Helen was already wide awake when her door was knocked. Her night had been a volatile pendulum, going from the relief of finally having her own personal space to sleep in, to the unease of her alien environment. She caught little sleep broken into fifteen-minute chunks.
A large wooden table stood against the wall next to her bed. On it, she had pages and pages of crude drawings and notes on the fights she had seen the day before. She had spent the night before comletely awake, studying them. The sheer number of things she couldn’t understand about those fights angered her more than she would have thought possible.
The notes included what Helen thought happened in matches and what actually happened, most of which were explained by the irritating kid with those unnerving red eyes. It was obvious that the former recruits, those who fought the day before, had mastered techniques and magics completely unknown to Helen. What frustrated her wasn’t that they possessed knowledge which was key to fighting a completely different way than she does. It was that Helen’s way of fighting, the way that kept a scared child fed in the gutters of Lower City, had no way of beating even the rejects of Dragon Spire.
It had been so long since she felt so weak. For years, her twin obsidian daggers had been the subject of scared whispers in the Seventh Spire’s underground circles. Her master’s constant praise and unending trust had molded her into someone who was content with herself, someone who believed her way of fighting was absolute for her. The entirety of her ego had shaped around those moves, the image of a shadow wrapped in blue coming unexpectedly in the middle of the night.
The first hit her ego took happened on the cloudship. After the fight with Amryn, she thought her pride could be salvaged if she saw Amryn fight with stronger opponents and win. He who could beat Helen in a fight so effortlessly was surely someone special, someone exceptionally powerful.
Sure, Amryn was an incredibly talented fighter. Watching him fight in his subtle and understated way felt like watching a storm unfold. However, Helen’s pride was in an even worse shape after watching him win. Ever since coming back to the castle, all Helen could think about was how he had defeated her so completely without even using a fracture of his strength. Even against that tattooed opponent who wielded lighting as well as he wielded steel, she was sure Amryn only used only about ten percent of his power.
It wasn’t just the fighters that deeply disturbed Helen’s sense of her own power. Ever since arriving on this creepy shifting spire, everyone she met made the alarms in the back of her mind going crazy. The spectators from the day before watched those fighters intently, like they were performers. No one looked the least bit impressed by the sheer display of explosive power that took place in front of them.
Sitting in her mediocrity, staring out the only window in her room, at the clear sky broken every once in a while by a dragon flying by, Helen could only think about one thing. She had a long way to go.
When the knock on the door came, she had already been dressed and ready to go. She was wearing a simple shirt and pants suitable for physical training. Her uniform was folded neatly on the corner of her bed. She took a deep breath to center herself, before opening the door.
One of the creepy armors that lined the walls of Arachne’s part of the castle stood in front of her. It was red with rust in places. It was an old school, surface era full plate armor. It was too clunky to be reliably worn in the spires’ unpredictable winds.
“Master Arachne expects you in the communal room,” it spoke with a guttural voice. “Only your sword will be necessary today.”
The figure in that armor was unnerving in the same way lieutenant Arachne was. It kicked Helen’s survival instincts into gear. It smelled like death in the same way a pit of vipers smelled like death, unnervingly natural.
The figure turned and climbed the stairs, presumably to call the rest of the recruits down. Helen was surprised that she wasn’t the first one to calm down. The silent girl and red eyed boy were already down. Going by the speed Dahlia and the plant boy arrived, it was clear that nobody had an easy time sleeping.
Even with the tired look in her face and dark rings around her eyes, Dahlia looked much more alert than she did in their journey on the cloudship.
“You seem better,” Helen chimed as the other girl joined her at the table.
“Thanks,” her cousin said dryly. “It’s poison, you want some?” her breath caught, and she started coughing as if on cue.
Helen was debating whether to inquire further when the temperature in the room felt like it suddenly dropped. When she realized they were there, Arachne had already made it to the table. Once again, Helen was impressed by the uncanny lack of presence her new teacher carried.
“I see watching the fights had the desired effect,” Arachne whispered, her voice carrying a slight smile. “Looks like you are not completely hopeless after all. Come, follow.” They turned and left the room, following the spider-marked trail to the lower level.
They led the recruits through a large arc into an inner courtyard much smaller than the main one at the entrance of the castle. It resembled the arena from the day before, in that there was a deep pond in the middle of it. It was large enough for ten people to comfortably swim in. Five circular platforms floated on the surface. The ground around the pond was grassy soil, irritatingly soft. More suits of armor stood on the back end of the space, making Helen wonder if they were occupied like the one that came to summon her.
“You will face many worthy opponents in your time with me,” Arachne said, coming to a stop in front of the pond and dramatically turning around to face their students. With their inflated hand movements, they resembled a presenter in a haunted circus. “Look upon thine villains, thee hatchlings of mine: the fearsome plank.” They stepped aside, a self-indulgent smile on their face.
Helen noticed Kura and Helio trade concerned glances in the corner of her eyes. Helen wasn’t that surprised as every strong person she came to know in her life were some sort of eccentric. Her last master, the one who taught her and Ollie both had a room in his house set aside exclusively for his porcelain dolls. If it meant they could get her stronger, Helen was prepared to deal with anything that came with it.
