Soraya thrusted her hand toward her opponent. She maintained a rigid base with her hips and legs. She swung her torso with the momentum of the thrust. She pushed her shoulder forward, in line with her arm to give it more velocity. The move had been practiced slowly. Then faster, over and over, until she’d carved the motion into her body. Her master finally permitted her to use the technique. And then he repelled it.

“Good, good!” Cyril commented. “Your movement is good. More power will come later.”

Soraya knew that his critique did not signal the end of their sparring. She stepped forward and tried the move with her other arm, but Cyril’s wrist diverted her grab. It had been going like that all morning and seemed like it would be going that way all afternoon too.

Cyril pounced on her hesitation. Soraya sought respite and Cyril offered none, except in his words. Soraya swerved her body away from Cyril’s fist. She backpedaled all around the grinder, Gwyllion Abbey’s training arena. The season’s heat had abated, but the two were still dropping beads of sweat into the dry dirt with every movement.

“Keep your dodges tighter,” Cyril warned her. “Don’t waste your energy getting further away than you need to. See my attack and stay close enough to fight back.” He accelerated his attacks and Soraya had to work harder to stay clear of his fists. “You must stay close to your enemy when they’re attacking. You must stay close enough to strike back when you see your opportunity.”

Days had passed since the Degatawa ball. Since Cyril had mysteriously disappeared since meeting with Soraya and Wakahn’s fathers, the kids never had the chance to seriously talk with him. When he started summoning them to the guild for practice, it was Soraya that recommended they not ask Cyril about the letter, “yet.” She wanted them all to feel comfortable with each other again. She did not want to ask Cyril out of suspicion. Every day it became more and more distracting for her.

Cyril stopped punching. Soraya launched into the gap between them. Even while he was recovering from injuries and in his fully human form, she had been unable to land even one real attack on her master. Soraya expended every effort to change that. She threw a tight jab that Cyril blocked with his wrist. She threw another at his throat and he blocked that with his other arm. Her feints had raised the man’s guard.

Soraya directed the flow of mana in her body towards her back foot. The girl’s next step came quickly and Cyril didn’t have the time to lower his arms. He recognized his student’s efforts, even if her progress hadn’t changed her too much. The girl was developing at an average rate. So, Cyril was surprised when Soraya didn’t drop her shoulders and try to kick him, as she’d been taught. Soraya channeled the mana in her foot so that she could jump from that spot.

Soraya’s low shoulder pushed into Cyril’s chest. His arms were forced to contend with her full body assault. Her arms snaked on to his shoulder and held on tight. Soraya twisted her own body and pulled Cyril. His feet lifted off the ground and he was thrown over her shoulder. Cyril considered the throw to be an excellent move employed excellently. Upside down, he slapped the ground with one hand and sprang off its momentum. The acrobatics pained the injuries under his bandages, but his beaming pride drowned out any agony.

Her fans cheered.

Piper and Wakahn had been relegated to training more suited to their needs. When their master had asked them to recreate the runes that he had taught them, both failed. In the context of Soraya’s heroics by exorcising a gwyll, Cyril considered this training to be their top priority. Cyril had allowed them to spectate the fighting all the same. The two had abandoned their work and stood on their feet to cheer for Soraya. She giggled and curtsied to the pair until Cyril joined in on the applause.

“Very well done,” he commended her. Some light twinkled out of Soraya’s eyes. She thanked him and nodded her head. Cyril noticed the attitude from his students. He had yet to discover its explanation. The four were not especially close and Cyril understood that the kids were more likely to become friends with each other than with him. Even knowing this, a coldness had brewed across the generational divide. Cyril’s students had stopped asking him personal questions. They stopped engaging with his training. Most startlingly, they had stopped asking him about the job they all planned to work. This was despite Cyril receiving signed permission slips from Soraya and Wakahn.

Cyril suspected that the monster invasion from almost a week ago had sapped the wind from their sails. If that was the case, he’d be deeply disappointed. Monster incursions, while not commonplace, were the most regular kind of job a warden needed to address. Human cities required protection from its wardens. If the kids couldn’t manage to recover from this attack, then the line of work wasn’t for them. The only silver lining was that they had found out before any of them had gotten really hurt. Yet, the kids didn’t quit or stall their training.

“I’ve got a gift for you, Soraya,” Cyril said. He didn’t know how to communicate with emotional teenagers. But, bribery always worked small wonders. “Come inside, let’s have some tea. You two, come join us! Bring your work.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Piper narrowly beat Wakahn down the steps to the mess hall on the first floor of the guild. She bounced atop one of the tables. Wakahn laid out his long roll of parchment for their master to examine. Cyril judged his work quickly and coldly.

