The first week Aelia fought Ruyi, it was like fighting a child. Ruyi didn’t know how to move her legs, or her arms, and she pounced around clumsily in her demonform—a child in a big suit. Aelia felt bad for giggling. It was so easy to beat her! You just had to smack her on the nose and she’d get angry and sloppy, and Aelia would fly around her and slash her to shreds. Ruyi pouted like a child after she lost too, though she still saluted Aelia after the fight.
The second week it was like someone else came to practice. Ruyi came disheveled, she smelled of dog fur, strangely, but her eyes were eerie bright—not puffy red anymore, as they had been. She came in calm and curious, and when Aelia tried her usual tricks, her smacks on the nose, her flying real close then dipping suddenly away, Ruyi’s face just scrunched. But she wouldn’t lunge like before—she was back to looking; something about that look made Aelia shiver. Ruyi wasn’t blinking.
The next time Aelia swooped in, she lunged at the exact same instant and clawed four bloody lines down Aelia’s chest.
Then it was really on.
It was as though Ruyi had been injured the week before. When she lunged now, when she spun, when she slashed, her body moved in sleek curves. Not as smooth as the rest of of the praetorianus, maybe, but something that huge and that powerful moving that gracefully was still terrifying.
And she had her Art! It was like trying to stop an avalanche—she’d try it again and again, and Aelia had to rush to knock her off-balance before she got too far in. Once she nearly got to her third stage, and it was only with a desperate slap of wind that Aelia stopped it. By the end of it she was left panting, feathers shredded, while Ruyi was flattened out. Aelia might’ve won, but that whole fight she was barely keeping up.
After training, Ruyi pattered up to her. But the other girl wasn’t sour at all—she seemed almost shy.
“Can you help me?” said Ruyi. “Please?”
There was pure, honest curiosity in her big eyes.
“Of course! What is it?”
“You kept hitting me just when I was going from second stage to third stage. Was there a tell or something?”
“Ahhh—it’s how you shift your essence. You should hide it better—see when I shift phases, it looks like—”
And she demonstrated. All the while Ruyi watched her, and Aelia got the impression those bright dark eyes missed nothing.
“Wanna see it again?”
“I think I got it,” said Ruyi slowly. Then she demonformed and started to step. Bright blue gathered at her paws, snaking up her body, wreathing her in a gathering storm, and this time she stepped into her slashes; the essence flowed easily from hindpaw to forepaw. She human-formed and beamed. “Is that it?”
Aelia whistled. “Disgusting.”
“Excuse me?”
“When demons say something’s bad, sometimes we mean it is good. I mean, it’s disgusting how fast you got that.”
“Really?”
Aelia had seen some cats get this drunk-contented expression when you scratched them behind the ears; Ruyi’s face was like that.
Later that night, just as Aelia was finishing up her sculpture of the philosopher-lord Selecius, she heard the distant thumping of snow.
Ruyi outside her tent, her back shaded silver by moonlight, training the same transition over and over. Aelia was stuck by the intensity on her face—it was like every shred of her being was focused on the task, like she was transported to a different reality. She didn’t notice Aelia. If Aelia walked in front of her and waved, she was pretty sure Ruyi wouldn’t notice either. She wasn’t there.
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“What a weirdo,” said Aelia, grinning and shaking her head.
***
Ruyi slashed, and Fausta dodged. Again. Ruyi must’ve lunged near a hundred times, and each took her a little closer—this last try she almost scraped Fausta’s tail. But at last Ruyi’s wounds caught up to her, and the poisons of Fausta’s fangs too. She dropped.
Fausta humanformed, panting hard.
That was close.
Fausta had watched her closely these past few weeks. She was a strange one. She flitted around all over, eager and sunny. She reminded Fausta of a baby bird. Everyone treated her like she’d been here a few years instead of a few weeks; she had this energy about her, this aura, palpable. It made you want to be around her. Even Fausta, and Fausta seldom wanted to be around anyone. She couldn’t explain it.
After their training, she heard her name—“Fausta! Fausta! Wait!”
It was Ruyi, dashing to catch up with her. “Hello,” Fausta said.
