CHAPTER 18

Sadick motioned us out of the garden after making us promise to tell no one that the tree was here, if only for the fact that anyone who came into contact with it other than me or him would be in danger from the dryad inside it.

“Most people like Lady Doranda and Ealint don’t know anything about Dryads and their culture, how dangerous they can be when tied to something rare as this one is.” Sadick muttered to me as he walked us to the theory classroom. “If they come here and I m not here, they may die. So I need you to promise me that you’ll keep this to yourself.”

I nodded, “Is this kind of tree as powerful magically as a Cindry?”

He nodded back, “Slightly more, but the quality and magic are different I think. If I can convince her to let me take one, I’ll get you a branch.”

“Thank you.” I turned my head and stared back at the tree, the beautiful blue hue of it casting a soft glow on the surrounding plants, the dryad stepping out of the tree to touch some of the plants that she would no doubt become close to as she grew with her new home.

Seeing her smiling face reminded me of some of the dryads I had been around in the Middling Forest. They were weaker than her, and had been attached to lesser trees, they were still strong but they weren’t as tied to those trees and cared for many in a single grove at times. This one was tied to this singular tree and as it was of a rare variety that would likely make her even more powerful and apt to overreaction than any dryad I had ever known.

Already she turned her gaze up at me as I stared and smiled, her teeth flashing painfully white against her skin. Her hand rose and waved at me and I waved back before turning and walking off with Xanile and Instructor Lialarn. Once we were back in the classroom with the wall behind us safely secured, she turned to us and grinned, “Do you see what I mean when I say that the two of you and I alone will be able to handle whatever the training forest has to throw at us?”

“We still need to be cautious.” Xanile frowned and crossed her arms, but her head lulled side to side, “But if this will help us both to get stronger, fine. When do you plan to come and tutor us?”

“Tonight, of course.” Lialarn grinned wider, like the cat who had hunted the last canary. “And every night after until you’re ready.”

“So you use us to get what you want and then we’re done?” I raised an eyebrow at her.

“You act as if you don’t get something in exchange.” She rolled her eyes and stared at me, “I’ll still be teaching you in normal classes, and if you impress me, I just might keep offering you special tutoring. But I’ll be with you tonight after the evening mess until it’s time for bed, so be prepared.”

I nodded and Xanile followed me out of the room and frowned, “That does not give us much time to prepare for our physical classes and practice our weapons training before mess. Do you want to just go to the training grounds?”

I nodded and rolled my shoulders out, the Markado on my skin having been aching somewhat since I had finished with the tree.

That’s a good way to judge how much mana you’ve used from your stores. The more you work with it, the easier it will be to do more. Frix’s information was interesting and I just nodded again, uncertain as to if I could respond mentally to him or not. You truly must be tired if you’re forgetting that I can feel what you’re thinking and what you want. I’m the conduit between you and your magic for now.

Then what do you need from me for this to grow stronger? We hadn’t gotten much closer to the training grounds than we had been when we first started to talk inside my head, so there was no time lapse for this.

Continued use of your magic, you’ll get used to it and it will become second nature and I will also show you how to gather mana to yourself later on.

Am I not now?

No, I am. His tone was gentle, but I could tell my ignorance was grating, even if he did expect it. After that he remained quiet while Xanile and I walked the rest of the way to the training grounds.

When we arrived, we found a rope course held aloft by large poles and small ones alike that looked to be crisscrossing in several directions like a spider’s web. You could go up, left, right, forward and back and not touch the ground for more than fifty yards unless you fell.

“That looks interesting.” Xanile groused as she pulled her wooden rapier from its sheath on her hip and brought it up in front of her face in a salute that she was content to use with me before we fought.

I shook my head and smiled as I pulled my wooden long knife and axe from their thongs on my hips, “It does. I can’t wait to play on it.”

“En garde.” She snarled and her weapon slashed close to my throat. My body moved backward, and flowed forward, the axe rising and swinging at her wrist jerkily. She snatched her weapon back faster than men could meat it and stabbed forward only to slap against the flat of my long knife’s blade. “You’ve improved.”