“You’re an artist with the brush, Wakahn, but you need to copy the rune as I’ve drawn it exactly. There’s no room for interpretation here. If your rune is imperfect, it will communicate nothing to the spirits. Piper… these are rushed. I want you to try taking much, much more time when you write this. Let the speed come later.”

The two had been writing runes out of memory for days, with only some physical conditioning to break up the monotony. Xin insisted that all of Cyril’s students understand the rules underpinning the language of magic. Soraya proved to have an almost eidetic memory for that small part of guild work. The other two had been slower to pick it up.

“A test for you, Soraya,” Cyril said. He produced three metal discs, about the size of his guild medallion.

“My gift is a test?”

“Your gift comes after you pass the test.” Cyril laid the metal discs out on an unoccupied table. The rune of restraint had been engraved into each disc so that the three looked identical. “So tell me which of these talismans holds a gwyll inside.” Piper and Wakahn were naturally curious by the question, so Cyril was quick to add, “And no hints.” Cyril tried to add a wry smile to his rule, but he inspired no amusement. This campaign might require more than bribery.

Soraya considered the three discs. She turned her head askew as she examined the three. At a glance, they were copies of one another. They made no sounds and exuded no smells. Soraya wondered if this question was a trap. Could they all be vacant of a spirit? Soraya suspected some kind of gimmick or trick from this game. Her suspicions about Cyril were bleeding into her training. Confusion and doubt seeped into her thoughts, but the answer dashed the feeling of uncertainty.

Cyril had focused his training on Soraya, sharpening her sense for her own mana and for her own awareness of spirits. The surge of strength that came with controlling the flow of her emotional energy was reciprocated by one of the talismans. It too flowed with an energy she noticed outside of her natural senses. The gwyll’s presence felt like warmth without the heat. Something beyond Soraya’s senses beckoned her until her hand closed around the center talisman.

“Well done again,” Cyril said. “That’s the gwyll that tried to possess Xin.”

“You moved it?” Soraya asked.

“Actually, Xin did. He felt bad about the mess in the kitchen, I guess. He moved the gwyll from your rune in blood to this one in the talisman.” Cyril collected the empty talismans to be stashed in his coat’s pocket. “He asked me to return it to you.”

“Xin can do sorcery?” Piper asked. “Then how come he got possessed? I thought that couldn’t happen to wardens.”

Cyril pulled up a chair and rested. The wound on his chest still protested every action. Every breath taxed him. The warden was happy to rest for a little bit and talk. Cyril said, “That’s a misconception. Wardens with denizens can’t be possessed because… well… we already are. A new gwyll would be pushed out by the current resident. Wardens without denizens usually have the fortitude to resist possession on their own. Plus, we can cast the runes that cast them out.”

“So why didn’t Xin?” Soraya asked. She was still holding on the talisman she’d chosen.

“He’s kind of a special case…” Cyril rubbed his chin. “Xin doesn’t have a lot of mana. Not as much as most people. Even if he tried to hold a weak denizen, it would probably overpower him. Xin would become that which we are all sworn to slay. Been like that since he was a kid, actually.”

“Why’d he become a warden then?” Piper pressed for more details. Cyril was a little jealous they were more interested in Xin than they had been in himself lately.

“That’s a question for the man himself,” Cyril said. “I thought you’d be a lot more interested in carrying on with Soraya’s assimilation.”

“Today?” Soraya asked. She realized that the talisman in hand was not the gift. The gwyll inside it was.

Cyril nodded. “Last time you were begging for some ‘special powers’ or something. If you can sense the energy of the gwyll, then you’re ready to house it in your body.” The girl didn’t respond with any enthusiasm. Piper and Wakahn both studied Soraya closely. Even this failed to break the ice between them. “Well… you certainly don’t have to,” Cyril said after some painful silence. “It’s a big decision. But, you can’t join us for a job if you don’t have a denizen.”

Soraya swallowed. A strange tension befell the four. It was as if they were all waiting for someone else to start talking, yet no one did. Tension became frustration for Cyril. He rapped his knuckles against the table.

“What happened at that party?” Cyril asked the three kids. Wakahn was first to deny it. “Don’t give me that,” Cyril said. “Something happened. Maybe not that night, but at some time, somewhere. Are you guys okay?”

“Nothing happened!” Piper loudly protested. She was quick to speak up for the group.

“You’re lying,” Cyril said.

“You think I got anything to hide-?”

“Piper, it’s fine.” Soraya laid the talisman down. “Cyril. We want you to explain this letter.”