“Pervoick!” Sil yelled as the rest of the students continued their training. “Do you want to spar?”

  “No. Stearna against Stearna combat won’t help us prepare for the next raid. Fighting a bear is far different.”

  “Yeah. But I thought I could maybe… show you the fruits of my labour.”

  “Perhaps after the raid.”

  Sil huffed, turning away without even looking him in the eye as they talked. “Why are you even trying to prove we teens are worth respect if you’re just going to act like an adult anyway?”

  Pervoick went silent for a moment. Sil stared, slightly concerned by how long it was taking him to think. He seemed conflicted.

  “How about this?” he finally answered. “Come with me, and we’ll go through your skill set and see what we can adapt for teamwork.”

  “Sure,” Sil answered blandly, though inside she felt relieved.

  Pervoick led her away from the rest of the team to find a suitable open space. As they walked, he spotted something fly above the trees. Noticing he had stopped, Sil turned to look in the same direction, and, as if timed, a young, blond man flew out of and above the distant trees, then fell back down into the woods.

  “What training do we call that?” Sil remarked.

  Concerned and slightly irritated by Sil’s comment, Pervoick led them both down the path Slye had taken their guest. Small rodents passed by on their way, and as the two got closer, the rumblings of the earth became clearer.

  At the edge of the woods, in a wide open area of grass by a cliff’s edge, they found the stranger: Yig, bouncing abnormally high by releasing short bursts of aura from his feet. To the side, Slye cheered him on, yelling with excitement at every jump. With a thud, Yig landed on his rear. He yelled some obscenities at the impact, but it didn’t keep his excited spirit down for long. Without hesitation, and encouraged by Slye, Yig jumped up again.

  “Slye,” Pervoick said. “What in the world…?”

  At the call of his name, the stand-in teacher flinched, looking toward Pervoick with guilt. Yig, too focused in the same direction while mid-air, landed into the side of a tree, slamming his chest into the strong trunk. Slye, now sporting an even worse look of guilt, ran over to check the young man’s health, though Yig had jumped back to his feet before Slye even reached him.

  “Bandage man!” Yig called. “What can we do for you?”

  Bandage man? Sil thought. Did the stranger not know they could all contour the heavenly parchment?

  “He got a hold of Location that quick?” Pervoick asked, staring at Slye.

  “I know, right?!” Slye responded, wrapping an arm around Yig. “I mean, he did say he’d been training, but surely I had something to do with it. Star pupil right here.”

  They both smiled at Pervoick with an intense, somewhat alarming glee.

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  “Okay, calm down. I told you to show the man the ropes. That hardly makes you a seasoned teacher. Did you even go over the leaf practice?”

  Slye nodded. “Passed with full marks. Within an hour, he managed to crumple a leaf, then unravel it ten times over.”

  Sil had to admit, that was impressive, though she wouldn’t say so out loud. It took most students perhaps three weeks to flatten a leaf with mana alone.

  “Good,” Pervoick replied. “But don’t get too excited yet. He still can’t apply mana in combat.”

  “You think so?” Slye said with a scoff. “Okay, my student and your student, one on one.”

  “Did you even teach him Activation yet?”

  “He’s… working on it.”

  “I don’t need it!” Yig responded, starting to get hyped up.

  “Fine then,” Pervoick sighed. “Fight me!”

  Sil prodded his arm. “So now you want to fight?”

  “He’s too confident for my liking,” Pervoick whispered back. “Best to make sure he realizes how far he needs to push himself—sooner rather than later.”

  Slye’s smile seemed to dissipate. “That’s just not fair.”

  “It’s fine, teach!” Yig yelled. “I can take him!”

  “Come on, Pervoick,” Slye pleaded. “Let him fight someone else.”

  “I’ll fight him!” Sil yelled aggressively. “One on one, right?” She and Pervoick glared at each other. But she didn’t care if he got mad. She’d show him how far she’d progressed.

  “I’m fighting the girl then?” Yig asked.

  Pervoick huffed impatiently. “Yes. Sil will be your opponent.”

  After being informed about what exactly had been discussed in the woods, all the students gathered around a square of concrete that would be the site of the match. Pervoick stood behind Sil to coach, and Slye did the same for Yig. The lamb bounced energetically beneath the square.

  It was not often that the Stearna fought in one-on-one combat, and even rarer for it to have an audience. Everyone knew the adult Stearna participated in sparring from time to time, but they hid such combat by performing it deep in the woods.

  “Hey,” Pervoick said in a hushed tone. “Go easy on the man. We’re trying to help him out at the end of the day.”

  “Pff, as if,” Sil replied. “It’s a fight, ain’t it? Besides, a harsh loss will probably do him good.”

  “No matter how we feel about it, he’s on the team. That means treating him right. Shock him good, but don’t hurt him.”

  How we feel? Sil thought. “You think that’s what I’m upset about? I think you seem to be the only one bothered about him joining our team. Sure, it’s weird, but you never know.”

  Pervoick seemed to consider those words. She knew he could only be thinking of one man. Despite none of the teens ever meeting him, the impression he’d made still lingered in their generation.

  Sil hopped on the stage, straightening her posture and meeting her opponent’s eyes. The young boy hadn’t lost that smile yet, and she didn’t want anything less. At worst, he was passionate. And the passionate made for the best opponents.

  “Ready?” Pervoick yelled with a powerful voice, holding tension among the audience as the fighters prepared. “Begin!”

  Without hesitation, Yig charged headlong toward his opponent with what was clearly a mana-boosted launch. Intuitively, and almost on instinct, Sil brushed the bottom of her foot across the ground in front of her, waving mana through the earth and spawning a small chunk of clay at Yig’s foot. Then, as the young man tripped, she extended the backs of her hands forward, pressing against her opponent and guiding his falling body over her head and onto the grass behind her.

  “Out!” Pervoick yelled.

  This technique, though complex, had taken only two seconds. The speed of execution was evident on Yig’s face. He rose from the grass, looking around in confusion. “You people can make rocks?”

  “Actually, it’s clay,” Pervoick replied.

  “Is that a ‘stealth blood’ thing too?”

  “Afraid so, friend,” Slye said sympathetically.

  “Well, I want another try!”

  Pervoick stepped forward. “Wait a second, Yig. You can’t just keep slamming your head against a wall until it breaks. Like it or not, Sil won by a landslide. Even if you learned something in the last few seconds, you still wouldn’t have the slightest chance of winning.”

  “I don’t wanna fight her again. I want to fight you!”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “What would fighting me prove?” Pervoick asked.

  “Nothing! It’s not about that!” Yig yelled back.

  Slye slid behind Yig quietly. “Remember what I said about this matchup? This is nowhere close to being in your favour.”

  Yig looked Pervoick straight in the eyes and answered Slye, “That’s exactly why I want to do it.”