“Because,” said Leonis firmly, slowly, “dying over and over again isn’t something you can just brush off. It takes a toll. Hell, Scorio, I’ve just done it five times and I feel awful. I know you. You’ll go back there every day. You’ll probably camp there. And die repeatedly until there’s no Scorio left.”
“Camp there,” mused Scorio.
“No!” Leonis stepped forward and jabbed a finger into Scorio’s chest. “Listen to your friends. We’re not trying to hold you back. We want you to progress just like we’re doing. But not at the expense of your sanity.”
Scorio met Leonis’s gaze squarely. “I understand what you’re saying. I appreciate your concern. But I won’t make an oath I don’t intend to keep.”
For a long moment, Leonis just stood there, finger still pressed into Scorio’s chest, then he threw his arms up and turned away. “Useless.”
“I understand,” said Lianshi softly. She reached out and touched his arm. “I really do. But if you must go back, can you attempt moderation? Don’t lose yourself. Don’t become obsessed. You still need to rest. Recover. Sleep. You still need to practice mana manipulation. Actual training with Naomi. Can you promise that, at least?”
Scorio wanted to step back, to break away from her touch, but managed a curt nod. “Fine. I’ll practice moderation.”
“Good.” Lianshi’s smile was edged with bitterness. “I really do understand. If I were in your place, I’d probably do the same.”
“You’re both mad,” said Leonis loudly, voice echoing off the gray walls. “Why, Lianshi? Why would you willingly put yourself into that meat grinder?”
“Because…” She stepped back and crossed her arms, lowering her chin so that her ebon hair slid forward to obscure her face. “It’s hard to explain. But there’s a fire within me. A need. A hunger. To become strong.”
“But why?” He rounded on her. “Why are you so obsessed with becoming strong? And yes, I feel the same drive, but if someone told me I’d gain power by stabbing myself in the leg over and over again, I wouldn’t do it, while I really think you both would.”
“Because…” Her voice grew soft. “I have to think on it. But I will. I’ll find an answer for you.”
Leonis glared at her for a moment longer, and then his shoulders slumped. “Fine. I appreciate the honesty. And you, Scorio.” He stepped back in close and grasped Scorio by the nape of his neck.
Scorio tensed, but when Leonis pressed his brow to his own, he realized that he wasn’t about to be attacked.
“You take care of yourself, you hear?” Leonis’s voice was tight with emotion. “Come next Eighthday, I’d best see you waiting for us with a basket of Delight of Heaven buns. I’m talking a round baker’s dozen. No excuses. You got me?”
Scorio laughed huskily. “Got it. Dozen buns. You can count on it.”
“Good.” Leonis stepped back, shaking his head. “Anyway. We’d best be going. See you soon, brother.”
“See you soon,” said Scorio, raising a hand.
The pair of them walked away, Lianshi looking back to give her small wave as they reached the corner, and then they turned it and were gone.
Scorio stood still, staring at the bleak corner, lips pressed tightly together, feeling as if a great weight pressed down upon his shoulders. He should get back to his chamber, he knew. He had to eat. Drink. Rest.
But instead, he found himself imagining his friends walking back through the disparate wards. Making their way into the Academy and then into their rooms. Perhaps they’d bathe in their private pool first, floating and discussing the day’s events. Then they’d call for food, or go to some dining hall, where heaping piles of delicacies and elixirs would be given to them, restoring their strength, their vitality.
Clean robes. Clean quarters. The finest that Bastion could provide.
Scorio felt the skin around his eyes grow strangely tight, and he began to pace. It wasn’t their fault. He was genuinely happy for them. He wanted them to get the best there was after their brutal day with him. But it galled him that they’d given him restrictions on what he could do.
Perhaps he should have shown them his room. Made them climb up to his window and stare into that dark cave. The rags on which he slept. The pails of gruel and water. The small pile of trash he accumulated to not mark his presence by tossing it out the window.
His jaw was aching. His chest was tight once more, his breath coming quickly.
What was he supposed to do? Be grateful for his meager accomplishments? Revel in the sparse Coal mana, weaving it about his Igneous Heart like some idiot child playing in the mud? Dutifully present himself in eight days’ time to go train with them again, grateful for their presence, to spice up their training with a little danger?
His hands clenched and unclenched as he paced, back and forth across the street. Was he supposed to content himself with Naomi? Who didn’t even believe he’d survive more than a couple of months? Whose faith in him was so little that she’d not even shown him where she lived or eaten with him?
Nostrils flaring, he resisted the urge to kick a large rock that lay before him, stepping over it heavily instead. Striding up to the building at the end of his small circuit, he stopped, breathing hard, shoulders rising and falling, rising and falling.
Don’t become obsessed.
What else was he supposed to do with his time out here, beyond the edges of civilization? Tidy up the streets? Pile rocks atop each other? Make friends with the fire salamanders?
I’d best see you waiting for us with a basket of Delight of Heaven buns.
There was a pounding in his ears, and his vision narrowed to a tunnel. With a roar, he summoned his Heart and savagely swept a mass of Coal mana into it, then willed it aflame. It caught with a whoomph that he drowned out with a cry as he pounded his fist into the wall.
The stone cracked in a circle around his knuckles as pain lanced up through his wrist.
Scorio didn’t care. He punched his other fist into the wall, a brutal uppercut at waist height, and again the rock crunched, again pain flashed through the bones of his arm.
He knew not to punch again, so instead, he placed one open palm on the wall and smashed his other elbow into the rock, once, twice, three times, the blows coming in a flurry. Rock cracked again, and the whole wall shifted, dust sifting down from the ancient mortar between the blocks.
Heaving for breath, Scorio rested his brow against the wall, his lips pulled back from his teeth, staring at nothing, not even thinking now, until at last he pushed away and began to stagger back down the street, deeper into the ruins.
His knuckles throbbed, his elbow was a combination of numbness lanced through with sharp pain, but worse yet was the raw heat that coursed up and down through his core, as if his depths had turned molten just like the burning heart of the chasms.
He reached a familiar fork. His room was off to the left, close by.
But instead, making no conscious decision, he turned toward the right. Following the street a couple of blocks, he then stepped out onto a broad avenue that speared straight south.
Overhead, Second Bronze dimmed and became Second Clay. The light darkened and grew diffuse, the shadows luxurious. Everything looked steeped in blood, and it pleased Scorio, as if his own emotions were finally exerting an effect on the world.
On he marched, hands clenching and relaxing, the pain distant, unimportant, right up till his Heart guttered out and then it became insistent. He walked straight down the center of the broad street, head jutted out, chest tight, shoulders hunched. He yearned for something to interpose itself between him and his destination. For some predator to mark him as easy prey.
But nothing did.