Chapter Twenty-Eight: Techniques

  In their final stretch of the journey to Wyrmhaven, Ash finally understood how to maintain control of his elar. Winter was not something you could embrace. Doing so would lead to a dark, frozen death. He couldn't fight it, either. One could not overcome winter itself.

  Ultimately, the secret was twofold, or at least that is what worked for him. First, he needed to surround himself in mental layers, retreating from the tempest of elation and senses. Finally, he had to grow used to it, which meant enduring it.

  A furious gale of ice, exhilaration, and heightened awareness battered his mind.

  He endured.

  Until there came a time when it no longer felt like he would be overcome, he waded out into those feelings, and he found he had control. With gentle nudging from his mind, he could direct his elar throughout his body.

  The process reminded him of the time Uncle Derrick had taught him to swim in the cold lake near their farm. At first, the shock of the frigid water had been nearly unbearable. His limbs had gone numb, his breath caught painfully in his chest, and panic had threatened to overwhelm him. But his uncle, strong and patient, had stayed beside him, telling him to breathe, to feel the water around him without fighting against it.

  "The cold is like a living thing," Uncle Derrick had said. "You don't wrestle with it. You let it be what it is, and you be what you are."

  Now Ash applied that same wisdom to the winter storm of his elar. He let it rage around the fortress of his mind, observing its patterns, noting its ebbs and flows, until he found the rhythm within the chaos.

  Snapping his eyes open, he grinned. Lilith clapped her hands, approving thoughts washing through his mind.

  "You've done it," Amalia observed, her voice as impassive as ever, though Ash thought he detected the faintest note of satisfaction in her tone.

  Ash stood. Now that he wasn't overwhelmed, he marveled. Looking down at his hand, there was strength within him that had not been there before. His fingers seemed to shimmer with an internal light, and when he flexed them, a faint pattern of frost spread across his skin before dissolving into the air. Slowly, he closed his fingers into a fist, taking a deep breath. He could hear the bird hopping on a branch thirty paces away, could count its heartbeats. He was more aware of his body than he ever had been before, feeling the blood rush through his veins, the expansion of his lungs with each breath, the subtle shifts of his weight from one foot to the other.

  "It's incredible," he whispered. "Everything is so... alive."

  "For now," Amalia cautioned. "Soon the novelty will fade, and this awareness will become as natural as breathing. Which is for the best. Too much sensory input can be distracting in a fight."

  He fetched his practice blade, and to his surprise, Amalia did the same. She had never been one to spar with him unnecessarily. She was frugal with her energy and her time.

  Hanging in the air, the moon watched them square off, casting silver light on the clearing where they stood. The trees formed a natural arena around them, their branches swaying gently in the night breeze.

  A wolf howled somewhere in the distance, a long, mournful sound that echoed through the forest. A stream burbled quietly nearby, water dancing over smooth stones polished by centuries of current.

  Amalia's dark violet eyes watched him. They revealed nothing, as always, but Ash could now detect subtle changes in her posture, the way she distributed her weight, the careful placement of her feet. She was preparing to attack.

  When she moved, she came at him faster than ever, her wooden practice sword a blur in the moonlight. Ash had no trouble seeing her now. In fact, time itself seemed to slow, allowing him to perceive each minute adjustment in her stance, each flicker of her eyes telegraphing her next move. He knew she could move even faster if she wished. Amalia was merely matching the level she felt he was at.

  He didn't recognize her form, but it was all speed, all offense. Each strike was like a viper's tongue, quick and precise, aimed at vital points.

  Ash shifted into a defensive stance, his feet finding purchase in the soft earth, and it was trivial to fend off her attacks. Wood smashed against wood, the cacophonous sound ringing out and startling a flock of birds from a nearby tree. His elar was a hurricane of hail within. Truly, he thought his blood would freeze.

  Instead, with the cold came clarity. His eyes tracked the storyteller, and he could see the patterns in her movement, could anticipate where she would strike next. If Ash was a winter squall, then Amalia was a shadow. She slipped by his attacks, countering not with powerful force but deadly precision.

  She spoke as she struck, Ash parrying each blow with increasingly confident movements.

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  "You're picking up the fringes of it now, aren't you? Masters of the blade would tell you that sword fighting is a dance only sword wielders can hear. A dance of life hanging in the balance, while all hold their breath, waiting to see which thread is severed."

  She slashed at his side, but he saw it coming before her muscles even tensed to initiate the movement, so he twisted, knocking her wooden blade away with a flick of his wrist that sent vibrations up his arm.

  "True masters, they know better. Swordplay is not the art of the dance," she continued, circling him with predatory grace. She thrust her blade toward his heart in a lightning-fast strike. He could see it before it happened; before she even took the step, he knew she would do it. He moved around it, wooden sword casting shadows in the ember light. Her attack was smoothly countered, and he caught a flicker of approval in her eyes.

  "It is the art of seeing. It just looks and feels like a dance."

  Their next few exchanges were so fast that Ash didn't think. His body seemed to move of its own accord, guided by some ancient instinct newly awakened within him. He just moved. He just saw.

  The practice blades became extensions of themselves, blurring in the moonlight. Ash found himself entering a strange state of mind where past and future ceased to exist. There was only now, only this moment, this strike, this counterstrike.

  With a thunderous detonation and splitting wood, Ash's blade was knocked out of his hands; it landed on the ground, a crack down the middle. Amalia's wooden sword rested against his throat. Ash hadn't even seen the final blow coming.

  "Your mistake was not accounting for the fact that just because I did not strike with force doesn't mean I am incapable of doing so."