I smiled and took a wooden blade to the shin for it, “Not enough it seems.” She laughed at my grimacing of pain and I found myself upset that she was so handily able to best me like that. Granted, I had gotten slightly better at fighting like this, but there was no reason I had to do this the hard way, right?

I focused on summoning my status to my vision and took another few jabs for it, which caused it to wink out of existence. She slapped me and prodded me with the wooden weapon more than two dozen times as she hit her stride and I grew steadily more frustrated.

After half an hour of me barely putting up a feasible resistance she took pity on me and allowed me to take a break. Grateful, I took the time to open my status and allocate four of my skill points to Basic Flow bringing it up to Advanced Flow. I blinked and asked Frix, What happened to my Basic Flow?

He remained quiet and I worried that something was wrong when I received the word, Book in return tersely from him.

Did I dare bring the object out in front of Xanile? Even if she was supposed to be a friend, she was still Seelie and could be a part of the faction moving against the Middling Forest. I resolved to look at the book later on.

I stood up and stretched out, noticing that my Markado ached less than it had before and I felt a little more spry than I had before. My body was just more…mine than it had been before. I was aware of where my limbs were in comparison to where the center of my body was and how to move them in a way that was conducive to the flow.

Oh this isn’t going to be good for laying low. I mentally berated myself for allowing myself to fall victim to my own child-minded weakness by not asking more questions or just being patient and learning as I would naturally.

“You ready for me to beat up on you some more?” Xanile smiled and I turned back to her with my face a mask of bearing. She tilted her head, “Come on, at least try and beat me. If you do, I’ll ask Winfred to bring you some more of her sweets.”

My eyes widened and I smiled as I fell into a stance that I wasn’t used to, but my body was comfortable in now. She frowned at me uncertainly, then her smile returned, “Glad to see that you’re taking this more seriously.”

Quest received: Defeat Xanile Doranda in a sparring match. Reward: 30 XP, Sweets from Winfred. I just grinned to myself and laughed as I said, “I accept.”

She snorted and lunged forward, but I was in motion already. Consciously, I knew what I wanted to do, but my body reacted on its own and made that end result happen, as if I was moved to the goal by guidelines.

Long knife and hand axe crossed in front of me as I dipped my shoulders, shoving up with both hands and twisted my right wrist. The beard of the axe slipped over the rapier blade and pulled down as I spun toward her right side with my left elbow flared out. The attack fell low on her shoulder, but it was the fact that I had so savagely trapped her weapon that startled her, making her drop the weapon.

“What was that?” She growled in shock, then narrowed her eyes angrily at me. “Have you just been pretending to be inept this entire time?”

“No, I just think I finally started to really get it.” It was lame as far as reasons went, and I could already tell that she couldn’t trust it. “I mean, when you’re going to dangle sweets in front of a child, can you blame them for working a little harder for the treat?”

“I can if they previously fail to operate at the levels that they could be.” Her distrusting gaze shifted to one of mock anger. “Have you been sandbagging this whole time, cadet?”

“Sand what?”

She laughed, “Sandbagging. It is a term my sister used once and it stuck with me. It means that you have been acting like you know nothing while you actually do and just pretend to be slow and not useful.”

“You don’t think I’m useful?” I tried to affect a mock hurt look, but failed and just looked hurt, like I felt.

“You have your uses.” She teased, a small smile flickering at the corners of her lips. “But as I understand it, friends do not always have to be useful. Just there.”

I frowned at her and relaxed a little, “I suppose that’s true.”

“Come and defeat me, then and let us see what you are like when you decide to let loose.” With that she attacked me and I defended myself with as little brazenness as I could muster with my body wanting to move on its own, the flow of combat taking me with it. I would strike her a few times and she would return the favor, then she would strike me and I would disarm her.

We traded blows until it was time for us to go to mess, dirty and sweaty but both of us feeling better for having pushed ourselves a little more than what we normally would.