both combat and magic, but I needed to practice enough that my teachers and Zann wouldn’t panic if I got stuck somewhere.

I’d never been hurt consistently before. I had, of course, scraped my legs or run into something, and lord knows I regularly banged my shins when we’d gotten a new coffee table in the dorm. But there was never a consistent pain every day I woke up.

Needless to say, I ate shit most days and the doctors and I were on friendly terms before I changed teachers. There was, however, one time—one really good time—I managed to get the drop on Iljana.

I had a dream about Sayla. She and I were in my dorm room talking about what we’d do in the future. We laid on my bed, side by side, planning our dream apartment and how we would decorate it.

“You can do that,” she said. “You’ve got better taste than I do.”

“That is so not true, but I’ll take it.” I yawned as I said, “I’ll just cover the walls in bad movie posters, and we’ll have a pastel green kitchen.”

Sayla snorted as she laughed. “I can live with the green, but never the posters. We have a better collective taste than that. Besides, you think Twilight is a good movie, and it deserves to be up there.”

“I think Twilight is a terrible movie that circles back around to being good.”

“Christ, just go to sleep if you’re so tired. That’s the fifth time you’ve yawned.”

“But I don’t get to spend as much time with you anymore. I wanna make sure I can hang out as much as I can.”

“Kaiya, you can hang out with me as much as you like when we move in together. We’ll get there one day. Just sleep for now.”

I fought sleep in my dream, a sense of dread settling over me, but I couldn’t fight the inevitable forever. It was the first time in months that I woke up crying.

I brought that energy with me to the mock fight, feeling like I just wanted to sink into the ground and stay there. Maybe that’s what helped or maybe it was because I felt a mounting anger I didn’t know what to do with. Probably both.

We met on the far side of the training field, separate from the soldiers being run ragged by Vanli. I could feel the dirt trailing against my boots like magnetic sand as I got into position.

I moved forward, and the ground obeyed my will, shifting and churning into sand. The ground under his feet crumbled, and he scurried out of the way.

With a hard stomp, I hardened the ground, catching his foot and stopping him in his tracks. I could tell from his face that he wasn’t used to being on the defensive.

I rushed forward, holding my arms out, feeling for the roots buried under the dirt. Iljana freed himself, retaliating by sending two chunks of rock hurling at my head. I slid to my knees, bending back to the sky, and kicked out, hurling up a cloud of dust. I didn’t need to see him for what I was about to do.

As I stood, the ground rumbled, nearly knocking me off my feet, but I sunk myself in, bracing against the quakes. Iljana let out a growl of frustration and I felt something being pushed with haste toward me. I gathered the dust to fine blades, sending them out to shred the wall in front of me.

Iljana pushed through the rubble, landing a solid hit to my core, pushing me back faster than I could track. I slammed hard into the wall, the wind knocked out of me, but I stood and thrust my arms forward, calling on all the strength I had. If I wasn’t careful, I could pull the soldiers into it, but I felt in my gut that it would do as I needed.

Roots exploded from the ground, tangling Iljana from foot to head. His arms were pinned to his sides, and he was lifted away from the ground as he struggled. He looked like he was going to shit himself. I couldn’t have been prouder.

At this point, it would be a battle of wills. He was more skilled, but I was still pissed off and anger had a chokehold on me like nothing else.

The roots began to squeeze as he struggled, but I refused to relent. I needed him to concede. He tapped out, and I dropped him.

The roots receded into the ground, and I walked over to him, holding out my hand. He stared at it for a moment before looking away and picking himself up.

Shortly after that fight, Iljana passed me off to Ikae without so much as a glance over his shoulder, probably grateful to be done with me.

“Enri told us you did well with wind magic,” Ikae said. He sat at the front of the classroom, chin on his palm, looking sleepy as ever. His dirty blonde hair flopped into his face, but he didn’t seem to notice. If there was one person who didn’t seem to feel the rush, it was him.

“It’s how my magic manifested, but I wouldn’t say I’m good at it.”

He shrugged. “This should still be easier than Iljana’s class.” He motioned to the glass of water next to him. “Move that to the cup over there.” He pointed to a glass on the desk next to me. “As you know, to perform the magic, you must understand the element. You’ve spent the last month using terra magic. You must shed your current way of thinking to do this. It won’t move because you will it to move. It will move when you move with it.”

