Kierna

Wooden blades clacked against each other as Kierna was pushed back across the ring. Birdy’s face was a mask of concentration, sweat dripping down her dark skin in a sheet of perspiration. She refused to relent as she battered down Kierna’s defenses. Kierna was struggling, breathing hard as the other girl kept the pressure up. The week of contests culminated here in the ring, and Kierna was losing.

She dodged an overhead strike, drawing more aether into her already straining channels. Her body was pulsing with power, but she still couldn’t keep up with Birdy. The other girl was trained with a blade, a minor noble of some lesser house off of the beaten path. Her training kept Kierna off balance, her own natural talents paling against training. Birdy slipped by her defense, striking as fast a snake, the wooden blade smacking her sword arm. Kierna’s aether reinforced flesh wasn’t tough enough to completely negate the blow. Pain radiated through her arm, causing her to drop her practice blade to the ground.

“Halt!” the masked instructor called out instantly. Birdy responded perfectly; her follow up blow, that would have brained Kierna, freezing in place. Kierna was gasping, red hot belts of pain pulsating through her where the other girl had landed strikes.

“Victory, Birdy!” The instructor walked away with that. No longer caring that Kierna had just lost her first match. That her squad had just lost the challenge and they wouldn’t receive extra training. Kierna turned and looked at the crowded faces of her squadmates, all of them looking away from her. Only Dion met her gaze, empathy shining in her eyes as she mouthed, “it’s ok”. Kierna shook her head violently.

She knew it wasn’t ok. Her failure cost all of her squadmates a chance to do better. She was weak, untrained, ignorant of even the meanest basics of swordplay. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes as she walked away with what dignity she could muster. The weight of her teams crashed hopes weighing her down.

“It’s fine,” Dion murmured, having raced across the training field to walk by Kierna. The smaller girl had to hurry to keep up as Kierna fled from her embarrassment. The fact that she hadn’t managed to land a single blow, that Birdy had battered her around like a training dummy. It burned and ripped at the fragile pride she had been painstakingly building.

“I should have beaten her. She hasn’t even begun to infuse herself. I’m stronger and faster than she is. I’m better!”

“How do you think I feel? I’m further than everyone with my cultivation, yet I still get beat every day in the training ring,” Dion replied, venom leaking from her words.

“I’m sorry, I know this has been hard for you,” Kierna reassured her only friend as they walked past the healing station and toward the Temple. Kierna ignored Ryen’s inquisitive look as Kierna didn’t report for healing for the first time.

“It’s ok, not much I can do about it. Just have to keep cultivating until it makes a difference.” Dion looked back toward the rings, a sneer crossing her face at the bigger and more athletic candidates.

“Dion and Kierna. Please, attend me,” Pavel’s voice echoed across the hall the moment they walked into the common hall. Both froze, fear an icy river racing through their veins. Pavel didn’t talk to the candidates, aside from dismissing them. They crossed the common room to where he stood in the center. Tall and lanky, black silky hair falling to his shoulder while his dark eyes were suffused with displeasure. He stood like an unsheathed blade, all razor edges waiting to slash.

“Sir!” both girls cried as they bowed before him. They held their bows, eyes toward the ground while they waited for him to speak. The moment dragged on and on, stretching to a lifetime as the two girls waited with anxious hearts.

“You’ve been disappointing in the dueling rings. While your cultivation is,” he grunted while his face twisted into a disgusted look showing his displeasure. The two girls were spared the look, as neither had looked up from the floor. The rest of the hall watched though, as he browbeat them before everyone.

“I have a new task for you. An aether beast is prowling the mountain side close by. Take real steel and cleanse the mountain of its presence,” Pavel waved them away with a dismissive flick of his hand. The two girls kept their bow, while they backed away, never looking up.

“We won’t be here for classes,” Dion whispered in fury as they walked quickly toward the armory. The small room was off of the main hall, watched at all times by one of the instructors.

“He is showing his displeasure. Alienating us from our classmates!” Dion continued to growl as they were each handed a sheathed sword. Kierna checked her blade quickly, finding that the edge was appropriate, before she had to chide Dion to check her own blade.

“He is alienating us. We are ahead of everyone in cultivation but lack the training the others have in martial ability. He told us to kill the aether beast. He didn’t tell us to bring back the aether core.”

“You think he wants us to consume the beasts aether core? That much power, if it’s formed a core…I don’t know Kierna,” Dion trailed off as she started to think about what absorbing a beast's aether core would do to them. Their teaching had been fairly lax on what it would entail, but a beast core could be slowly consumed, strengthening your own cultivation.

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“He’s offering us an opportunity. We either take it, or we fail,” Kierna said from gritted teeth. She was aching from the beating she had just received and the thought of taking in a fully formed aether core was appealing. She might be able to finish her outer cultivation with the condensed aether from a core. Both her and Dion. If they took the chance.

“Why is he offering us the chance? It’s only been a few weeks. We are ahead right now, but Kierna, it’s not that special,” Dion warned. The small girl was more paranoid, watching out for conspiracies that could lurk in the shadows.

