Isla and I stared at each other from opposite sides of our room. Ice covered the blades of the daggers we held, blunting their edge.

"Ready?"

She nodded, chewing on her bottom lip.

We started slow, trading slashes and thrusts with our daggers that left wet streaks on our clothes and skin. This was important. The first thing to accept about a knife fight is you would get stabbed. Accepting that reality helped you think straight. It kept your body moving instead of curling up into a ball to avoid pain.

I remembered what Sin used to say: Pain is not an enemy or a friend. Pain is a neighbour. We greet it when we leave our house and when we return, but we never let it in.

Pain lived somewhere else.

Is that why it was so easy for me to become numb? I built a house for my pain made of flimsy stones and cheap mortar. The walls collapsed when I burned down the watchtower. I tried to rebuild it, but there were cracks. The pain was seeping through—the pain and everything else.

Ignore it!

That was the only solution. I couldn’t kill it. I couldn’t seal it away. It always escaped. Even worse, it knew how to pick my locks. It set traps that forced me to remember what I would give anything to forget.

We moved into sparring. She earned it. I needed the distraction.

Sin made me spar before I learned to fight. That way, every bad move was punished before it became a habit. It was an efficient method but brutal—too brutal for Isla. Maybe that was the excuse I needed to tell myself.

Isla was stiff, forcing her mind to instruct the body when it should have been the other way around. The body knew what to do; the mind only got in the way.

"One last time," I said, sinking into my stance. Isla mirrored me with her right hand forward.

I thrust my dagger at her chest. She slipped to my left, slashing at my extended forearm. I pulled my arm back; the ice-coated blades slapped together with a dull thud.

"Nice."

I slashed across her body, from clavicle to hip. She spun out of the way, swinging her dagger in a back fist. I caught her wrist with my free hand, slamming my forearm against her elbow with enough force to make her drop the dagger.

“Ow! I can’t feel my arm.”

“Sorry,” I said, kicking the weapon back to her feet.

She picked it up, rubbing the numbness out of the joint.

I stepped forward. Isla stepped back. I shook my head.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"You need to be aggressive. You can't win by retreating."

She crouched and lunged forward.

I flicked my dagger at her face, sending droplets of melted ice into her eyes. I danced to the right, avoiding her lunge to rest my dagger against her carotid artery.

"But not too aggressive."

She sighed, running the back of her hand over her eyes.

"You’re doing good! Much better than me when I started."

"That's subjective... Wait, weren't you a child when you started training?"

I sat down at the foot of the bed.

"Hey, for an eight-year-old, I was a beast."

More rabbit than wolf, but she didn't have to know that.

Isla laughed.

"Jacob Sin, the Abyssal Lands’ scariest eight-year-old."

I chuckled despite myself.

"This is serious. I've spent most of my life training to be a weapon."

She cocked her head.

"A weapon?! That's dumb."

"What?"

"People aren't weapons—they're people."

People... are people?

Brilliant observation.

I sighed.

She didn’t understand—not many could. They didn’t have Sin in their life.

"Speaking of weapons, I wanted to give you this."

I got off the bed and walked to my old coat hanging from the closet door. I ruffled through the pockets, pulling out the last hand bomb from Elmer's shop. Isla's eyebrows raised as I dropped the round metal ball into her free hand.

"Shouldn't you hold on to this? You're the one that creates fire."

"That's why I'm giving it to you. Here..."

I slipped the spark wheel out of the base of my top knot, sliding it between her index and middle fingers.

"I can figure out how to create my own explosions, but you fight from afar. You're in the best position to know when to use this."

She smiled.

"You're more confident in me than I am."

"Don't let it get to your head."

I paused and grimaced.

"There's another reason I'm giving you the bomb. Reed is going to use me as bait."

"What?!"

"It's the only thing that makes sense. Out of the four of us, Nostrand Del targeted me. He wants revenge against his sons and thinks I’m one of their descendants.”

“Because you're a half-elf?”

“Yeah...”

Let’s just ignore that I lied to him about being a relative.

“Anyways, it's classic misdirection. He’ll focus on me, giving all of you the opening you need to blow up him and his enchanted orb."

“That’s risky. I thought she needed to keep you alive.”

“I guess she believes in us.”

I shrugged.

“Or she likes to gamble.”

Isla stared down at the bomb in her hand, understanding its importance. Most likely, she would be delivering the killing blow to the ancient king.

No pressure.

"I'm going to get something to eat. You coming?"

She sat down at the foot of the bed, staring at the bomb in her hand with wide eyes.

"In a minute…"

I walked to the door, stopping to turn around and raise my ice-coated dagger.

"Oh yeah. Do you mind?"

Without moving a muscle, Isla dissolved the ice around the blade into wisps of cool mist. I sheathed the dagger back into my cane.

"Thanks."

She was brilliant, but only at Landbound Magic.

People are people?

What a joke.

# # #

At night, I slept on the floor again. It had become a necessity. The distance from Isla helped me ignore the feelings nibbling at the edges of my mind.

When did it happen? When did this thing inside me start growing like a weed? What would it blossom into?

Love?

Love?!

No. No, it couldn't be that.

After everything I've been through—everything I sacrificed. How could I be… this weak?

I swept the feeling aside, pushing it through the cracks in the wall where I kept the things that didn't matter.

This was Castille's fault. She was too free in who and how she loved. Now, her depravity was rubbing off on me. That woman! Didn't she have a Mrs. Dulldrey to raise her properly? There were rules for these sorts of things!

Enough…

There was no point in fighting myself or blaming my friends. Tomorrow, I would have more than enough enemies to vent my frustrations on.

I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me.

A weapon.

A weapon.

I am a person...

Damn it…