Move when I move with it. I stared at the glass of water, thinking back to the festival. The water had moved differently than it should have, but I’d never been able to replicate that feeling. Now that I had more experience with magic, maybe I could get it to move.

Ikae crossed his arms and leaned back against his chair, watching as I stared at the glass. Water was inherently different from terra but not too much different. They worked together most of the time, even if the result wasn’t always great. Tsunamis, for example.

As I stared at the cup, it started to wobble. It rocked back and forth for a moment before tipping over, water spilling over the desk and to the floor. Ikae flipped his hand up, and the water raced back to the cup as he lifted it upright. “Very good. Try it again.”

This time, the water made it halfway to the cup and then fell to the ground.

We sat like that for hours, the water getting steadily closer, and when I made it to the cup, the precision was off. I didn’t manage to get it in the cup before Ikae dismissed me for a break.

My head ached as I wandered to the soldier’s cafeteria. It had been a while since I had just sat and done nothing but concentrate on one thing. Iljana had me doing a million things at once, and there was always something to think about when I was with Vanli.

I ran into Sanyr on the way. He waved, gently punching my shoulder. “How’s it going, savior? I haven’t seen you in a minute.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

“Aw, don’t like the responsibility of it?” He grinned as we walked to the line. Superiors had their own line that moved faster with better food, but Sanyr liked to mingle with us peons. He was more interested in foot soldier gossip than anything his peers were talking about.

“I just prefer not to think about it. At least, not while I’m as weak as I am. I have no confidence in my ability to help anyone right now.” The man behind the counter pushed forward a tray of what could only have been considered a culinary crime. I had gotten used to it and knew I couldn’t always have the best food the palace had to offer, but I sure did miss it.

He grinned as he was handed his food and followed me to my table. “You know, I think the best heroes are the ones who are the most uncertain.”

“Hero is worse. Hero is so much worse.” We plopped down next to Corek, who had taken a liking to me in the past few weeks. She was rough around the edges and still thought I was nothing but weak sauce, but she liked me well enough.

She slid her tray down a bit to make room. We both managed to take up more space than we realized and tried to make room when we could.

“You did well yesterday,” she said. “Your punches actually hurt now.”

“Oh, really? I could have sworn you didn’t move at all when I punched you.”

“I didn’t. But it was still much better than before.”

Sanyr laughed. “I think that might have been a compliment. You should say thank you, it’s good manners.”

“Why, thank you, Madam Corek. Your teachings are awe inspiring and wise.”

Corek snorted as she laughed, smacking the table so hard it shook our trays, and I was sure that was sure that was just her passive strength. To be considered a ‘Madam’ you had to be important to the king or his wellbeing. It confused me a lot at first, but I moved past it. There were stranger things.

“If I’m a Madam, then the king must be watching from afar. Sneaky.” She shook her head and stabbed her mystery meat. “How has your magic training been going? Any better?”

“Well, I no longer have to deal with Iljana, so that’s great.”

Corek looked amazed. She thought it was wild I never referred to anyone by their titles. I didn’t care and never would. “He’s a rough one, I’ve heard. Hard to read.”

I raised my brow. “Hard to read? I guess it’s because he hated me that he was so easy to read. He also kicked my ass a lot and was openly smug about it.”

Corek looked like she was about to say something, then just shook her head. “You are always interesting to talk to.”

“You know, my mom used to say that. It wasn’t a compliment.”

“You are interesting to talk to,” Corek said. “More interesting than the rest of the recruits. Scared to their hair and whining about it all the time.”

Sanyr looked sympathetic. Towards the others, not Corek. She had seen her fair share of battles having come from the outskirts of the country where border skirmishes were frequent and violent. She didn’t pity those who chose to fight and then couldn’t deal with their fear.

I understood where both were coming from. I knew what it was to be afraid that I was going to get too hurt to recover or die. Before coming here, I never had to think about it as actively as I did, but I also knew that I couldn’t let my fear hold me back. I knew that if I was going to do this, I had to get used to being afraid.

And I was.