Chapter 136: ONE WEAPON

The second day started with rain.

Not enough to flood the narrow waterways. Just steady, miserable rain that turned the dead tree slick, softened the banks, and ran down Aiden’s sleeves whenever he raised his hands.

Nyx and Miasma had recovered easily after their drills. Cinder hadn’t. Perception had shown him why: different parts of the fen held different elemental particles.

If the ground matters, I should stop making them train wherever I happen to be standing.

He started with Miasma.

The green particles thickened toward the east, so Aiden followed them through the reeds until the clear water near the camp gave way to stagnant pools.

Rotting plants crowded the banks, and fungus climbed the dead wood. Vesperian Spores drifted above both.

Miasma was already several paces ahead of him.

Of course you knew.

Aiden found a rotten stump where the spores gathered thickest and pointed at it.

"That one. Different angles."

Miasma drove a spine into the wood, circled through the reeds, and hit it again from the other side.

Aiden moved her whenever the green thinned, keeping the drill inside the richest patches he could find.

He couldn’t teach her how to absorb Vesperian Spores. Her body already knew. What he could do was find better ground and give her useful targets while she trained there.

I did it by accident with Miasma in the sewer, and again with Cinder in the Ember Peaks. And only now I learn to look at where they’re standing.

Miasma glanced at him from beside the stump.

"Don’t." Aiden knew that look: you finally caught up.

"I figured it out eventually."

That earned him no sympathy whatsoever.

Nyx was next.

The darker waterways were closer to camp, beneath banks where thick roots blocked most of the grey daylight. Void Fragments gathered in the shadows under them, far denser than around the dead tree.

Nyx had found the place before him too.

"Wonderful. Both of you know where to train without me."

Her pale eyes curved.

"You don’t even need me to teach you. You keep figuring out new tricks on your own." Aiden pointed toward the opposite bank. "Go on."

Nyx slipped beneath the roots and disappeared into the darkness along the bank. A few seconds later, she emerged farther downstream.

Aiden made her repeat it, and she obeyed without complaint. He suspected the drill mattered less to her than the excuse to spend time with him.

The first two times, he lost her completely. On the third, he noticed one patch of shadow deepen just before Nyx came out of it.

There.

"Again."

Nyx looked at his pocket.

Aiden covered it. "You stole yesterday’s reward. Today you work first."

Nyx crossed the water again.

Amazing. Apparently, dried meat is a salary now.

By the time they returned to the dead tree, Cinder was waiting with her tail wagging and glaring at Aiden for taking so long.

Aiden marked three places on the trunk and had her burn them one after another.

She hit every target cleanly at first, apparently determined to remind him what competent aim looked like.

Then she began to struggle when he made her fire from farther away and at smaller marks.

After a few harder shots, the fire along her shoulders took longer to return to its usual height.

Aiden stopped there.

Cinder growled and moved toward the tree again.

"I know you can keep going. You’re still done."

She looked at Miasma, then Nyx, before turning the growl on him.

"They recover better here. You don’t. Growling at me isn’t going to put Ember Motes in the swamp."

Cinder shoved him with her muzzle hard enough to move him half a step.

Aiden laughed and scratched behind one of her ears. "Save it. I’ll need your fire when something tries to eat me again."

Cinder huffed, but stayed where she was.

"Besides, we won’t be stuck here forever. There have to be other places like the Ember Peaks out there. You’ll have fun when we find one."

For now, though, the Token beneath his coat kept them tied to the fen. This was still an Academy field assessment, even if the Association handled the registry.

He had to hold the fen through the first assessment before the month ended.

Cinder trained less.

Aiden had no reason to.

He returned to the dead tree. The day before, he’d managed to make Shadow Step and Acid Weave feel like one attack. Now he wanted Solar Plexus inside the same motion.

Shadow Step into range. Acid while arriving. Heat before pulling away.