“Planks, sir?” Kuro asked meekly. He wore a comfortable looking tunic and baggy pants that looked handmade.
“Planks,” Arachne repeated. They jumped two feet in the air, doing a backflip and landing on the closest plank. They stood perfectly straight, hands spread in an acrobat’s pose. The platform barely moved under them.
The water itself was also perfectly still despite the cold morning wind softly howling in the open sky above them, barely lit and golden orange.
“Your first mission is to stand on the plank.” They jumped and landed on another one. “No movement is required, yet. It’s easy,” they said, a sly smile on their face clearly contradicting the words themselves. “You are done when you manage to stand on a platform without falling for one minute straight, or when the sun sets. You eat when you are done, no one leaves here until then. If you get too frustrated, you can take a break and practice the sword form drill that you all should have learned by now.” A jump and another flip later, Arachne stood in front of the recruits once again. Helio clapped excitedly, which was answered with an exaggerated bow.
They started towards the door that led to the hallway before abruptly stopping. “Wait, I got excited about the training and forgot to give you guys the speech,” they said, thoughtfully. “Whatever, I will do it once you clear this exercise. You, blue.” They pointed at Helen. “Remind me to give the speech before starting the next exercise.”
They left the courtyard unceremoniously, leaving behind a baffled group of recruits who traded anxious glances. Helen moved first, taking a two-step run and a jump to perfectly land on the platform. She immediately realized the problem when her weight connected the plank. The wood’s weight was not evenly distributed, in fact she was sure that at least 70 percent of the mass was in the center of the plank. She instinctively took a low stance to keep her balance. It was still tough. The platform shook under her violently. She guessed the maximum amount of movement allowed for her center of mass, would be an inch to any side, any more than that and she would find herself in water.
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Dahlia jumped next and without warning, not giving Helen a chance to tell her to stop. She immediately landed on the wrong spot, causing her to plunge into the water. The resulting waves splashed on Helen’s platform, resulting in her losing her balance, which she wouldn’t dream of offsetting by moving. She barely had time to curse under her breath before the icy waters drowned out her world.
Thankfully, the pond wasn’t as deep as she taught it was. She could reach the bottom while her head was still above the surface, albeit barely. Which was lucky, as swimming was one in a list of things she never saw a reason to learn. There were no ponds on the Seventh. No reason for one really. What little water imported from the Fourth Spire was for restricted household use. Even for one raised in the upper city, such a pond would be an offensive misuse of resources.
The only thing that kept her from panicking until her feet found the stone was her discipline. Her cousin unsurprisingly lacked such composure. She struggled like a dying animal, desperately trying to stay afloat. Helen grabbed her by the shoulder to try and stop her from splashing the entire pond out.
“It’s not deep. Calm down,” she said glaring at the cursed girl. She let her cousin go and pulled herself out of the water. “How long was that?” she asked, trying to distract herself from the icy cold that seeped through her clothes and cut into her flesh like a knife made of crystal ice. She tensed her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.
“Barely ten seconds,” Kuro whispered. “Are you okay? It was a very good first try.” He sounded genuinely concerned, which bugged Helen for multiple reasons.
Helen simply nodded. She turned to Dahlia, who was struggling to get out of the pond. “Don’t jump in until I am done.” She stretched her arms to get some semblance of blood flowing in her arms as she made her way back near the edge of the pond.
“And should the rest of us wait until you succeed?” asked the broad girl, whom Kuro had introduced as Ashe when Helen arrived the day before. It was the first time Helen heard the large girl’s voice. It was low and forceful, like rolling thunder.
“It only makes sense, as it is near impossible to keep balance while there are waves in the water,” Helen said, wincing in disappointment.
“At least we should take turns trying.” Kuro walked between the two girls trying to break their hostile glares with his disarming smile.
“But doing it together would be more fun, no?” Helio chimed in. He was knelt next to the pond, dipping his hand in and out of the water to try and gauge how cold it is. “We always trained together when learning a new technique in the forge with other apprentices.”
“There is no need to make this any harder than it needs to be,” Helen snapped. She didn’t want this pointless practice to take any more time than it needed to. She seriously believed this was simply a way for Arachne to teach them humility the way Syllan did with her on the ship. “Doing it one by one is the fastest way to get this done, I am fine with taking turns,” she added, keeping her glare on Ashe’s dark brown eyes.
“That wouldn’t work,” Dahlia said. She was trembling with cold. Her eyes were fixed on the rocking platforms. “Even if we make it through this by taking turns, I am certain that the lieutenant will task us with doing it at the same time at some point. I don’t think keeping our balance in a static state would clear us. Besides, I reckon there are five planks for a reason.”
“How would they even know if we did it together or not?” Helen said, her voice shaky from the cold and frustration. She always had trouble thinking things through when angry, and the wet clothes and morning breeze didn’t help.
“I am sure they would know,” Ashe nodded to the opposite end of the courtyard. She was biting the corner of her lip in what Helen assumed was a similar frustration to her own.
