Tara spins her weapon impossibly in her hand, changing direction at the last moment and cracking Conor in the hip. Conor flinches and then Tara is barging into him with a shoulder, sending him flying backward to skid along the grass until he comes to a wheezing stop.
“Very good, Conor. Your footwork improves.” Pádraig doesn’t look surprised. Tara isn’t even out of breath.
Conor, to his credit, nods gratefully as he gets to his feet. Annoyed that he lost, but not surprised and not bitter.
I assume that’s the extent of the lesson, but Pádraig looks around. “Seanna. Miach. Come and help Conor.” He eyes me, checking I’m paying attention, after he calls the names.
Seanna is fifteen, and the fair, dark-haired girl is short for her age, but I’ve seen her move and she is as fast as anyone. Miach is closer to my age, athletic and clever. The two step forward without hesitation, separating to place themselves at equal intervals around Tara.
I barely restrain a scoff. Tara will have a blind spot, inevitably be unable to see at least one of them.
There’s no starting signal necessary; all three students launch in at Tara at once, not giving her the opportunity to take the initiative. Staves whir and then Tara is moving, ducking and weaving and somehow anticipating where Miach—who is directly behind her—is aiming, slipping below the blow and blocking the other two with an angled spear braced against the ground.
It doesn’t stop there. Tara spins and kicks the grounded spear into a vicious upswing that catches Seanna in the chin, then allows the motion to continue, smoothly slinging it along her shoulders and twisting to take the brunt of Conor’s next hit. Miach is going low even as Seanna is falling, but Tara leapsso that her body is briefly sideways, over the top of the swing, then regains her footing smoothly and uses her momentum to let her spear snake through her grip into something close to a javelin throw.
The thinly wrapped edge cracks Conor in the temple. Tara is already moving after it, catching it before it falls and then whirling, using the ground once again to block another two quick strikes from a wide-eyed Miach. Tara backs away and at first it seems as though she’s retreating, but then she sprints forward, plants her haft in the ground and vaults, foot lashing out in a vicious kick that collects poor Miach in the ear. The boy goes down.
Tara scans the three on the ground, checking they’re not getting back up. Breathing hard, at least. She steps over the groaning forms to stand briefly in front of me. Commanding my attention as she finally, slowly brings her left hand from behind her back, before walking away without a word.
Pádraig comes to stand beside me, watching Conor and the other two pick themselves up.
“You do not have to be less, Leathfhear,” he says softly. “Not unless you wish to be.”
He moves on, calling on a couple of the younger students to perform a drill, though almost every eye is still fixed admiringly on Tara. It’s hard to blame them. It shouldn’t be possible. It’s not possible.
The problem is, I know exactly how she did it. It was hard to see in the quick-fire action, but at the end, just before she finished off Miach, I saw her eyes.
They were completely black.
XXXVI
ONE OF THE GREAT SYTRECIAN PHILOSOPHERS ONCEargued that the concept of home is, at its core, about safety. That no matter how familiar you may become with a place, no matter how long it is your abode—if it ever loses its sense of comfort, you can no longer truly call it by that name.
I cannot describe what I feel as the Transvect approaches the lush green hills of Solivagus. I was here for a year. I left only four months ago. It is as familiar a place as I have ever been, outside of Suus.
But this was never a home.
As the Transvect begins its dip toward the Seawall, Livia stirs, standing and pressing her face to the glass as she looks ahead. Youthful curiosity in her peering, even if it is tinged with something heavier. “So this is it?”
Aequa nods absently, her response unseen. Eidhin and I exchange grim glances and say nothing. The conversation was subdued but cheerful enough for a while, after the Necropolis. A few none-too-veiled jibes from Aequa and Eidhin about Emissa—partly for Livia’s benefit, who doesn’t know why we really stopped there, and partly to voice their continuing disapproval of her—but otherwise, given that I had no desire to risk breaking a Silencium in front of Callidus’s sister, the talk revolved around lighter matters.
This last half hour, though, has seen us quiet. We’ve spent it in mostly reflective silence as we’ve skimmed the rippling, glittering Sea of Quus.
For Eidhin, Aequa, and me, it’s our first time back.
“And these columns are some sort of defence? How does that work?” Livia turns. Not oblivious to the mood, I think. More uncomfortable in it. She says it as if it’s a question for all of us, but unconsciously or not, she’s directing it toward Eidhin.
“The Seawall is pre-Cataclysm.” Eidhin answers politely and only after a few seconds, distractedly, when he realises neither Aequa nor I are going to jump in.
Livia cocks her head to the side slightly, smiling. Intent. “You’ve never wondered?”
“We spent many classes analysing the potential mechanisms.”
“That sounds interesting.”
“It was not.”
Livia chuckles as if he was making a joke, then awkwardly turns back to the window as Eidhin continues to stare distractedly in the opposite direction. Between them, I catch Aequa’s half wince, half smirk, though she does her best to hide it. I feel the corners of my own lips threaten to pull upward before I lean forward and pretend to rub my face. The tension dissipated, at least briefly, at least for us.
