Page 49 of House of Ashes
Every time failure loomed, when my limbs were jelly and I knew I couldn’t do another push-up without dying, I thought of Maristela.
I thought of how all of this would be for nothing, that I would shame not only my ancestors and the ashes left to me, but cost Rhylan and Kirana their House’s reputation as well.
That was when I would reach deep inside and find just one more in me.
And another, and another.
It wasn’t until my arms or abdomen gave out and I collapsed, literally unable to hold myself up, that I accepted there were no more left in me.
Which was how Kirana found me, sprawled on my back, my tunic soaked, my wasted stomach muscles burning.
She stopped in the doorway, hands braced on her hips, her toned biceps enviable from my pathetic position on the floor.
“Sera…” she began, and fell short. She knew perfectly well that she couldn’t convince me to stop.
“Don’t.” I wiped sweat off my face with the back of my arm, then let my arm drop. “We both know it’s necessary.”
Kirana frowned, an expression that she was beginning to wear more often than not when we spoke. “There’s a fine line between necessary and obsessive,” she said slowly. “You’re going to run yourself into the ground.”
A sharp laugh escaped me. I managed to push myself up on my elbows to look at her.
“I’ve already been run into the ground. I’ve hit my limit a thousand times already, and I’m still here.” With a grunt of effort, I got to my feet. “There is no further I can fall, Kirana. Let me do this.”
My body ached, but it was nourished now, becoming more functional by the day. I could handle aches, drinking sludge and constant training, and pretending to a whole life that was a lie.
What I could not handle was that fear-worm, gnawing away at me piece by piece in the night while I lay curled sleepless under my bed, my chest imploding as I gasped for breath, heart racing like it would burst.
I would crush it underfoot, prove it wrong, if it was the last thing I did.
Kirana could not read my mind. But she read the way I straightened up and squared my shoulders perfectly well. I grabbed my sword and unsheathed it with a ring of metal, taking the starting position.
“Let’s get to it.”
I knew I’d won when her hands slipped from her hips. She let out a nearly silent sigh, the corners of her mouth turned down as she unsheathed her own plain practice sword and faced me.
My palms immediately began sweating as I took in Kirana’s poise, her flawless stance, the determined hardness in the planes of her face.
This was going to hurt, like it did every night, but there was no other way forward.
There was no warning before she attacked, chopping downwards with a harsh series of blows that jarred the sword in my grasp, my shoulder screaming for mercy almost immediately.
I held her off—just barely. The tip of my sword drooped as Kirana backed away, her jaw set.
“We can still call a stop to this and put you on a gentler schedule,” she said, flicking a strand of hair out of her face.
I stretched my arm, the muscles in my shoulder tightening and relaxing. “Over my dead body.”
I slid into guard stance again, remembering my instructor in the Training Grounds and how she’d whipped at my back and legs with a leather riding crop—she’d been a wyvern trainer, and had never given up the crop. What was once used on wyverns had been used on her students in Koressis.
It was still easy to imagine the little stings of pain: straighten my back, ground my feet, keep my shoulders loose and relaxed.
Kirana gave me a grim smile. “That just might happen.”
The next time she attacked, she burst towards me, sweeping the sword upwards in a cut designed to gut me from crotch to sternum, before reversing into a sideways slash.
I moved like an automaton, remembering the Training Grounds: parry, riposte, guard.
Sweat dripped into my eyes as we moved, dancing around each other, the only sound our own breaths and the clash of swords.