Helen followed the girl’s gaze to where three of those weird rusty armors stood near the wall and cursed herself for forgetting what she was aware of a mere minute before. Her master would have her sleep hanging from the ceiling for a week as punishment for such severe lack of awareness.
She tried to force herself to calm down, which made the numbness in her brain even more obvious. Even though she hated to admit it, the cursed one’s reasoning was sound.
“I would also prefer doing it together,” Kuro said, pulling his hair behind and tying it in a simple ponytail with a piece of vine.
Ashe simply nodded, before slowly walking to the other side of the pond, positioning herself close to one of the far platforms. Helio prepared himself, jumping in place and balancing on one leg excitedly. Helen shook her head and slapped herself with both hands on her cheeks to pull herself to the moment.
The five recruits jumped at the same time. Helen missed the middle point of the platform and went straight down. The only one who found purchase on a plank was Ashe, who managed to wiggle on the wood for about four seconds before she joined the other four in the water.
Helen lost count of their tries after one hundred and twenty. Her brain was too frazzled to count at that point. Shortly after noon, Kuro took a break to practice his sword forms. Three or four hours later Helio and Ashe joined him, saying they were too tired to reliably try to keep their balance.
When Arachne came back to check on them, the sun had already passed through the opening above them. The sky was dusk purple, and the cousins’ faces were almost the same shade.
The seasoned rider, dressed in their wraps and a long coat blacker than black, offered their hatchlings no words of encouragement. They gave no direction or feedback of any kind. They simply gazed upon Helen and the others with a sadistic smile.
“Tomorrow starts at dawn,” they said, shifting their weight from one foot to another. “Food is in the common room, rest well.”
Helen blinked and the rider was no longer there. Too tired to care, her pain-dulled senses well past her limits, she hung her head and dragged her feet through the wooden floors.
The perfect smell of beautifully cooked food filled the large hall, the round table in the middle filled to the brim with plates of meat and fresh bread and vibrant greens. Helen picked up a bun and shoved it in her mouth as she passed the table, climbing the stairs to her room with an overwhelming desire to get out of her repeatedly soaked and dried clothes. The others followed suit. Even Helio was as silent as Ashe after a long day filled with cold and pain.
In her room, Helen scraped off her clothes from her skin, gritting her teeth in pain in the process. Her elbows were scraped, and knees ached from pulling herself out of the water time and time again. It felt like her brain and her eyes were trying to run out of her nose. Every muscle in her body was sore from effort, a thumping pain rolled around her limbs.
Angry, she hastily picked up her drawings from the previous night after she dried herself and wore fresh clothes. She threw herself on one of the chairs around the table, instinctively keeping both entrances of the common room in her peripheral. She cleared enough place in front of her to spread the pages and started studying as she picked up a meat filled bun to eat. She thought if she studied the movements of the fighters from yesterday, she might glean some information on keeping her balance on those godsdamned platforms.
One by one, the others joined her around the table. Shooting her a couple of short glances as they ate in silence. About ten minutes in, Helio’s voice broke through.
“Umm, Helen, ma’am,” he said meekly. “Please don’t get mad at me but I think you have some of those poses wrong.”
Helen took a deep breath to keep from snapping at the boy, reminding herself how he was the only one who could tell what was going on in those fights. “Come,” she said, eyeing the other recruits who watched them with cautious looks. “Show me what I got wrong.”
Helio walked around the table with a piece of puffed pastry in his hand. He pointed at the page where she had her drawings of a spear wielding rider, who slid on the water’s surface on her toes as if skating on ice. He cleared his throat.
“You have her arms and legs perfectly,” he said. He was clearly mimicking someone from his past. “The problem lies right here.” He put his finger on the spot where Helen had sketched the point where the girl’s back met her neck. “It was more like this.”
He perfectly took the pose depicted in the image. Contrary of the default position Helen drew, his neck was bent a little back with his face turned slightly to the left instead of facing forward, towards where the enemy would be.
“Might have something to do with offsetting the bend in her knees maybe?” Kuro chimed in from the other side of the table.
“Were you a painter or somet’n?” Ashe’s voice came from right behind Helen’s shoulder. “Those are some good draw’ngs.” She spoke in a strange way that swallowed every other sound, it resembled Faelix’ rushed and round speech but felt somewhat cruder.
Dahlia got up from her chair and walked across the room towards a small coffee table. “Here,” she nodded to Helio, one hand holding the side of her head. One of her eyes were closed, the other blood red, betraying excruciating pain. “Try it on this.”
Helio jumped on the reversed coffee table’s leg, balancing himself with spread arms without much challenge. He took a combat stance identical to one in Helen’s drawing save for the way his spine bent slightly backwards.
“Feels a lot more stable,” he said.
“Wait.” Ashe stalked across the room and pulled a shield out of one of the nearby armor’s hand. “Try balancing on this.”
Helio did, he balanced the shield on the table’s leg and jumped on top of it, falling off almost immediately. Kuro pulled him up and supported him by the legs. Ashe also held the boy’s hands, guiding his arms into various poses.
Helen nibbled on bread watching the three try finding the pose that granted the most stability before she traded a momentary glance with her cursed cousin and got up to join them.