Chapter 973 - 972: Just Watching [GT Bonus - ]

Rowan had expected Celeste’s guard to arrive in white-and-gold armour. Instead, the man waiting downstairs wore a brown shirt and plain trousers, with a single sheathed sword at his waist.

They had been walking for a while now, and Rowan was grateful that his companion didn’t seem to mind stopping.

There was so much to look at. He read shop signs, peered through windows, and occasionally found himself following a conversation between strangers until the crowd carried it out of hearing. The guard kept beside him, speaking only to point out a turning or warn him about an approaching vehicle.

Outside a weapons shop, Rowan stopped again.

A sword lay on dark cloth behind the window. It had a plain crossguard and a brown leather grip, without the ornaments decorating some of the weapons beside it.

His father would have liked that one.

Rowan remembered standing behind their house with both hands around the hilt of a sword. His father had moved his elbows, stepped back, then come forward to move them again.

He hadn’t been much good with a sword. Rowan knew that. Sometimes his father had interrupted a lesson to work out whether he was remembering a movement correctly.

But they had enjoyed those afternoons.

"Do you want it?"

Rowan turned. The guard was looking at the sword.

"No. It just reminded me of my father."

The man gave him a little time before speaking again.

"You’re better off waiting until your System awakens, anyway."

"Before buying a weapon?"

"Before spending much on one. Your Blessing will usually determine what suits you. It can change what you study, what work you do. You might receive something that has nothing to do with swords."

Rowan considered the display.

"So I should find out after I turn sixteen."

"That’s what I’d advise. You can learn the basics without buying an expensive weapon."

He nodded and stepped away from the window.

Shouts came from somewhere down the next street. Several voices answered together, followed by a sharp knock of wood against wood.

Rowan turned toward the sound.

"What’s happening there?"

"That’s the training ground. Some students from the Light Academy come here for lessons and practice duels."

"Can we watch?"

The guard checked the entrance at the end of the street.

"Come along."

Inside was a rectangular yard enclosed by a low wall. Wooden swords filled a rack near the gate, and benches ran along one side. A group of teenagers stood in rows before an instructor whose sleeves were rolled above his elbows.

Most looked about Rowan’s age. A few were a year or two older.

"Again," the instructor called.

The students raised their practice swords.

Rowan stopped near the benches. The guard remained beside him, giving him room to see.

At first, Rowan watched whichever blade moved fastest. Then the instructor walked along the front row, correcting a hand here, tapping a foot into place there, and Rowan began looking at those things too.

"Don’t reach so far. Bring your feet with you."

The man borrowed a sword and demonstrated.

Rowan leaned forward.

He had seen village men practise, but none of them had moved like that. Even the students seemed better than most of the people he remembered gathering to train near his home.

An expert would have found their swordsmanship poor. The instructor himself was only a little above average, and several errors escaped his corrections. He was competent enough to teach beginners, but he would have been out of place among accomplished swordsmen.

Rowan had no way of knowing that. Compared with his father’s uncertain demonstrations, this lesson was extraordinary.

He followed the instructor’s hands as the man repeated a movement. When the students tried it, he compared what they did with what he remembered seeing.

Why did it look so easy when the instructor did it?

He studied another demonstration, hoping to find out.

Eventually, the instructor noticed the two spectators. He narrowed his eyes at them, then he recognised the guard, and acknowledged him with a nod.

The guard nodded back.

"You’re too close together," the instructor told two students as he returned to the lesson. "Give yourselves room."

Rowan barely noticed the exchange.

He was trying to remember the order of the movements. Every time he felt certain he had it, the instructor corrected something he hadn’t thought to watch.

His fingers curled around an imaginary hilt beside his thigh.

When the rows broke apart, he thought the lesson had ended. Instead, two students entered the marked practice area while the others sat down.

The guard explained quietly, "Now they try it against someone."

Rowan watched the first pair with his hands braced on his knees.

The movements looked different when another sword was in the way. He kept expecting the sequence from the lesson to continue, only for someone to retreat or hesitate. Several times, the instructor stopped them and asked why they had done something.

Rowan listened to the answers.

Some made sense. Others involved words he had never heard before.

He repeated those words under his breath, trying to connect them to what he had seen.

When the first pair finished, another took their place. There were different reaches, different speeds, students who seemed eager to attack and others who kept being told to stop backing away.

Rowan couldn’t always tell who was doing well until the instructor announced it.

He wanted to be able to tell.

Beside him, the guard settled against the wall.

He had expected Rowan to lose interest after a few minutes. Children usually enjoyed watching a demonstration, then grew restless when the same correction was repeated for the fifth time.

Rowan watched through all of it.

The instructor paused to drink. Students complained about sore wrists and borrowed water from one another. Rowan waited until they resumed, then returned to following their swords with the same attention.

Once, the guard asked whether he wanted to leave.

"After this pair," Rowan said.

But when they finished, he forgot he had said it.

The guard didn’t ask again.

Later, a dark-haired boy called Leon stepped into the practice area opposite a girl with cropped hair.

"You’d better not cry when you lose," he told her.

She rolled her shoulders and waited for the instructor.

Rowan watched them from the bench. Leon was taller than the girl, and his arms looked stronger. Rowan wondered whether that would make much difference.

He had his answer when the instructor called a halt.

The girl lowered her sword. Leon stood empty-handed, his practice weapon lying several paces away.

Laughter broke out among the seated students.

"I wonder who’s going to cry now?" someone called.

Leon bent to retrieve his sword.

Rowan frowned, trying to recall the moment he’d lost it. He had been watching their feet and missed what happened between their hands.

Leon caught him looking.

"What?"

Rowan glanced behind himself, then back.

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

The laughter drew another angry look from Leon before he faced Rowan again.

"I lost because of you."

Rowan straightened on the bench.

"What did I do?"

"You’ve been staring at us since you came in."

"I was watching the lesson."

"We know. You haven’t stopped."

Leon pointed his practice sword toward the bench.

"At first it didn’t matter. But you just sit there watching every little thing. It’s annoying."

A few students turned to examine Rowan, and he became aware of how long he’d been sitting in exactly the same place.

"I didn’t know it bothered you."

"What do we look like? Animals in a zoo?"

"No. I was only trying to learn."

"By staring at me?"

"At everyone. I wasn’t trying to-"

"Just make sure not to learn from Leon," someone said from the benches.

Another burst of laughter followed.

"Enough," the instructor said.

The guard left the wall and came to Rowan’s side. Leon glanced at him, but the chuckling behind him hadn’t quite stopped.

Rowan stood.

"I didn’t mean any harm. I’ve never watched a lesson like this before."

Leon looked him over, from his plain clothes to his empty hands.

"Then stop watching."

The girl who had beaten him made an impatient sound, but he ignored her. He stepped aside and pointed toward the rack of wooden weapons.

"Pick up a sword. You can spar with me."