She brought Vir to the shower, where they each went their separate ways to clean off. No grotto today. A quick rinse would have to suffice.
They met back up again in the bedroom a few minutes later, where she’d prepared sandwiches for them.
“Thanks, Maiya!” Vir said, munching on his sandwich while she had hers. It always made her happy seeing him enjoy her cooking that much.
“Glad you like it, Vir. But we’re honestly running low on ingredients. Someone’s gonna need to make a supply run soon. And you and I both know it’s not gonna be Riyan. Bet you anything he’ll have us go and do it.”
“You might be right about that,” Vir said between mouthfuls. “I don’t even know how far we’d have to go. What’s the nearest city?”
“Probably Saran… Which is not close. At all. But I hear it’s a pretty big city. I’m kinda hoping he asks us to go. Anyway, get down on the ground when you’re done.”
Vir lay down on the floor mat while she stepped onto his back, grasping the fabric tassels suspended from the ceiling for balance as she massaged him with her feet.
“S-So?” Vir asked, doing his best not to blush. He still hadn’t entirely gotten used to these massages. “What did you want to talk about?”
“Hmm? Why’d you think I wanted to talk about something?” she asked with a playful smirk. Lying face down as he was, Vir couldn’t see it.
“C’mon, Maiy—Ow!”
She’d stepped on an especially tight knot on his back. It must have been painful.
“My bad!” she lied.
They fell silent for a few moments before she cut to the chase.
“I think it’s about time I got serious about this magic stuff. I can’t train without a mentor, but… it’d be stupid to ignore your ability to see prana. I wanna know everything you can see about me. I want to know my strengths and weaknesses, anything that can give me an edge.”
Vir grunted through the pain of the massage. “Doesn’t work like that. All I can see is the prana in your body. That doesn’t mean I can see your weaknesses or anything like that. But I can tell you what affinities you have. In fact, I already did.”
“Oh. Right. Uh, what were my affinities again?” she asked with great hesitation. She’d erased that earlier conversation from her memory as soon as he’d said she didn’t have an affinity for fire.
“You really want to know?” Vir said. “You know it’s not fire, right?”
Maiya bit her lip. “Yes. Tell me.”
“Alright. I think you have a Greater Ice Affinity and a Lesser Affinity for Wind. Doesn’t look like you have an affinity for anything else—Ow!”
Maiya drove her heel into his shoulder.
“Chala’s knees, Maiya! You’re the one who asked me to tell you! Don’t take your anger out on me,” Vir said, turning over to stare her in the eyes.
“I’m sorry, Vir.” This time, she meant it. She honestly hadn’t meant to hurt him.
Vir sighed and returned to his face-down position. “Whatever. I just hope you believe me.”
“I do. As much as I don’t want to, avoiding the facts isn’t going to change anything. And besides, maybe I can develop a Fire Affinity later somehow.”
“Ice and Wind are pretty great, if you ask me,” Vir said.
“Hmm. Ice is good for slowing and stopping opponents, and it’s got some really powerful spells at the higher tiers. But it’s slow. Only fireballs are slower than ice spells, and ice doesn’t have the sheer destructive power or range that fire does.”
“What about wind?” he asked.
“Wind’s not bad. Wind spells tend to be fast. Actually, I think only Lightning’s faster. And their range is decent. I don’t really know what most of the Wind Affinity spells look like, actually.”
“I overheard some traveling merchants at the village a long time ago,” Vir said. “They were talking about all sorts of magic. I think one of them knew a mejai who could shoot blades of wind. That always sounded pretty dang seric to me.”
“Hmm. What did they say about ice?”
Vir thought for a moment, struggling to recall. “They mentioned Ice Prison as one spell, if I remember right. It sounded incredibly powerful.”
“That does sound nice,” Maiya said. “Hmm. Maybe this isn’t so horrible after all. You think you could share what you learn about magic with me? I dunno if it’ll help, but at least I’ll feel like I’m doing something until Tanya arrives.”
“Happy to,” Vir said, rolling his eyes. “And you do realize you’re talking to someone who has zero magical potential, right? I’d kill to have an affinity. Any affinity!”
He might have had a point a month or two ago, but now, Maiya had little sympathy for her friend. “You don’t need magic, Vir. With how fast you’re learning Riyan’s techniques, you’ll be a skilled assassin in no time.”
“You… really think he’s gonna ask me to kill someone?”
“I don’t know, Vir. I truly hope not. For both of our sakes…”
The more they trained, the more anxious Maiya grew. They’d be forced apart to do Riyan’s task—the man had said as much. But for how long?
She shook her head, clearing away the dark thoughts that threatened to crush her.
Nothing would separate her from Vir. Not Riyan. Not even Fate itself.
26CLOAKS & DAGGERS
Vir carefully stepped onto the first suspended balancing beam of the starting obstacle, pausing only slightly to jump onto the next beam, and then the third.
Both Vir and Maiya had braved Riyan’s dome of horrors every day, and while there had been broken bones and torn flesh, neither had taken grievous injuries… Yet.
But that was only because the truly dangerous parts of the course came later on. Each platform housed a different obstacle, and of the twelve total platforms, Vir had only ever gotten as far as the middle of the third. It was forgiving in that way—the course started somewhat benign and became progressively more vicious the higher up you went. And of course, the higher you went, the worse your fall would be.
The first obstacle—the three balancing beams suspended by ropes on either end—was the only one Vir cleared with ease. The beams posed no issue to him anymore.
The second obstacle—a series of rotating cylindrical posts with wooden blades embedded into it at varying heights—had left him bruised, battered, and broken, and that was after he’d convinced Riyan to disable the Sharpen Edge orbs on the blades. Apparently, even their mentor realized that was too much for him at this point.
After painstakingly analyzing the course from the ground, Vir now had a general understanding of its layout. There were more rotating posts in store for him higher up, but unlike those, this one was more benign. It had fewer blades, rotated slower, and had more gaps between the posts, making it easier to navigate. At least, that’s what it looked like to Vir. There was only so much he could see from the ground.
But even if it was easier than the later challenges, that didn’t mean it was easy. Blindly rushing in was just begging to be hurt. Vir determined there was only one safe route through, and it only opened up for a split second.
It’d taken him hours of staring at the dang posts to uncover that the blades weren’t evenly distributed around each post as they rotated. There were more blades on one side, and fewer on another. There were several such posts, so he’d had to learn the characteristics of each.
The safe path relied on timing. He had to enter the gauntlet at the right time, and maintain the correct pace through the posts. Too fast or too slow, and he’d lose the timing and smash against the wooden blades before being thrown out.