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“What?” Kieran said with a wink to Claire. “She’s our little cousin, we have to be protective over her virtue. It’s like a rule.”
“Let’s not and say you did,” Claire said, her face still bright red. She tried to imagine how her Triad would react if her cousins played overprotective big brothers. On second thought actually, they might enjoy an extra two sets of eyes watching out for her.
They arrived at a small stone training area set into the side of one of the rocky hills. One wall was formed by a rocky bluff but the other three walls were open. Kallan went over to a wood door on the side of the bluff and pulled it open, revealing a small closet of wooden training weapons. Claire took off her daggers and laid them to the side.
“May I?” Kallan asked, approaching her with a wooden sword and motioning to the daggers.
Claire reluctantly handed them over, feeling oddly possessive of them. Kallan was respectful, gently pulling each out of its sheath and examining them carefully.
“Your father always had excellent craftsmanship.”
“My father made these?” Claire’s eyebrows went up. She knew that the dagger had belonged to her father and that he had made sure Roderick had received it to give it to Malcolm but she didn’t know he had made the daggers as well.
“He did. He didn’t make many weapons but he did apprentice under one of our greatest craftsmen when he was a young man before he went to the Academy. He mainly made weapons afterwards for family and close friends.”
Kallan handed the daggers back to Claire and she held them, studying them with a new eye. The styles were very different, one Fae and one Elven, and Claire had just assumed two different people had created them. But if her father had created both, did he maybe create one for her mother and one for him? Or was Claire always the end user in mind with her mother’s visions?
She put the daggers aside and accepted the wooden sword from Kallan. “Let’s start with the basics,” Kallan said. “That way we can evaluate the holes in your training and see where we need to start.”
Holes in her training? Someone was very confident that the Fae warrior way was the best way. She had been training with Malcolm for a year now. And while she wasn’t on his level, she felt like she could hold her own.
Thirty minutes later, she realized that there might be something to the Fae way of training. When Kallan said ‘basics’ she expected to walk through a variation of the warm-up forms. No, instead she was picking herself up off the ground for the seventh time. Kallan wasn’t holding back and he moved so fast and so fluidly, Claire could barely track his movements.
Kieran called a break and Claire took some deep breaths, ignoring the aches in her side from landing on the ground. “Not bad,” Kieran said. “There’s definitely some moves you’ll need to learn though before the Traditio.”
“Not bad?” Claire wiped her brow. “I didn’t land more than three hits on you.”
Kieran laughed. “Kallan is a bit of a savant, I would have been surprised if you had hit more than that. He’s one of the best swordsmen we have.”
Claire arched an eyebrow at Kallan who shrugged. “The sword really isn’t your weapon is it?”
Claire shook her head gesturing towards the daggers. “I’ve been more comfortable with the daggers since I found them. Or since they found me.”
Kallan nodded and gave her a pair of wooden daggers to try next. For the next hour, he kicked her ass again while teaching her some different footwork moves. She took more hits then she landed any but once she was done Kallan gave her an approving nod. She shook out her aching muscles and Kieran passed her a water flask.
“We can definitely work with this before the Traditio,” Kallan told Kieran.
“So combat is part of the Traditio?” Claire asked, taking a seat on one of the boulders next to Puck and rubbing his soft fur.
Kallan nodded. “There are a few different trials. It ensures a well-rounded ruler. The first section is combat. You will duel with three different Fae. Usually they would be the top warriors we have but the Elders probably won’t let Kieran and I be your opponents as that would be seen as being biased.”
“But we can give you a readout of who your possible opponents would be,” Kieran said. “It’s a short list of potentials.”
“Alright,” Kieran clapped his hands, cutting off the conversation and her break. “Let’s move onto the sparring part of today’s training.”
“Wasn’t that just what we were doing?” Claire frowned.
Kallan shook his head. “That was just evaluating your training so far. When we spar, you will use your magic too. It’ll mimic a fight on the battlefield so don’t hold back.”
“But what if I hurt you?” Claire bit her lip, looking down at Puck. Every morning, it felt like she woke up and her magic got stronger the closer it came to her birthday. Or maybe her control was just eroding as the Autumn Equinox drew near.
“Then we’ll heal,” Kieran answered matter of factly. Neither of her cousins seemed concerned enough.
“My magic…” She stopped and looked down at her hands. Was she really going to admit that her magic was growing out of control? While her cousins said they were on her side that opinion might change if they found out she couldn’t control her magic.
“Your magic what?” Kieran asked when she didn’t answer.
She pasted a fake smile on her face. “Nothing, I was just checking in with it to make sure everything was good.” She checked in with her magic as she said that, making sure the bonds with Puck and her Triad were secure. Some spots seemed to be fraying and magic was spilling over into her center. She couldn’t risk another mountain incident. She layered the bond with Puck over the weak spots and stood to her feet. It was going to be fine.
