She raised an eyebrow, then pointed at the roof. “Sit.”
Feigning reluctance he sat, though really it was more of a controlled collapse. He thought she’d walk away, but instead, she placed her hands on both hips and stared at him. “Now, saturate your Heart with Coal.”
He blinked at her in confusion. “Now?”
“Now.”
Chest heaving, feeling nauseous, he wiped sweat turned to silt by the dust from his brow, and forced himself to stare out at nothing.
He wanted to lie down.
He’d have killed for a sip of water.
Instead, he fought to visualize his Heart.
His real heart was pounding, a frantic, fevered dance within his chest that showed no signs of stopping. Not even in the depths of the ruined dungeons had he ever pushed himself this hard and for this long.
The Igneous Heart came swimming into view, then faded. He gasped, wiped his badly bruised forearm across his brow, tried again.
It took even longer this time, and though he thought he caught a glimpse, it was gone before he could be sure.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he hung his head and focused on catching his breath.
“A taste,” she said, and he couldn’t tell if she was pleased or scornful. “A taste of what you must be able to do if you want to be taken seriously in this world.”
And then he heard her footsteps as she walked away, the loose stone crunching under her weight.
She wants you to quit, he told himself as he sat there, head hanging, shoulders heaving. She wants you to think it’s hopeless so you’ll end her oath early.
He swallowed thick spit, raised his head, bit his lower lip as he inhaled deeply through his nose. Blinked away the stars and stared at where Naomi stood, hands on her hips again, staring out toward the civilized part of the city.
Where did she think he’d go if he quit?
Slowly, laboriously, he climbed to his feet.
There was nowhere to go.
“All right,” he said, raising his battered arms. “I’m ready.”
She looked back at him, surprised. An emotion he couldn’t read flickered across her face, and then was gone.
“Very well.” She shimmered and rose into her nightmarish form once more, skeletal and emaciated, lean and black. Her tail lashed at the air as she lowered herself into a crouch. “It’s your funeral.”
Chapter 18
They stopped the “training” at Second Bronze; Scorio simply couldn’t get up any longer, no matter how he clenched his jaw and shouted at himself to stand.
The last time he fell, he lay sprawled out on his back, arms outflung, drenched in sweat, unable to focus on the burning sun-wire, not caring about how the ragged edges of stone bit into his back.
Naomi had moved to stand over him, her gaunt, alien body out of focus, her hands on her angular hips, her tail lashing pensively back and forth.
“We’re done,” she’d said at last, and turned away.
“No,” he rasped, trying to turn onto his side. “One more…”
One more what? He didn’t even know. He sensed more than saw her drop out of sight, leaving him alone on the rooftop, and with her gone he could finally allow himself to stop trying, to unclench his muscles, and just lie there, sweat and blood stinging his eyes.
It had all been a massive exercise in frustration. She’d not simply beaten him for hours on end but showed him how inept he was at even trying to land a blow on her gleaming black hide. For long periods of time, she’d simply evaded his every blow, his every clumsy punch and staggering kick. Then she’d pelt him with light punches, keeping him perpetually off-balance, reeling from one hit to another, unable to block or get his bearing. Just when he’d be about to cry out in fury and frustration, she’d level him with a toppling blow.
Only to ask him if he was ready to quit.
He’d lie there, just as he did now, gasping, raging, and force himself up. One last time, he’d swear to himself. The next time he fell, he’d give up.
Just not this time.
But now she was gone, and he had nothing left to prove.
He couldn’t catch his breath. He’d already vomited several times, and the sour taste of bile was thick in the back of his throat. The sun-wire blazed at his unfocused eyes, so that with a groan he closed them and turned over.
What had just happened? Was that training? If so, what was he supposed to have learned? Was this literally the way to power, being beaten for hours again?
But no.
She’d said you couldn’t thrash a Great Soul to greater glories.
So…?
He eventually sat up, just as the sun-wire darkened to Second Rust, and in the ruddy light descended painfully to his own chamber, climbing slowly down the cyclopean blocks to his window, then falling inside as much as anything else.
To sprawl out across the shadowed floor.
With great effort, he crawled over to his water bucket. It took all of his remaining willpower to not just pour it over his face. Instead, he took it up in shaking hands and carefully, oh so carefully, raised it to his lips.
Nothing had ever tasted so sweet.
Closing his eyes, he rested his head back against the wall, allowed the warm water that had filled his mouth to seep down his throat, then took another swallow, then a third.
It was only when he set the empty bucket down that he realized he wasn’t alone.
Naomi sat against the far wall in her human form, an arm draped over a raised knee, other leg curled around, her hair thick and tousled about her face, her gaze thoughtful, her lips curled into a pout.
Scorio just sat there, heart pounding, too weak, too sore, too brutalized to do more than stare back.
“Tomorrow will be worse,” she said at last. “You sure you want to continue?”
He answered without thinking. “Yes.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Why?” The question didn’t make sense. Or perhaps he simply couldn’t parse it. “Because I want power.”
“Why do you want power?”
Such a simple question, but he found himself unable to come up with a quick response.
“You said most Great Souls figured that out later.”
“Sure,” she said. “But you’re not most Great Souls. You’re alone and weak and without a future. You’re asking for unrelenting pain and abuse. Pain and abuse that will allow you to crawl over the starting line, but not get much further. You’ll be left in the dust by your peers. You’ll be a joke if they ever learn about you, with your Coal-trained Heart and your shallow reserves. So why bother?”
His voice was just a croak. “There’s nothing else for me.”
“Not good enough.” Her voice wasn’t cruel, just matter-of-fact. “You saying the moment you find an alternative you’ll take it?”
He frowned, head still leaning back against the wall, feeling wrung out, a throbbing mass of pain and bone bruises. “No.”
“No. Then?”
He tried to put it into words. To understand it himself. The deep anger he felt, the simmering rage that he barely noticed. “I want to prove them wrong.”
A slight nod. “Better. But very limited. You can’t base your growth on other people’s opinions.”
Frustration caused him to curl his hands into fists, but only loosely. They hurt too much to truly clench. “It’s a start.”
“Fine. You want to prove them wrong. About what?”
“About me.” His words were terse, his anger filling them like empty vessels. “They threw me away. Sent me into the dark to die. Like a rabid animal.”
“Sure. So you want to—what? Get revenge?”
He didn’t know. Hadn’t thought that far.
Her sober hazel gaze seemed to pierce deep into his soul. “They threw you away like a rabid animal because you’re a Red Lister. Now you want to get revenge on them. Haven’t you realized that by doing so you’ll be proving them right?”
“Proving them right?” He forced himself to sit up. “They started it!”
“Now you sound like a child.”