Vanessa swallowed and nodded. “What about the people here?”

“They’ll live,” Angel said, shrugging. “We already saved most of them, and that’s more of a surprise than anything else. If Reave had wanted to, he could have had the buried god completely destroy the city.”

“I’d ask if he might not be evil, but he sacrificed a ton of people,” Vanessa said. “Why would he just leave?”

“I just think he didn’t care,” Angel replied. “His goal was the buried god, and he got it. He won – this time, at least. There was no reason for him to waste time with the rest of the city. It’s not like any of them could do anything to him anyways.”

“It does bring up a good point, though,” Silver said, cracking his neck. “We’re all too weak. You especially, Vanessa.”

“She shouldn’t have to be strong,” Angel said. “She’s a student, Silver. Not a Seeker. Not a Hunter.”

“And yet she wants to save people’s lives. That doesn’t happen for free, girl,” Silver said. “You’ve got to pay in blood, and you don’t have enough to give. Death is always by your side in the Barren, and you can’t save everyone. Next time you come across trouble, what if your pet Seeker isn’t there? What would you do?”

“Try to help of course,” Vanessa said, crossing her arms. “That’s what any decent person would do.”

“You’re right,” Silver agreed. “A decent person would try to help. That’s why there aren’t many decent people left in the Barren. They all died trying poking their nose in where it didn’t belong. If you don’t have the strength to back your convictions, you’ll just get yourself killed on your next stunt.”

“Are you saying I should just become a selfish asshole like you and only worry about myself?”

“That would probably be for the best.” Silver smirked. “But I doubt you’d do that. I recognize your kind. Idealistic. See the good in everything, even when you’re in the darkness. I was friendly with a man like that, at one point. He wasn’t half bad.”

Despite herself, Vanessa glanced up at the former bandit. “Knew?”

“Died in the desert,” Silver said, nodding at the gauntlet on Vanessa’s hand. “You put a bolt of energy through his neck.”

She blinked, her face falling for a moment. “How could he have been good? You were slavers!”

“We were doing a job,” Silver corrected. “And I hold no grudge for his death. It’s the way of the Barren. I don’t think he would have held one either. He always hated the retrieval missions, but money is money. He wasn’t quite good enough to quit.”

Vanessa stared down at the city below them for several silent moments. “What was his name?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Silver said, rising to his feet and spitting the reed out. “He’s dead, and his worthless ideals with him. You want to do something about it, get strong enough to defend the worthless little creatures that you’re so willing to give our lives for.”

“How? You want me to eat human Cores?”

“Magical power isn’t everything,” Silver said with a scoff. “It’s important, and you’re disgustingly weak, but you lack training as much as you do power. Get Angel to show you the ropes. He already promised–”

“No,” Vanessa said, her eyes hardening. “Angel, I know you said you’d teach me, but I’ve got a different request. I want Silver to teach me.”

“What?” Silver asked, choking. “No!”

“I’m already teaching her Tinkering,” Angel observed. “You’ve tried out being a good guy. Maybe teaching will be your next thing.”

“We are polar opposites,” Silver said, crossing his arms. “I’m not teaching a self-righteous little brat that’s going to get herself killed protecting an ugly child.”

“You keep going on about me being weak,” Vanessa said. “You’re the one with a problem with it, so help me fix it. You owe me for the whole kidnapping thing.”

“Do you think you could even handle my training methods?” Silver asked, changing his tactics. “I’m no tutor for the pampered nobility, girl.”

“I can handle anything you can throw at me,” Vanessa said, scrambling to her feet and standing nose to nose with him. Angel watched them with an amused expression. Silver had clearly already made his mind up – and the Seeker suspected he’d done so long before this conversation.

“We’ll see about that,” Silver said. “Angel, how long do we have before we leave?”

“I was originally going to say we should leave today, but I think we can spare an hour or so,” Angel permitted. “I don’t think it’ll change anything, and unless any of you have seen Lilian, we still need to find her.”

“Perfect,” Silver said. “This won’t even take half that. Come, Vanessa. Let’s see if your conviction is worth any more than your ideals.”

He spun, striding down the stairs at the middle of the roof. Vanessa darted after him, fuming. With a chuckle, Angel rose as well and followed after them at a much more leisurely pace. His body was almost completely recovered, but small twinges of phantom pain occasionally still shot through his stomach from the scar.

Angel found the two of them standing face to face in the small courtyard behind the house they’d taken residence up in. It was about fifteen feet square in each direction, and there wasn’t too much rubble scattered around within it.

A good portion of the house’s walls were missing and the inside was completely ruined. Before the buried god had arrived, Angels suspected the house probably belonged to a rather successful merchant or someone with relation to the magistrate.

He sat down on the far end of the courtyard and put his chin in his palm as Silver paced in a circle around Vanessa.

“Take this off,” Silver said, tugging the gauntlet off her wrist with a single motion and tossing it to Angel. “Your stance is horrible.”

He shifted Vanessa’s feet with his right foot, clicking his tongue in annoyance. “You stand like a tree. Sway a little bit. Get limber. If you get hit, move with it. Don’t just stand there and take it at full force.”

Silver took up a fighting stance in front of her, shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet and swaying slightly. “Now put your hands up. What are they doing at your sides? Lot of good they’ll do you there.”

Vanessa followed his instructions to the best of her ability. Silver corrected her several more times. To her credit, she learned quickly and it wasn’t long before her stance wasn’t all that different from Silver’s.

“Good enough,” Silver said. “We’re ready to begin. Remember, this will continue up until the point where you decide you’ve had enough. All you have to do is say ‘I give up’, and it stops immediately.”

“As if,” Vanessa snapped. “What’s next?”

Silver drove his hand into her stomach. Vanessa doubled over, coughing and gasping for air. The bandit didn’t move as she staggered back, glaring at him.

“Dodge or block,” Silver said. “You stood there. Get back into your stance.”

Vanessa’s eyes burned with such intensity that Angel could have lit a wick had he brought it to them. He winced as Vanessa raised her hands once again and Silver swept her feet out from under her, sending her crashing to the ground with a thud.

“Get up.”

Vanessa scrambled to her feet. The moment her hands were back up, she was on the ground once again, a bruise forming on the side of her face. She spat on the ground and rose back up to her feet, throwing a punch at Silver’s face.

He knocked it to the side with almost dismissive ease and sent a vicious uppercut into her stomach. Angel could tell the man was holding back by the fact that the strike hadn’t picked Vanessa off the ground, but he winced nonetheless.

A part of him wanted to stop Silver, but Vanessa had asked for this. If she actually managed to pick something up from the man, it would do her a lot of good.

Boots scuffed against metal behind him. Angel turned as Lilian stepped out from the house and made her way over to stand beside him. “What’s going on?”

“Vanessa asked Silver to train her,” Angel said. His words were punctuated by a loud thud as Vanessa fell onto her back once again. “It’s going about as well as one would expect.”

“Good for her,” Lilian said. “Bettering oneself is important. She’ll thank herself for it so long as she survives.”

“As long as she survives,” Angel agreed. “Where have you been?”

“Wandering around the town and seeing the extent of the damage, mostly,” Lilian replied. “There wasn’t much interesting to do after you passed out.”