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The question flits through my mind quickly. I flex my hands, and magic burns off them as I relive the series of events that led me to where I am.
“I don’t feel like warming up today.” There is an edge to my voice.
Callista looks at me with narrowed eyes, but she nods her assent.
Then she leaps.
Callista always has weapons hidden all over her body. She has managed to fit them into places I didn’t know were possible and should surely be painful.
Now, as she arcs gracefully through the air, she pulls twin daggers from somewhere and throws them at me.
I twist out from under her, and her daggers shatter two of the mirrors behind me.
Sythar is going to be pissed.
I focus on my hands, my wrists, where my magic waits for me.
Sometimes I want to weep with joy that I always have my magic waiting for me.
Callista is still in the air – she stayed there longer than should be possible for a human woman – and she is about to go tumbling down gracefully to the floor.
Everything is energy. You have the magic of the arcane. Use it. Always remember, everything is energy.My old teacher’s voice ripples through my mind as I grab the energy around Callista’s body. I make it heavier than she is, and then I bring her crashing down to the floor.
She lands on her side, because we have all been taught how to fall while causing the least damage to ourselves, and she rolls onto her feet immediately.
I take a step backwards, wavering slightly, and Callista smiles again.
“Don’t tell me you’re already tired.” She croons the words at me in her soft voice, a voice that, like my mouth, has brought scores of men to their knees.
“You did say you didn’t want to warm up,” she continues, and her voice is soft and sweet, and I remember Sythar’s favorite words.
“A practice is a practice is a practice and a performance is a performance is a performance.”
Right now, we may just be training, but for Callista, a training session is no different from a ‘real’ job. She is always sweet and soft and so, so deadly that I’d never want to get on her bad side.
And the other students of Nakam are more afraid of me than they are of Callista, which is saying something.
Callista leaps at me again and again and again.
I dodge knives and spears and swords deftly until she uncurls a whip from around her hips and twists it around my ankles.
I fall until I remember that I don’t really have to and force myself up before I use my magic to stretch the fibers of the whip until it tears.
Callista laughs lightly. Her tinkling laughter resounds around the room like the shattering of glass and dances away from me. I pull and drag at the energy she leaves behind her as she moves.
More advice from my old teacher rings through my head.
“Perfect the arcane magic. But never forget your most powerful asset. Make them rot.”
She really shouldn’t have remained on the ground. The wooden ground,I think as I pull at the wooden floor.
I can make anything rot. Even materials that have been made by humans or minotaurs or dark elves.
But wood is even easier. It was alive before. And I am so, so good at rotting the living.
Callista’s eyes widen as the floor beneath her trembles and starts to crumble.
The stink of rot magic fills the room, and my own knees go weak for a second as I force all the magic that lingers in my body towards my hands.
