Page 39 of Court of Talons
“No fire. But he’s got a sense of humor.”
Nazar’s voice becomes a little more strained. “How would he fight the purple fire lizard of the Sixth House? Or the pale lion of the Fourth?”
“I…” I try to imagine Gent against either of those creatures. The images that tumble into my head so quickly make me gasp. “He would rush into the lizard, get beneath her wings. Her belly is her weakness. The lion…” I frown. “He wouldn’t fight him.”
“That’s not an option.”
“I know, but…” In my mind’s eye, I see Gent circling the lion, who keeps equal pace, turning in a tight rotation. Gent seems confused but not upset, more curious at the size and mass of his competitor. It’s bigger than Gent by a fair margin, though Gent is taller. Gent can’t get close enough to wrap his hands around the lion’s neck. Eventually, he sits. He waits.
I flap my hands nervously. I don’t know what to do. “He’s not moving. He imagines himself just sitting there.”
“Don’t mistake patience with inactivity.” Nazar’s words whisper in my mind. I shrug, the image clearing away. I know what I saw. Gent isn’t able to fight the lion, and so he’ll give up if we ever face the Fourth House’s Divh. Something to keep in mind.
Across the field, Gent looks at me, grinning again. Or, perhaps not truly grinning. His wide mouth can’t really assume any other shape, I suspect. I lift an arm, and one of his mighty paws goes up. I kneel on one knee, and he genuflects in front of me, like a mountain bowing down to an ant. I turn slowly, and he turns with me.
“But the men on the platforms didn’t move, not really. They shifted position only in reaction, after their Divhs had been wounded or knocked off-balance.”
Nazar’s voice is back again. “They’ve trained for many years, those men. It will take you time to have their comfort level in a battle of your own. Your challenge is to focus on stillness. Your Divh’s challenge is to understand you.”
I tilt my head, and Gent does so again, like a dog mimicking his master’s move—and yet not. His move is more playful, almost teasing. As if he’s already learned that trick and is waiting for me to catch up.
“I will be very still and imagine only in my head,” I say to him now. He stops, his eyes alight with energy.
Run, Gent. Run fast.
Without warning, Gent throws his head back and roars, a sound so loud, it seems to shake the very walls surrounding this sacred field. Then he turns and bounds away from me, leaning into the run, only it’s not a run like anything I’ve seen him do before. He allows his arms to flow backward, like the trailing tail of a horse or a fluttering cape, and bends forward almost double, his enormous legs churning as his feet pound heavily on the ground. In fifteen impossibly long strides, he’s reached the far edge of this field, and he runs yet farther, whooping with joy as he bursts through an enormous arch I didn’t notice before and into the mists beyond. I step backward, once more at a loss. I hadn’t been specific with my orders to Gent.
What if he keeps running and never comes back?
Nazar seems to share my concern. “Talia…”
“Shh.” I hear Gent’s cries of pure, untroubled joy as they float back to me on the mists. When, at length, the sound grows louder again, I imagine him turning in a wide, happy arc. I send out another call, this time imagining him with me, near me.Picturing him running back to stand with me, to fight with me, to?—
Gent erupts out of the thin air directly in front of me, a large paw sweeping forward to scoop me off my feet. He howls again in total elation, and I can’t help but laugh, exhilarated and frightened and more alive than I’ve ever been. All at once, I see the world not through my eyes buthis. The small person in his grasp shining like the brightest star imaginable for all that it is a tiny, fragile thing. The fierceness of his connection to the tiny creature, a connection forged of time and strength and loyalty to elders.
I don’t understand all of it. I don’t need to. Gent lifts his arms high and runs with me through the mists—and his strange eyes can pierce these mists easily, I realize, whereas his sight is simply not as fine in my plane.
At length, he slows and stops, his lungs blowing, his heavy, chuffing breath sounding almost like laughter as he gently sets me down on the ground once more. As I take one shaky step, he reaches out with a finger. I lift my arms high to protect my face and he pokes me, sending me sprawling. At once, he falls on his own back, and his laughter booms above us in the silence of the training yard.
When I stagger to my feet once more, though, it’s not Gent who laughs beside me, it’s Nazar. And he’s not exactly laughing.
“What happened?” he snaps, and I wheel around to stare at him. I’m back—back in my own plane, in the heart of the coliseum. Everything feels damp, I realize suddenly—my face, my hands, my hair.
“What…why am I wet?” I hold out my hands as far as I can, but my cloak is stuck to me.
“You looked as if you were running—head down, arms back, legs straining, though you didn’t move.” Nazar peers at me. “Andthough you didn’t move, it was as if a cloud had burst open upon you.”
“The mist—we were moving through mist. That’s what did it. And Gent was running hard, working hard.” I peel my tunic away from my chest, grimacing. “This is sort of slimy.”
“It’s also unprecedented.”
I turn to peer at Nazar, only now he’s leaning on his staff, looking like the ancient man I’ve always thought him to be. His words are thoughtful, almost confused. “I don’t know of a connection such as this.”
All my questions from before crowd forth. “How do you know of any connection at all? You’re a priest from the Exalted Imperium. How is it you knowanythingabout fighting or the Divhs?”
Nazar flashes his teeth, but when he answers, I get the sense that he’s withholding far more than he reveals. “I’m a priest of the Light,” he says, as if that explains everything. “Stories of Divhs aren’t difficult to come by. The bards who visited the Tenth House were always quick with a tale, and your father had stories as well, told to him by his father, and his grandfather before that. Stories handed down as a legacy from one generation of warriors to the next.”
My lips twist. “I don’t know those tales.”