Chapter 427: Not Where You’d Land

On the next approach Lucian withdrew earlier, giving up the chance to attack rather than letting the contact settle. Then Kite drew the gibbon a step too far sideways, and he used Stormstep through the space it had left.

Morrow turned to meet him. He recovered facing her and got two quick exchanges before retreating. For the first time, she had to move backward to regain her weapon’s reach.

Elsa leaned forward beside Jin. "That worked."

"A little," he said, barely louder.

Morrow brought the gibbon closer. When Kite descended, it stayed beside its tamer instead of following the bird. Morrow feinted at Lucian, inviting him into sword contact while its long hands waited to cover his exit.

Kite tried a lower pass. The gibbon’s fingers brushed a primary feather as she climbed away. Lucian immediately backed out, looking up to check her flight.

She was still flying evenly, but one feather stuck out from the wing.

Jin could feel his own shoulders tightening. Lucian couldn’t keep asking her to go closer until something finally worked.

Kite rose above the partnership. Lucian moved toward their western side, using ordinary steps and keeping clear of the gibbon’s reach. When Morrow followed, he threatened her sword hand and withdrew before the bind could take.

She tried to move inward after him. Kite descended toward the gibbon’s exposed side, and it turned to cover her. Lucian approached while that turn restricted Morrow’s route.

Morrow chose to retreat toward the western block, where stone would protect one side. She glanced behind her before taking the position. She knew where the boundary was.

Lucian followed without Stormstep. He made her defend twice, then let her counter carry them around the block’s northern corner. Kite stayed high until the gibbon moved to support its tamer.

The space changed slowly. Morrow still had room along the line, but the route back toward centre narrowed between Lucian and the block. She tried to force him aside with a binding contact. He yielded before it settled, then returned as soon as her sword recovered.

This time she took a short backward step.

Jin looked past her. The boundary was only two metres away now.

That’s what he’s been working toward.

Morrow shifted toward the open side, calling the gibbon closer. Lucian followed the movement with his stave low. He couldn’t stop her indefinitely, and the gibbon would soon be beside her again.

Kite dropped toward its outer shoulder.

The gibbon reached, then lunged another pace when she passed close to the block. She climbed clear around the stone corner. It landed beyond that corner, leaving the direct inward lane briefly open.

Morrow came at Lucian with the sword, trying to catch his stave before he could use it.

He allowed the weapons to meet only for an instant, turning the wooden shaft away before the drag took hold. Then Stormstep carried him through the opening beside her, into the route she needed to regain the centre.

He stopped facing her. The gibbon was already coming back around the block.

Morrow tried the other side. Lucian met her sword with a brief, angled check and released it, refusing the prolonged contact she wanted. She had to take a balancing step toward the boundary.

Kite crossed the gibbon’s approach as it rounded the corner. It checked one stride to meet her, and she climbed away. That was all the delay Lucian got.

He stepped across Morrow’s inward recovery, stave against the outside of her guard. She tried to pivot rather than retreat, but the angle left her reaching past him. Her rear foot crossed the line.

Lucian kept moving with the turn. She brought the other foot back to recover her stance, carrying her whole body clear of the boundary just as the gibbon reached them.

The flag rose. Lucian broke contact, and Morrow called her beast off before it could reach his shoulder.

"Vale wins," Ashdown announced.

For a moment nobody near Jin seemed to breathe. Then Elsa shouted, and he discovered he was standing too.

Lucian lowered the stave and held out his arm for Kite. He examined the bent feather before pressing his cheek briefly against her head.

Morrow looked toward the line, then returned her sword to its practice sheath. She offered Lucian her hand without smiling. He shook it, still breathing hard.

Jin sat down carefully. His hip had objected to the sudden movement, but he scarcely minded. He had watched his friend make those corrections in a quiet yard when they looked clumsy and achieved nothing anyone would applaud.

Now they had earned him a place.

The official announcement came a minute later.

"Meridian Academy resource-realm selection. Places awarded: Jin Astor, original seed seven. Lucian Vale, original seed nine."

Arthur’s hand settled on Jin’s shoulder again. This time it stayed there.

The clinic let the family in at five, two at a time.

Elsa went first, with Jin, and stopped dead in the doorway of the monitoring bay.

Glitch was lying on his side on deep straw, with the reader strapped to his chest plate and its little line going up and down. He looked enormous and very tired.

When Elsa came in, he opened one eye, looked at her and closed it again.

"Is he all right?" she whispered. "Tell me properly. Not fine."

So Jin told her properly. A short burst of something that had pushed Glitch far harder than he should normally go. Strain inside, not a wound.

A day and a night in the bay, with someone watching the readings. No strenuous work for at least a week, and Verrick deciding when he could begin again.

"His readings are steady," Jin said. "They expect him to recover. He still needs the rest."

Elsa crouched by the straw, close enough to touch but not touching, and looked at the drake for a long time.

"Was he hurting when you stopped?" Elsa asked.

"He was already feeling it." Jin looked at Glitch’s slow breathing. "I couldn’t ask him to move the same way afterward."

She nodded and stayed beside the straw until the handler came to check the reader.

Arthur came in next, slowly, with his brace, and lowered himself onto the stool Jin pulled across for him.

Arthur watched Glitch breathe before looking at the position of his feet and head. Jin recognised the careful attention he gave Breeze whenever Elsa worried about the fox.

"He knows you’re here," Arthur said as Glitch’s eye opened toward Jin. "What does Verrick say?"

"That the readings are settling. We have to let him rest."

"Verrick knows his job." Arthur looked at Jin’s arm in its wrap, then at his face. "And you?"

"Bruised. Sore. Tired."

"You held your arm funny all the way through the second half."

"It was a funny arm by then."

Arthur breathed out through his nose, which was as close as he usually came to laughing in a clinic. Then he was quiet for a while.

"When we bought his egg," he said, "I hoped we’d managed to give you a start. That was all." He looked at Glitch. "I didn’t know I’d be sitting in a stand like that, watching you two."

Jin didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t try.