“I don’t know. He’s slippery. What he did with Grace… I really don’t know what he’s thinking. He’s cruel, that I have no doubt. I think he believes strength is taken, and he’s encouraging us to take it,” Kierna said, working through her thoughts on the company commander. He had brought Grace’s body back up to show the rest of them, a warning that this could be deadly. Also an encouragement, Dion had eliminated an early leader in the rankings and wasn’t punished for it. Kierna had a terrible feeling that Pavel was going to turn the temple into a charnel house. Where the ten who graduated to the next step, were the ten that survived the training.

“He’s a dick,” Ryen said, appearing next to the two of them as they stepped out of the temple. The healer was looking down at them with kind eyes, taking in Kierna’s and Dion’s battered appearances. She had been spending time with them when she could, often talking to them when Kierna went in for her healing.

“We apologize ma’am,” both girls bowed again as the healer rolled her eyes.

“Enough of that shit. I’m just the hired help. I heard he’s sending you two out to hunt an aether beast.”

“He just finished giving us orders. How do you know already?” Dion asked, doubt plain in her voice.

“I can hear a fly fart on this mountain. You think I can’t hear that bloated bag of gas spewing his nonsense?” The healer raised an eyebrow at them for looking down on her.

“Apologies ma’am, but does that mean he heard us talking about him?” Kierna asked in horror.

“Undoubtedly. While he is a pompous dick, he’s not vindictive to people calling him out. He knows he’s an ass.”

“Aren’t you worried he’ll fire you?” Dion asked. The small girl was suspicious of everyone and questioned everyone’s motives. That she had bonded so quickly and strongly to Kierna was a minor miracle. Kierna often thought the smaller girl would make an excellent spy or assassin.

Ryen threw her head back and laughed, a full on belly laugh that rang out across the temple courtyard. Heads turned to look at the normally quiet and courteous healer being so boisterous. Tears formed in her eyes at the mirth of the suggestion, sliding down her cheeks as her smile threatened to split her face in half.

“Ohhhh, that’s a good one. No, I’m not worried about him at all. Anyway, I can’t heal you, my contract is very clear on that. I can give you some advice, so hear me out. If you find and kill the beast, and it is in your range of skill if you’re careful and plan, don’t use the core. Keep it. You don’t have the base right now to fully use it, better to wait and consume it when you can fully utilize it.”

“Why are you helping us?”

Kierna had to force herself to not roll her eyes as Dion continued to question the older woman. There was a limit where one went from curious to rude and Dion was rapidly approaching it.

“Because he lied to me. He told me he would keep you kids safe. So, I’m going to work to keep you kids alive. Don’t eat the core. Kill the beast, the core will be in the center mass. Take the core and bring it back, I will hold onto it for you.” Ryen ended the conversation by vanishing. Kierna blinked repeatedly as she stared at where the healer had been just a heartbeat ago.

“Did she just disappear?” Kierna asked out loud.

“Yes. Is that rude or is it just me?” Dion asked.

“It’s rude. Also cool. Do you think we will be able to just disappear when we get strong enough?”

“I don’t see why not, I wonder how strong she is?”Dion pondered.

“I don’t know. Fourth tier maybe?” Kierna hypothesized. At the fourth tier, one had built and made four layers to their aether core, each one larger than the last.

“Would it be rude to ask?” Dion murmured as they began to scurry away from the temple and toward the road that led to the more untamed parts of the mountain.

“Yeah, I think it is rude to ask.” Kierna knew she wouldn’t want people asking what her cultivation levels were. She still wondered if maybe Ryen would answer truthfully if she asked.

Ryen watched the two kids scurry away, their words clear as day from where she floated hundreds of feet in the air. Pavel was glaring at her, his dark eyes smoldering with constrained rage. Ryen glared back at him, the image of the dead child laying sprawled out in the common room flashing in her mind.

“Couldn’t even make it a month before you broke your promises?!” Ryen snapped at him.

“The girl died at the hands of another candidate in what should have been a fairly safe exercise. I left her out as a warning to others. There are consequences to their actions.”

“So sending those two off to hunt an aether beast is their punishment? You degrading them in front of others? Please, keep lying to me,” Ryen snorted in disgust.

“The beast is barely qualified as an aether beast. Its core just formed. Those two have the most potential. They need experience. This is an experience.”

“So that makes it better?”

“I’m doing my job. I request that you do the same. Honor your contract and don’t erode my position of authority to the candidates. It shames us both and our masters.”

“My master doesn’t care at all about your honor. You are lucky that he respects Sorrow enough to let me take the contract. I wish I hadn’t. I won’t let you kill these children, this I vow!” Ryen’s voice was filled with rage, the very air around her warping as she stared down Pavel.

“I told you, they won’t die needlessly.” Pavel whispers.

“You have abandoned your humanity,” Ryen snarled, slinking away, cursing herself for having taken this contract.