Maya loved Jaedia with all her heart. But, she had to admit, there were times when she found her mentor as exasperating as Marn. Well. Let’s not go too far. Nobody is as exasperating as Marn.
“We’re helping them,” Maya said, trying to clarify her thoughts. “Hollis was a dhakim—for the Chosen’s sake, he was kidnapping people and taking them to bits! Why should we have to sneak out of the city in disguise and bribe some jumped-up night watchman who should be groveling at your feet?”
“He probably would grovel, if he knew who I was,” Jaedia said. “But out of fear, not out of gratitude. And once we were out of sight …” She whistled, and the birds picked up speed. “How would you feel, if you were the local dux? A centarch comes to your city and says they’ve shut down a dhakim cult, killed a few people, and now they’re moving on.”
“I’d feel happy,” Maya said obstinately. “And embarrassed I hadn’t found out about the dhakim myself.”
“You don’t think you’d be a little frightened?” Jaedia said.
“If the dux hadn’t done anything wrong, he’d have nothing to be afraid of.”
“Unless the centarch decides otherwise.”
“But she wouldn’t. I mean you wouldn’t.”
“And he knows me so well?” Jaedia shrugged. “Besides, what does it gain us to strut around showing off and throw the city into chaos? The chance to skip a queue and save the Order a hundred thalers? Baselanthus can afford it.”
“I know.” Maya leaned back against the bench. “It’s still not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair, Maya.” Jaedia’s expression was suddenly serious. “Is it fair that some peasant boy out there has to fight off plaguespawn with nothing more than a stick, while you could turn his village to ash by waving your hand?”
“That’s why it’s our duty to defend him!” This was the most basic lesson of the Inheritance, the book the Chosen had left behind to guide the Twilight Order. They’d granted the power of the centarchs, to be used to defend humanity in the aftermath of the plague. “It doesn’t mean people should be afraid of us.”
“Listen, Maya. No one is going to cry for Hollis Plaguetouch.” Jaedia frowned. “But there will come a time when you have to hurt someone—even kill someone—to protect the rest, whether or not they deserve it. When that day comes, you’ll understand why we have to hide so often. The Order does what must be done, and it does not win us many friends.”
Maya swallowed, taken aback. After a moment, she glanced at her mentor, but Jaedia’s face was a mask, her eyes on the road.
“You don’t hurt people who don’t deserve it,” she ventured.
“I try not to. And”—she grinned—“I’m pretty good at it. But I’m always ready. You should be too.”
There was another silence, broken by the chuffing of the birds and the rattle of the cart wheels.
“Ah, plague it.” Jaedia scratched her short hair. “I don’t mean to worry you. But it won’t be long until you get your cognomen, you know. Then you’ll have to decide these things for yourself.”
Maya looked down at her hands, feeling a quiet thrill. Not long. She was seventeen—not the youngest ever promoted to full centarch, but well ahead of most. Her hand went to the Thing for a moment. Not long …
“How long until I get my cognomen?” Marn said from the back of the cart.
“That depends,” Jaedia said. “Have you got chapter seven by heart yet?”
Marn groaned, and Maya laughed. The cart rolled on.
*
When they reached the turnoff to the forest road, they paused to give the birds a chance to rest. Jaedia cut open a canvas bag of the fat nyfa seeds they liked and scattered them on the ground. The unharnessed animals were soon pecking contentedly after them like enormous chickens.
Marn, to his vocal displeasure, was hard at work on the devious chapter seven. Maya and Jaedia, in the meantime, were sparring.
The power of deiat prickled through Maya’s skin, and the panoply field shimmered into existence around her. Jaedia stood at the other end of a small clearing, her haken in hand. Her own panoply was invisible at this distance. Not that she has much need of it.
Maya raised her haken, and the blade flared to life, a shimmering bar of white fire. At the same time, she let her consciousness expand, feeling the flow of power between them. Deiat coiled around Jaedia, tensed like a cat ready to pounce. Maya drew power of her own, pulling it along the flaming blade. A swipe of her sword sent droplets of fire spattering in an arc across the ground, where they hissed and spat like coals dropped in a bucket.
Jaedia stepped forward, bringing her haken up, its blade like a roiling bar of solid cloud. It left a misty trail of vapor behind it as she slipped to the left, her stance open, and Maya matched her with a shift to the right. There was a moment of silence.
Then, as one, they struck.
When centarchs fought, the contest was always on two levels, blade against blade and power against power, and both were crucial. A contest of deiat was more likely to be decisive, but the tightest, sharpest control in the world wouldn’t help against an opponent who separated your head from your body at the first clash. The combat that resulted felt like trying to turn cartwheels while doing logarithms, or playing chess and dancing a jig simultaneously.
Blade met blade in an explosion of vapor and twisting fire. Jaedia gave ground with elegant parries, and curving razors of solid wind opened around her like a flower. Maya pulled flame from her sword and wove it into a cage of fire, intercepting the intangible blows. She could feel the impacts, deiat thrashing against deiat, titanic energies grinding into one another. With a thought, she went on the offensive, summoning a snaky, whirling flame that split into four parts and whipped out to strike at Jaedia from unexpected angles. At the same time, Maya pressed the attack with her sword, feinting to drive her mentor against a tree, then hammering her before she could extricate herself.
Jaedia deflected the assault with her customary grace. Air turned solid as her power brushed it, forming curving shields that let the flames wash past instead of meeting them force for force. She parried a few blows, then ducked, letting Maya’s blade bite into the tree behind her in a spray of flaming splinters. Maya drew a curtain of fire between them, already anticipating the counterattack, and knives of wind shattered against it. Jaedia rolled clear, popping up like a jackrabbit.
Right where I want her. One of the beads of fire Maya had cast off at the opening of the fight was just at Jaedia’s feet. There was power packed in there, more than was obvious at a glance, and now she let it expand into a fireball that sent an earsplitting bang rattling through the forest and threw up a dense pall of smoke. For a moment, Maya couldn’t see. Did I get her?
A rush of air drew her attention upward. Jaedia was above her, level with the treetops, a shimmering shield of solid cloud beneath her. She rode the blast up! And now she was descending straight toward Maya, blade coming down in an unstoppable arc with all her momentum behind it.
Maya did her best, sending curving lines of fire upward, but Jaedia blew through them like a descending comet. At the last moment, as Maya swung her sword desperately, Jaedia twisted midflight, letting the flaming blade pass close enough to her side to singe her clothes. As her cloud-sword came around, Maya felt herself grinning.