Crush was rounding the hall’s other corner as they stepped out behind it onto a stretch of grassy sward.
“Ah, there she is. Thank you for agreeing to help.”
Scorio’s heart sank.
“That’s what Manticore’s about,” Crush said simply. “We all rise together.”
“So here’s the deal. You’re going to take turns wrestling with Crush. Do your best. She’s at liberty to Ignite if she feels the need. You need to go as hard and for as long as you can till you literally can’t fight any longer. Then she’ll swap in the next person. You’ll do this for this sun cycle and end at pitch dark. Not too long, right?”
Scorio felt sick. Not too long?
This was going to be terrible.
Crush doffed her outer robe. She wore a sleeveless tunic beneath it. Her arms were as powerful as Leonis’s, with veins up her forearms and one across her left bicep.
“Scorio.” She gestured for him to approach. “Let’s get started.”
He rubbed his face vigorously and winced. He had a flap of raw callus beneath each finger.
“Go hard,” said Dameon, walking away and waving over one shoulder.
Scorio didn’t have much experience with actual wrestling. All his combat was strikes and kicks, fast and free. But he entered the clinch with Crush, one hand in the crook of her elbow, other hand closing around her wrist as she grasped him around the back of the neck.
It was like trying to wrestle a tree.
His knees were already weak, his whole body torched by the hours of labor. She flipped him over her hip with ease and drove him into the floor, following after to crash into his chest and drive the wind right out of him.
Scorio saw stars but gamely fought on, trying to break free of her pin, arching his back, kicking his legs, trying to wriggle onto his side.
Crush set about working him, shifting from one hold to the next, her weight always on his chest so that her limbs were free to adjust as she saw fit.
It was agonizing. He strained, reached, yearning for a second’s freedom, but it never came. His weary muscles fought her easy skill and failed.
Within a minute, he was gagging.
By the end of the second straight minute of futile straining, he puked.
Crush leaped up lightly and out of the way. “Good. Naomi?”
Scorio wiped his lips and forced himself to sit up. Naomi fared no better. She was tossed around, pinned, flipped onto her stomach, had both arms alternately locked, then was almost choked out.
When finally she ceased moving Crush rose to her feet, dusting off her hands. Naomi lay still, gagging, face down and hidden by her hair.
“All right. Scorio, round two.”
Scorio felt melted to the floor. Leaden didn’t begin to describe it. But he reached deep into his core and found a flicker of willpower. Rose shakily to his feet, lifted his arms, and shambled forward once more.
Crush watched him come, eyes narrowed, pitiless, and then moved in and took him down, hard.
Chapter 37
Scorio and Naomi fell into their own realm of existence, separate from that of their fellows. Each morning the others either pulled light camp duty or descended to train in the rarefied mana; each morning Naomi and Scorio limped stiffly to the storage shed to fetch their hammers.
Each evening the others gathered in the hall to dine and exchange stories, to offer critiques of each other’s mana manipulation or share anecdotes, while Scorio and Naomi dragged themselves to the river to wash off the blood and dirt and sweat.
The only blessing was that the pair of them were allowed to sleep longer and eat more. Scorio found himself sleeping an extra two cycles than his old crew; the problem was that when he’d awake they’d often be gone, and he’d often collapse into his bunk before they turned in for the night.
Day followed day. Scorio’s hands tore, healed, and tore again. He wrapped them in gauze which became filthy with blood and dirt. Each day he puked while wrestling with Crush, who was an impartial dispenser of pain. Each day she left them lying in the dirt, Naomi sometimes sobbing bitterly from effort and impotent fury.
They didn’t talk much. It felt as if on some level Naomi blamed him for this torment. She was his constant companion but taciturn to the extreme. They bathed separately in the river, Naomi always opting for a hidden bend behind high rushes, Scorio just lying in the cold water and allowing it to wash his pain away, to numb the agony.
Lying in that river was the highlight of each day.
They ate as if starved. Wolfed down stew and bread, cheese and cured meat, fish and fruit, then sat back, engorged, comatose.
Leonis and Lianshi tried to help with encouragement, but there was nothing they could do. Smashing rocks or helping smooth the approach to the Chasm was beside the point; when the point was the struggle, all help was detrimental. So they offered halfhearted cheers or expressed their guilt and chagrin, but it felt as if a wall had come between them.
For there was no disguising how they were thriving. Each day they either trained—actually trained—with Flame Vaults up top, working on their Ignition, their ability to expend mana slowly, increasing the duration and strength of their powers, or they descended with either Evelyn or Simeon to meditate and temper their bodies with Copper and Iron mana.
Jova would descend with Dameon. He’d escort her to the Bronze level and there let her saturate, tempering her body with the finest mana. Scorio asked once why they didn’t go deeper, but the reason was simple: it was too dangerous at Silver or Gold for Dameon to watch over her for hours on end.
Still.
Hours spent absorbing Bronze.
While he and Naomi wretchedly discharged Coal.
There was no denying it. Jova was miles ahead of him.
Scorio used that frustration, that bitterness, to fuel his endeavors.
And slowly, week after week, he got stronger.
His body leaned out, losing what little fat he’d carried. His hands became leathery claws, his muscles lean and long and naturally compact. Not due to absorbing fancy mana, but simply through dint of endless hard work, all the food he could eat, and endless hours of sleep.
But there was no escaping the monotony of their work. Week blurred into week. They finished clearing the path to the Chasm and hauled their first sled, whooping like fools when the sole rock tumbled into oblivion.
Returned and shattered more boulders. Scorio’s technique with the sledgehammer improved. By the third week, his body no longer protested as virulently to the endless swinging, and by the fifth, the hammer felt an extension of his arm. He learned by trial and error where to hit rocks so they split more easily, how much they could load onto the sled before they took to shoving it forward, Naomi in the front, Scorio behind.
It took them about half an hour to haul the sled to the Chasm. Half an hour of pure effort.
Naomi grew whipcord lean. She braided her hair and took to wearing it curled up on the crown of her head. Her pale skin tanned. Where Scorio leaned out, she put on hard muscle, her shoulders swelling subtly, her legs thickening. Once Scorio caught sight of her emerging from the river. It was but the briefest of partial glimpses through the rushes, and though he immediately turned away, he saw how sculpted and defined her abdomen had become.
Sessions with Crush were never anything but misery. No matter what he and Naomi tried, she could master them with ease. She revealed once that she’d tempered herself as a Tomb Spark in Iron mana during a long stint at the Fury Spires. Even without Igniting it felt like wrestling with a machine. She pinned, trapped, and handled them with callous ease, and Scorio never allowed himself to hold back, to fall limp.
Always he strained, and always he ended the training session on his side, gagging and spitting and heaving for breath.
Week bled into week.
Ydrielle left on The Sloop and came back with news that House Hydra was ruling the first ninety days of Fiery Shoals, that Bastion had nominated its first civic representative to the Council. Life continued apace. There was no word of the White Queen, but everyone knew she had to be in Deep Hell by now.