I was getting close to her when she tried something novel.

  She pushed mana into Bunny with sharp, focused intent. It was hurried and stressed, but it was deliberate, shaped tightly enough that the magic responded immediately. The little creature reacted at once. Leaves flared outward, branches stretching and knitting together as the ground between us answered her will. The sand split and rolled, reshaping itself as a hedge maze burst upward in a rush of green.

  The hedge directly in front of me rose high enough to block my sight completely. Dense walls of living foliage sprang up in sharp, angular lines, leaves packed tight, branches woven together into something far more solid than it appeared at first glance. It was not decorative growth. It was functional, defensive, and meant to control space. Meka, being taller than the hedge, could still see over it. I could barely make out the top of her head moving on the other side, the faint sway of her horns as she repositioned. Even without my staff in front of me, even with my vision cut off, I knew exactly where she was.

  The thing about hedges is that they are not soft.

  You would think that something made of leaves and branches would give way if you pushed hard enough. It does not. A hedge is a wall of living wood, flexible in small ways but stubborn as stone when faced head on. I tested it with my shoulder and immediately understood the cost. Forcing my way through would take time, and it would take skin with it. Scratches would become gouges. Momentum would die quickly.

  I also understood something else.

  This had been expensive.

  For her, this was a massive expenditure of mana. Even shaping the hedge this quickly meant she was burning through her reserves at a dangerous pace for someone her age and level of experience. The structure was dense, purposeful, and sustained. That kind of control did not come cheaply. I grinned despite myself and called out, “Great job, Meka. That was a really good idea.”

  Her voice came back tight and breathless, already feeling the cost. “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “It did,” I said honestly. “You slowed me down. That matters.” I stepped back, gauging distance, measuring angles in my head. “But you didn’t really stop me. I’m still about ten feet away from you.”

  There was a brief, horrible pause on the other side of the hedge.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh no.”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “You’re probably running low on mana right now.”

  “I am,” she said quickly, the words tumbling over one another. “What do I do?”

  “That,” I said calmly, “is something you need to figure out.”

  There was panic in her silence, a frantic sort of thinking that threatened to turn into freezing if she let it.

  “I’m trying to fight you,” I continued. “Why would I help you?” I paused, then let out a slow breath. “All right. I will help you. Just not in this moment.”

  I saw her nod over the top of the hedge, horns bobbing slightly as she forced herself to breathe and regain some measure of control. She was trying to calm herself, trying to think instead of react.

  Then I did the smartest thing available to me.

  I climbed.

  She had not expected that.

  I scrambled up the hedge, digging fingers and toes into the thick weave of branches. The growth scratched and resisted, leaves brushing against my face, twigs biting into my palms, but it held my weight. It was sturdy, well made. In a moment, I was standing on top of it, wobbling slightly as I found my balance, but steady enough to move forward.

  Meka stared at me, eyes wide. “What do I do now? What do I do now?”

  Her panic was starting to spiral again, threatening to undo the cleverness she had shown only moments before.

  “Meka,” I said sharply, pitching my voice so it cut through the noise in her head. “Clear your thoughts. There has to be a way for you to stop me, or I am going to bonk you.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” she shot back. “You’re not the one about to get bonked.”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  I started running along the top of the hedge, arms out slightly to keep my balance, feet finding purchase where they could. The leaves shifted underfoot, but the structure held.

  She reacted at the last possible second. A single vine snapped up from the greenery, thin and precise, wrapping around my ankle with surprising strength. It yanked hard, perfectly timed.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  I went down.

  I fell face first into the hedge at full speed, leaves and branches slamming into me. It was not soft. It hurt. A lot. My body was more durable than it had been before, denser and better aligned, but even so, crashing into a wall of living wood was deeply unpleasant.

  I lay there for a heartbeat, blinking, breath knocked from my lungs, grateful that I had not lost an eye in the tangle of branches.

  But I was closer.

  And she had spent more mana.

  Not much this time. Just a single vine, quick and efficient. That told me she was learning. She was adapting, finding smaller, smarter ways to act instead of burning everything at once.

  I hauled myself back up, clambered onto the hedge again, and grinned at her. “I’ve got you now,” I said in my most exaggerated, ridiculous villain voice.

  I ran the last few steps and slapped the top of her head before she could react, the motion light but decisive.

  I dropped back down and looked up at her. “Do you want to take a break?” I asked. “Because I could hit you again and we could go one more round. Or I could just give you one more bonk right now.”

  She nodded quickly, shoulders slumping as the tension finally caught up with her. “Please. I’m so flustered. I’m not good at thinking quickly.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “That’s why we practice.”

  I gestured to the hedge, still standing between us. “Let’s restart. You can even leave this up.”

