“Messed with the water again to get waves?” Perian suggested.
They nodded. “But they’d have to be pretty powerful to keep me totally out of sight of people on dry land. It’s different when you’re all in the water and the waves are jostling people around and keeping them unsteady. When they’re just affecting me, it puts me at a disadvantage.”
Perian nodded. That made a lot of sense. He’d never really thought about defensible positions between water and land before.
“One more training exercise?” Brannal asked.
They all groaned theatrically loudly, but they couldn’t actually hide how energized they were. Perian was sure they were enjoying themselves.
“We’ll have one more for tomorrow, then,” Brannal allowed. He clarified: “In the morning, before Molun can come up with an excuse and we suddenly need to leave. It’ll be a group effort.”
“Does that mean I get to participate?” Perian asked.
Brannal looked at him. “I actually had a special task for you, but based on the way you’re looking at me right now, I think the correct answer is ‘yes, absolutely one in which you get to participate, Perian, why would you think otherwise?’”
Everyone laughed.
Perian grinned up at him. “Great answer.”
Brannal leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to his lips before saying, “I need to show you something in the woods.”
Perian felt his eyebrows rise up his forehead as everyone else hooted with laughter. But he definitely wasn’t going to question this. He popped to his feet.
“Bye, everyone, see you later. I’ve to go into the woods now tosee something.”
As if there hadn’t been enough innuendo already.
Brannal rose more slowly, and they disappeared into the woods together as Molun called ribald things after them. Perian was practically buzzing with excitement. Brannal pulled him in way further than he expected, but then he realized that they both had different comfort levels with this sort of thing, and it would make perfect sense for the head of the Mage Warriors to want to be further away from his friends and colleagues.
And then Perian learned why Brannalactuallywanted him to come into the woods.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Perian said, stunned. “You want us to plant these ribbons?”
Brannal nodded. “Originally, I was going to have you do both of them, but since you want to participate, I thought you could plant the one for your team, and I could plant the one for my team, because now I’m going to need to be on a team, too, so that it’s even. Then we’ll each know where our team’s flag is but not where the other one’s is, so it’ll be fair for both groups to hunt for them tomorrow.”
“You made everyone think we were going to have sex in here so that instead, we can get ready for tomorrow’s training exercise? You lured me in here under false pretenses?”
Looking slightly less certain, Brannal nodded.
Perian burst into laughter. “That is the best thing ever! You’re so sneaky.”
Brannal looked extremely relieved.
Perian pointed a finger at him. “But you better be planning for lots of sex later! I expect you to make up for this.”
Brannal didn’t even roll his eyes, just nodded. “I solemnly swear that we’ll have lots of sex after this.”
Perian grinned at him and took the length of light orange-pink material. Brannal had one in light yellow.
“All right, what are the parameters?” Perian wanted to know. “Clearly, you could blow yours up into a tree or bury it ten feet underground, and I can’t do anything like that.”
Brannal smiled at him. “It needs to be tied around a tree truck at approximately eye level. One knot to keep it tied in place, with the ends free to move in the wind. No accidentally sending it up to the top of a tree, and I promise I won’t set it on fire when your back is turned.”
“You better not,” Perian said with mock sternness, “or you’ll be in big trouble.”
Huffing an amused breath, Brannal said, “We’ll both need to head off in opposite directions, but you can move around in the direction of your choice once we’ve gotten far enough away not to see one another.”
“Are we counting to one hundred again?”