“Can you help me?”
Fausta blinked. “How?”
“Tell me what I’m doing wrong,” said Ruyi. “I can’t even touch you!”
Fausta thought, then found the words. “You’re hesitating,” she said. “You are afraid of losing control. Don’t be. Commit.”
Ruyi soaked it in for a breath. Then she nodded. “Thank you!”
She hugged Fausta. Fausta blinked again.
As Ruyi ran away she watched her go, and she smiled a little.
***
Every night, all the praetorianus dined together. Sometimes they dined in the mess tents, sometimes around their own bonfires. They sang songs late into the night, and played games, and told tall tales. All of them had tales, it seemed; Sabina had dozens of stories hidden away about legendary beasts and fighters of myth, some of which were too big to be believed. Some even featured herself. Darius had stories of grand romances, Aelia of realms far across the seas, where wood-nymphs ruled. Even Fausta had some—mostly of spirits and ghosts, and the flat droll way she spoke them, combined with the way the firelight shadowed her face, scared Ruyi so badly she couldn’t sleep all night.
They got drunk together, and danced together, and slept together—not Ruyi; she’d learned her lesson. The next few weeks fell into a pleasant rhythm. She got to meet Rufus’s adorable elephant-kin children with their big floppy ears. She theorized with Claudia, went wood-carving with Aelia one night and played cards with Darius and his drinking buddies the next. She stargazed with Fausta and composed poetry with her; Ruyi was quite bad, and Fausta was kind enough not to laugh. She was shocked to learn Fausta read as much as she did, but not Techniques or journals—Fausta liked her histories and her philosophies, especially philosopher-lords, those Demon Lords who tried to be wise and bound their thoughts in neat pocket-sized scrolls. She had private trainings with Sabina, who was still totally oblivious to how big a crush Ruyi had on her. And every week, sometimes twice a week, Livia would show her some new food stand or eatery. Just yesterday they went for blood broth noodles.
Everything was getting better.
Ruyi was getting better at fighting, and fast. She might’ve been the best of them, outside of maybe Darius and Sabina; she saw how valuable near-death training was. It put her under so much pressure she couldn’t help but grow! Claudia’s brewers were trained and putting out her new Ruyi’s potions, and Drusila had given him some more trainees, and funds, after Ruyi petitioned Livia for them. Ruyi hardly cried at all anymore.
She felt kind of alright most of the time and she didn’t even feel guilty about it. She’d never imagined she’d have so many friends. Every day when she came home, she told Dow all about them. Then she lay on him and told Jin—the Jin in her heart and in the stars. “You’d love them,” she said. “Livia’s so kind, and Aelia’s always bouncing over the place, and Fausta doesn’t talk much, but when she does it’s always so insightful! And Darius is a prick, but he’s okay too, and Rufus is so nice to me, and Sabina is so strong. We just sparred today—you should’ve seen it! She splattered me, but in a nice way. Well, as nicely as a splattering can be, anyway. She was nice about it after.”
She sighed. “I still miss you, you know.”
Late at night in the Demonlands, there weren’t even crickets. Her words were swallowed by the silence.
***
Livia picked her up for breakfast the next day. “We will be eating with my Mother today. She has an announcement to make.”
Ruyi knew what it was. She’d seen the butcher taking down their meat-hooks, the blacksmiths and the brewers loading hunks of steel and hog-tied crates onto their sleds. She saw sagefurs grazing placidly around camp, laying there, waiting.
At the feast, Drusila called Ruyi right next to her, next to Livia, just like the first time she’d met. Ruyi remembered how nervous she’d been last time, like she was a prisoner wading into enemy territory. But now she recognized a quarter of the faces here—the praetorianus waved as she passed. She even knew some shamans and Lorekeepers, and they smiled at her as she made her way to the high table.
When she got there, Drusila asked her, “Are you ready?”
She nodded.
When the feasting finished, Drusila stood. “The stars show the signs. The Demon Spring is upon us—two thousand li due northeast, in two weeks, they shall bloom in Frigus territory. The time has come, my brethren. Today, we march!”