If he reached for Solar Plexus too early, his body tensed before Shadow Step and he came out off-balance. If he focused on the blink and acid first, the heat came after the attack was already over.

Twice he reached the tree exactly where he wanted and ruined the whole sequence by stopping to think about what came next.

Three traits. One brain. Guess I’ve found the weak link.

He slowed down.

Speed wasn’t the problem yet. He needed the order to stop feeling like an order.

One attempt put Acid Weave above the mark. The next burned the bark before the corrosive thread had cut through it. Then Shadow Step dropped him too close and he nearly introduced his face to the trunk.

Cinder made a sound behind him that was suspiciously close to laughter.

Aiden looked back. "Why don’t you turn into your avatar form and laugh in my face while you’re at it?"

Cinder shifted without hesitation and did exactly that.

"..."

He ignored her and kept working until evening.

Once, Acid Weave left his fingers before Shadow Step had fully settled his weight, and Solar Plexus followed only a moment late.

Not good enough but better.

Seraphine returned the following evening.

The frogs near the southern stones went quiet before Aiden saw Vigil. A water bird burst from the reeds, then the pale stag emerged through the mist with Seraphine several steps behind him.

Vigil stopped where the fog thickened beside one of the boundary stones and lowered his head.

Pale gold light brightened between his antlers while Seraphine checked her writing board, then touched two fingers to the fitted metal around her forearm.

Aiden brought up Perception.

Solar Filaments crowded Vigil’s antlers. Thinner strands ran toward Seraphine’s armor and entered the pale metal covering her forearms and chest. None touched her skin.

When Seraphine raised one hand toward the fog, the strands brightened through the equipment.

Vigil is part of whatever she’s doing.

It looked like Synergy, except Seraphine had somehow put herself inside the formation instead of directing it from outside.

He was trying to do the same alone.

Seraphine turned and caught him staring.

"You’re very interested in my armor."

Aiden let Perception fade. "I’m interested in a lot of things I can’t afford."

Her eyes moved to the dead tree. Acid scarred one side of the trunk, fire blackened the other, and his Shadow Steps had churned the mud around the roots.

"Training your beasts?"

"Something like that."

Seraphine studied the damage. "I have seen worse."

"Recently?"

"No."

"Very supportive."

"I wasn’t trying to be."

Somehow that made it worse.

Seraphine continued along the boundary with Vigil, and Aiden moved to the other side of the tree where the fog hid him. He trained until dark.

By the fourth day, there wasn’t much good bark left on the dead tree.

His misses covered the trunk, with acid cuts above and below the old marks and black scorch lines between them.

Aiden found one clean patch and scratched a fresh mark into it.

Miasma rested on one of the roots. Nyx watched from the darkness beneath the bank, while Cinder lay behind him where her heat pushed back the evening damp.

Aiden stepped away from the tree.

Correct first. Fast later.

Shadow Step carried him to the trunk.

His hand was already moving when he arrived. Acid Weave cut straight through the mark, and Solar Plexus burned along the same path before he pulled away.

No pause.

That’s it.

Cinder struck one paw against the ground.

Aiden laughed. "Again?"

She hit it harder.

"Fine."

The next attempt went wide. Nyx watched him miss and looked far too pleased with the result.

"Nobody asked you."

The one after that worked.

It still wasn’t fast enough for the hound that had thrown him into the mud, but for the first time, he didn’t have to think through three separate instructions while he moved.

By the time he stopped, his shoulders hurt and cold water had worked through both boots.

The fen smelled of wet peat, burned wood, and the sharp stink left behind by Acid Weave.

Miasma climbed onto the trunk and inspected the damage.

Aiden smiled. "I’m taking that as praise."

Nyx appeared beside him.

His hand closed over the dried meat before she could reach through his pocket.

"No. I know how this works now."

Nyx looked at his hand, then at him.

"Do your own training."

She disappeared into his shadow.

Aiden checked the pocket anyway.

The meat was still there.

I’m learning.