  She fell silent, then calmly lifted her blade from his throat just slightly before lowering it to her side. She regarded him with those inscrutable violet eyes, studying him as if seeing him for the first time.

  "In Drakosia, before it was burned to ashes, you would have just been raised to the rank of Cayosin, which means blade master in dracian."

  Ash opened his mouth in awe, shaking his head in disbelief. The word felt ancient and powerful in his ears, carrying with it the weight of a tradition he had never known but somehow felt connected to.

  "No way I'm that good. I haven't even used a real blade yet! This is just wood!" He pointed at his broken wooden practice sword for emphasis, the splintered end catching the moonlight.

  "True, and there is a little adjusting that will need to be done. However, it is little. I don't give out compliments lightly, Master Lorcan, and I will not repeat myself, so listen well."

  Oh, he was paying rapt attention. The night around them seemed to still, the very forest holding its breath as Amalia spoke.

  "You are perhaps the most gifted student of the sword I have ever seen or trained. Truly, I say this to you: if you make it past dragon steel rank, you will go down as one of the greatest swordsmen this world has ever seen. Mark my words."

  Ash sat down heavily on a nearby rock, his legs suddenly unable to support him. Lilith poked his cheek with a curious finger, her green eyes bright with interest.

  He didn't even notice. His mind was too busy trying to process what Amalia had just said. He had thought he had talent, that he was okay with the blade. Nothing more than that. But a blade master? The very idea was overwhelming.

  He blew out a breath, watching it mist in the cool night air. "You really believe that?"

  Amalia did not answer directly. She never did. "It is time you learn a technique. Wyrmhaven approaches, but the exam is not easy."

  Ash forced himself to focus on the matter at hand. "What does it entail?"

  Amalia flicked a hand dismissively, her dark robes rustling with the movement. "There will be time for that later. Come."

  She flourished her staff, its white surface gleaming in the moonlight, and a violet swirl coalesced before them, pulsing with mysterious energy. A shimmering doorway stood before them, the edges wavering like heat over desert sand. Amalia pointed with her staff.

  "Inside."

  Ash moved his mouth into a dubious frown, eyeing the portal with understandable caution. It looked like nothing he had ever seen before, a rent in the very fabric of reality. But Lilith, fearless as always, hopped right in, disappearing into the swirling violet light. He sighed, squaring his shoulders and following after his dragon. What choice did he have? Amalia stepped through, and the portal snapped closed behind them with a sound like thunder.

  They were in a circular chamber with walls of polished stone that gleamed faintly in the dim light. What caught Ash's attention immediately, however, were the silent figures that filled the space. Over a thousand statues, or so Ash thought they were at first glance. Upon closer inspection, he realized they were made of some kind of padding, like training dummies, and all wielded various weapons. They dotted a hill that crept upward before them, with a room Ash couldn't make out beyond it.

  There was a flag at the top of the hill, plain gray and waving in a slight breeze that Ash couldn't feel.

  "Before you ask, this place is an elar realm," Amalia said, her voice echoing strangely in the chamber. "You will learn about it in school. Tonight, we focus on techniques."

  He was used to her withholding information, so he didn't fight her on it. Instead, he asked the questions that seemed most relevant to their immediate situation.

  "How do I use a technique? What are they exactly?" He thought of his friends, suddenly feeling a pang of concern. "Oh, and why didn't you show Rosalia, Will, and Nick?"

  Amalia tapped her staff on the stone floor, the sound reverberating through the chamber. "I will show the others when we reach Ivalia, the town at the base of the mountain path that leads to the valley Wyrmhaven is in. That is where your friends should be. We still have some time before the exam."

  She began to pace slowly around him, her robes whispering against the floor. "As to what techniques are, they are expressions of your elar. Or, in other words, abilities that manifest through the controlled release of elar from your body. There are a few types, and I will not cover them all. Tonight, we discuss just one type. Enhancements."

  She pointed at him with her white staff, the tip glowing faintly violet in the dim light.

  "Draw your elar from your elan, Master Lorcan."

  Ash closed his eyes, reaching within himself for that familiar orb of winter. He found it easily now, the connection between his mind and his elar growing stronger with each passing day. With a gentle mental touch, he drew the icy power into himself, feeling it flow through his body like a frozen river.

  "You have succeeded in the first step already, controlling the effects of elar and moving while drawing it," Amalia observed, circling him with critical eyes. "All those days of perseverance in attempting to draw your elar were not wasted. You must have noticed that elar responds to your mental direction. We call this your intent."

  Ash nodded, remembering the way his elar had seemed to follow his thoughts, strengthening or retreating based on what he wanted it to do.

  "As much as it appears separate from you, elar is not," Amalia continued. "Your elan is a part of you, who you are, and so too is your elar. This has many implications we will not discuss today. Instead, all I want you to do is direct your elar to push outside of your body, surrounding you like a cloak."

  Ash frowned in concentration, trying to visualize what she was asking. He imagined his elar not just flowing through him but extending beyond the boundaries of his skin, creating a protective layer around himself.

  "When I've done that, then what?" he asked, not opening his eyes, still focusing on the visualization.

  Amalia pointed her staff at the flag waving at the top of the hill.

  "It's simple," she said, though nothing with Amalia was ever truly simple. "I want you to retrieve that flag. Do mind the homunculi; they do not like intruders."

  As if her words had triggered something, the padded figures around them began to stir, their limbs creaking as they moved for what might have been the first time in ages. Weapons rose, and blank face coverings turned toward Ash with unmistakable hostility.

  Ash swallowed hard, looking at the army of opponents between him and his goal. This was going to be interesting.