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His headstone blazed, and she glanced at it. ‘More insight from the hereafter?’
‘Naam, plus intel from good sources. Perhaps fate has a different journey for how your oath is to be outworked. Kalila’s demise is not nigh. Trust me, I know this. You’d have lost against the black íkan koya if you had attempted to blade her. Until we know what we’re up against, I advise you not to attempt her execution yet. However, the Hawkstone tells me your chance will come soon. So many ways to cook this goose, khany’s.’
She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, mulling his words. Then, at the corner, the hint of a simper appeared on her lips. ‘Kalila? A goose?’
‘She’s more of a grim gorgon, complete with a serpent heart, sharp fangs, ferocious wings, and a petrifying gaze.’
Sana’a fought a smile. ‘You’re so wrong. Now I can’t unsee that.’
‘Don’t,’ he murmured. ‘We good now?’
She took her time looking into his eyes. ‘Maybe. I just need to see that the end of this fokkin’ oath is in sight.’
‘The right time is yet to come.’
She sucked her teeth and shook her head in exasperation. ‘Damn Kíríga, you speak fluent shit. Before you share more effluence, get your ass into the íkhara. I’ve got a consecutive five-strike move I’d like you to master.’
He chuckled, the sound reverberating in the room as he strolled from the room.
His eyes tracked her exit. Caught between relief that her ice wall had come down and the realisation that Sana’a was growing on him. Damn, he had no way of countering her heart strikes.
He sighed, then uttered an ancient prosaic poem to control his ratcheting emotions.
‘For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause for breath,
For love itself to have rest.’
Killen spent the next few days alternating between the backbreaking blade sessions Sana’a put him through and nights studying the old tomes Kultur had given him.
He consulted the books, discovering íkantations that conjured new concepts on new pages unfurled by the gold tendrils, trying to figure out how to use the ancient power to solve the looming civil war.
‘I’ve just realised that as well as mastering the three types of íkan, there are levels to its prowess. Khiron’s trio of mystery koyas are the keys to unlocking them all,’ he told Sana’a one evening. ‘But making sense of how to find them and what to do with them gives me a non-stop headache.’
The pair sat at the dining table, wolfing down a meal they’d both prepped after a particularly exhausting sparring day.
Sana’a spooned more farro salad sprinkled with blue cheese, pine nuts, and wild tomatoes onto his plate, topping her plate as well. ‘’Tis natural to feel that way. But over time, scarred but wiser, you’ll stumble through. You’re not quite a master, but you have enough mastery to ensure the job is done. Something about you that tells me you’ll prevail.’
‘Will I?’
‘Your powers are growing,’ Sana’a murmured. ‘ You’re a quick learner, but the hawkstone is even faster.’
‘True. It’s freakin’ enhancing the skills you’re teaching me to counter, deflect and manipulate. But I need the axillae to better command my kätu and combine it with speed to draw away the dark íkan. So where the hell is this wise man we’re meant to be waiting for?’
‘When the student is -’ she quipped in a dry tone.
He gave her a lazy, slow smile. ‘Drop it, khany’s. I’ve heard it before.’
‘Patience Kíríga. He will not tarry. He will be right on time.
‘He’d better be, for I sense the tide is rising against us, against me. This is a war of mystical ideologies, a battle for the soul of this world.’
Her eyes met his in a quizzical glance. ‘Us?’
He gave her a long look. ‘Why not us?’
