Chapter 80: Another Attempt

Chapter 80: Another Attempt

Alden had a plate of bread and sliced meat beside him on the practice-yard bench. His bandaged leg was stretched out, his sword resting within reach against the wood. When Silas approached, he swallowed the mouthful he was chewing and moved the plate to make room.

"You said after dinner," Silas said.

"I got impatient." Alden brushed crumbs off his hands. "What did you find?"

Silas passed him the communicator with Carrow Hall’s listing open. He waited while Alden read it, then gave him the essentials: fragile constructs to escort, changing attacks, Ferrow supervising. The session would be theirs if they both wanted it.

"So you can lose while you’re winning a fight," Alden said.

"Very easily, according to Ferrow."

Alden went back to the line about losing a charge. "All of them have to make it?"

"Yes," Silas said. "We can’t decide one doesn’t matter because the others are fine."

That made Alden frown, though he kept reading. Beyond the fence, students were leaving the neighboring yard, calling to someone who had forgotten a bag. Silas let the noise fill the pause. He had spent the walk arranging the right words; now Alden was here, it seemed better to let him finish the page.

"Why me?" Alden asked at last. "Maelin could get around that course faster. Dagna could cover more of it."

"Because you said you wanted a different kind of practice," Silas said. "And Second Attempt might help you learn from each failed run. That’s a lot of what this exercise is for."

"The attacks change, though."

"They do," Silas said. "You’d have to work out what you got wrong, not just remember where something came from. I thought that might be useful."

Alden looked down at the listing again. Silas had to resist adding more. He couldn’t promise an awakening, and a long speech about potential would only sound strange coming from him.

Don’t sell it like you’re being paid. He’s allowed to think.

"Are you coming too?" Alden asked.

"That was the idea. I need to practice using the dart while moving and covering someone. It’s easy to concentrate on the target and forget where I’ve put my feet."

"You’d take the ranged attacks, then?"

"Where I could," Silas said. "But I don’t want us to decide you handle everything near me. That wouldn’t help either of us."

Alden gave a small nod. "I was about to suggest exactly that."

He set the communicator between them and reached for his food. Silas had worried that asking him to train together might sound like pity. Apparently Alden was already considering how to divide the work, which was encouraging. He waited until the boy finished chewing before bringing up the leg.

"The available time is the day after tomorrow," Silas said. "That puts it past the three days on your note. You’ll still need the medic to clear you."

Alden glanced down at the bandage. "It barely hurts now."

"Tell the medic that. If you’re not cleared, we’ll ask for another day."

"I will," Alden said, a little sharply. Then he sighed. "I know. I’m tired of everyone looking at it."

Silas understood that better than Alden knew. He had spent enough time being checked, questioned, and told to sit down in this body. The concern was harder to appreciate when you were the person receiving it.

"Then we won’t make tonight a practice session," Silas said.

Alden looked faintly guilty. His hand had already drifted toward the sword, though he left it where it was.

"Can we see the course before we start?" he asked.

"I looked through a window. Low walls, open stretches. I haven’t asked Ferrow whether we get to walk it first."

"I’d like to. I keep forgetting to check behind me once I start fighting. If I knew where the walls were, at least I’d have somewhere to look."

"We’ll ask him," Silas said. "I could use that too."

Alden rubbed a crumb between his fingers, thinking. "And when we fail?"

"Ferrow stops it, checks us, and decides whether we’re fit for another attempt."

"I meant between us," Alden said. "If I mess up and we lose one."

Silas turned toward him. That hadn’t been the question he expected.

"We work out what happened," he said. "You can tell me when I mess up too."

"Even if it’s obvious?"

"Especially then," Silas said. "I might be busy being annoyed about it."

Alden looked down at his hands. "I don’t want to spend the whole time comparing myself to the people from the gate. I was doing that yesterday. It made everything I tried feel pointless."

"Then we worry about getting the constructs across," Silas said. "I’ll have enough to do keeping up with that."

Alden smiled, briefly, and Silas felt some of his own tension ease. He didn’t need to make this boy fearless or deliver a speech that would change his life. He needed to get him into a useful exercise and take it seriously beside him.

Still, he couldn’t look at Alden without remembering the sanctuary: sword ready, guardian already falling, the chance for a second awakening gone before Silas could do anything about it. Elyra had saved lives. He wasn’t sorry for that. Maelin had eaten lunch with him yesterday. No game reward was worth trading her back.

He just badly wanted another way to keep the good parts.

"All right," Alden said. "Book it."

"You’re sure?"

"You found me something useful. Don’t make me argue you into it now." Alden picked up the communicator and handed it over. "I want to try."

Silas sent Ferrow both names and confirmed that they had agreed to the afternoon session. Alden finished his meal while they waited, then brushed the last crumbs into the empty plate instead of onto the bench.

The reply arrived a few minutes later.

Booked. Bring water and your usual training equipment. Cross needs medical clearance before stepping onto the floor. — Ferrow

Silas showed him the message. Alden read it and nodded, then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

"We’ll have to call things out," Alden said. "I can’t just assume you’ll notice what I’m doing. In the courtyard, Leander kept telling us where to look. Someone has to say it."

"We both can," Silas said.

"Before we’re already in trouble, preferably."

"That part might take practice," Silas said.

Alden laughed. He reached down for a twig and drew two small circles in the dirt beside the bench, then a line to represent a wall. He was still deciding where they ought to stand when Silas pointed out that neither of them knew how many charges there would be.

"Then it’s a very rough plan," Alden said, and kept drawing.

Silas watched him with a relief he didn’t want to explain. There was a real booking now, and Alden had chosen to come. Silas would be on the floor with him, learning what he could for his own sake as well.

Whether Second Attempt would become an S-Rank Talent there was still beyond anything he could promise. He hoped it would. He wanted this friend beside him to have a future, and he wanted a future in which Mara was safe and saving the world could remain somebody else’s job.

Please let this give him another chance.