  I gave her time to recover some mana as I retrieved my staff and walked back to the other side of the hedge. I still had no idea what to call it. It was no longer a sand pit, and it was not quite a maze either. The hedge seemed accurate enough.

  When I reached my side, I waited and asked, “Are you ready?”

  She took a steadying breath, hugging Bunny closer to her chest. “Yeah. I think I am.”

  “Good,” I said. “You can count us in this time.”

  This round, I wanted to test my actual capabilities. Meka had grasped the task now. She understood the rules and the limits, which meant I could push harder without overwhelming her.

  “One,” she said.

  “Two.”

  “Three.”

  I ran as soon as she finished counting.

  This time, she chose thorns.

  They surged up along the hedge line in jagged clusters, sharp and tightly packed, reinforcing weak points and narrowing my approach. Smart girl, I thought. I pressed my hands against them carefully, testing. My skin was tougher than it had been before, but not by much. Pushing through would hurt, and it would slow me down enough to matter.

  So I did not.

  Instead, I walked around the edge of the hedge and called out, “You know hedges only work when you’re inside them, right?”

  Her eyes went wide as the realization hit her, frustration and surprise flickering across her face.

  I sprinted toward her. Vines lashed out from behind, snapping and reaching for my legs as she tried to grab me on the move. Then something else clicked for her.

  She started running.

  With Bunny tucked tight against her chest, she took off around the hedge, hooves thudding softly against the ground, and suddenly the exercise turned into a chase.

  This was perfect for me. It let me feel exactly how much speed I had gained. Her legs were longer. She was faster than me in a straight line. She could hear where I was going through the plants in a way I could not. Waiting for her to make a mistake would never work.

  So, I adapted.

  “Running away is always a good option,” I shouted to her as we circled the hedge. “Never let anyone tell you otherwise. If you survive to the next fight, you’ve already won.”

  I dropped my staff and ran hard, angling toward her instead of chasing directly. She laughed as she ran, breathless and exhilarated, and I found myself laughing too. Vines snapped out again, forcing me to dodge while keeping my momentum.

  For a moment, I caught a clear glimpse of her on the same side of the hedge.

  This was it.

  When she thought she had me beat, I yelled the most inconsequential thing I could think of. Something small. Something that would lodge in her thoughts just long enough to matter.

  “Meka,” I called out, “you look really adorable.”

  She froze.

  She looked at me. Her face flushed. She blinked, hesitated, and that was all the opening I needed.

  “You’re not very good with compliments,” I said as I kicked my staff hard along the ground toward her ankles.

  Bonk.

  “That’s three.”

  She stared at me, stunned.

  “Did you mean that?”

  “Yes, I did,” I said. “But not in the way you think.”

  I met her eyes and didn’t rush the next part. “I meant it the way I think of you. You’re my apprentice. To me, that puts you in the same category as a child. That’s how I see apprentices. That’s all I meant.”

  She swallowed, still flustered. “Then why say it like that?”

  “Because I knew it would distract you,” I said. “Not because of the word itself, but because it was unexpected.” I tapped my staff lightly against the ground after I had retrieved it. “You were thinking about distance, terrain, mana. Then suddenly you weren’t. You stopped fighting and started processing me.”

  She frowned. “So, you did it on purpose.”

  “Of course I did,” I said. “Fights aren’t just about strength or spells. They’re about attention. The moment your attention slips, even for a heartbeat, you’re vulnerable.” I gestured between us. “That’s what happened. You froze, and I took the opening.”

  Her ears flattened. “That feels unfair.”

  “It is,” I said calmly. “And it’s also real.” I held her gaze. “An enemy won’t care why you hesitate. They’ll only care that you did.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then muttered, “So you cheated.”

  “Yes,” I said without hesitation. “And I wanted you to see how easy it was.”

  I let my tone soften, not because the point mattered less, but because it mattered more.

  I looked at her and said, “I did what I did to show you how fast a fight can shift when you let yourself get distracted and death is on the line.” I waited until she was looking at me. “You would not walk away from that. Imagine if I had been a real enemy. Imagine if I hadn’t stopped.”

  She looked down at the ground, thinking.

  “You can call it cheating if you want,” I continued. “But no fight is fair. You have magic. One day, you’ll be strong enough to call meteors from the sky and erase your enemies from existence. Do you think they’ll call that fair?”

  “Do you know what a fair fight is called?” I asked.

  She did not answer.

  “A performance.”

  “Don’t think about fairness,” I said. “Think about the fight. Think about surviving it. If you can be distracted that easily, then that’s a weakness.” I met her eyes again. “And weaknesses are things we work on.”

  She nodded slowly, the understanding settling in piece by piece. As she did, the hedge beside us sagged, leaves browning and curling in on themselves. Branches collapsed inward, the structure losing cohesion as her focus released it. In moments, it withered and fell away, returning almost entirely to the sand pit it had once been.