Sil finally spotted what had to be the place Pervoick mentioned: a tall, vertical slab of rock, rising like a monolith. She’d imagined walking up it when he described it, but the side was far too steep for that. Not that she had any intention of climbing.

  With a flick of her wrist, she shot a strand of heavenly parchment skyward, hooking it to a tree at the summit. After reinforcing it with mana, she gave it a tug and launched herself upward in a graceful leap.

  Her feet touched down lightly on the rock’s edge, stepping with the quiet precision she’d been taught. The top was greener than expected—blanketed with soft grass and, of course, the tree she’d latched onto, its branches spilling over the cliff. Mair and Kacur sat arguing in the center. Plum was off to the side beneath the tree, cross-legged, his long thin blade resting in his lap. A loose leather wrap clung to its hilt, which bore a symbol of the Stearna Sil couldn’t quite place.

  “I don’t care what you say!” Mair yelled. “I’m totally going to learn a secret technique before you!”

  “No way!” Kacur shot back. “You’d be terrible at it! That’s why I’m learning one first.”

  “How would you even find one?”

  “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense, Kacur!”

  Heavens, their endless bickering could be so vexing. It had been a week since Sil and Yig faced that bear, and ever since, she’d thrown herself harder into her training. Yet some Stearna—like these twins—still wasted time squabbling. Still, they had been the only ones to bring back a Slipper Nut that night. Sil was convinced their rivalry fueled their strength, sparking impromptu sparring matches that kept them sharp.

  Pervoick landed atop the monolith with the same effortless grace. Sil might not have noticed his arrival if he hadn’t started talking.

  “Greta,” he said. “Everyone’s finally here.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kacur barked. “You can’t act smug if you’re the last one to show.”

  “I was here minutes ago. You saw me.”

  “Yeah?” Mair chimed in. “Sounds like excuses to me.”

  “Oh, heavens help me,” Pervoick muttered.

  “Out of curiosity,” Sil asked, “what were you doing?”

  “I was scouting for someone,” Pervoick replied.

  “Who? I thought everyone was here.”

  “The students are.”

  “Quit speaking in riddles, you lout!” Kacur snapped, leaping to his feet—his sister close behind. “Just tell us who we’re waiting for!”

  It happened in an instant. All of them stiffened, sensing the sudden spike of danger in their auras. A figure materialized behind the twins—arms crossed before their necks, twin blades drawn. He wore the signature Black Stearna Cloth, wrapped head to toe, with only a slit for his eyes.

  “Your threat perception is off,” the figure said flatly.

  Sil, Pervoick, and Plum dropped into ready stances—each prepared for whatever came next. You never could predict what Pervoick’s father might do, or how far he’d go, once he decided a lesson was in order.

  “Oh, don’t get all serious now,” the man groaned. “It’s a bit late for that. Let’s be honest—if this were real, these two would be dead.”

  He pulled back his blades, releasing the twins, then sheathed the weapons at his belt.

  Kacur, ever the hothead, spun around with his knife in hand and slashed behind him—too slow. The man had already vanished.

  “Really, son?” the man said, now lounging beside Pervoick. “Honestly, what have you been teaching them?”

  Though he spoke lightly, Pervoick looked genuinely irked. He summoned a sharp shard of clay in his palm and flung it at his father, who vanished once more.

  As usual with the elite ranks of the adult Stearna, Sil couldn’t even follow the movement. One moment they were there, the next a blur—and then gone. Their combat speed was still beyond her comprehension.

  “I’m not sure how I feel about being used as an outlet for your frustration, children,” Pervoick’s father said, now perched atop the tree. “Especially after I went out of my way to meet with you.”

  “Oh please,” Pervoick said. “You’ve got plenty of time now that your mission’s done.”

  “True, I’ll be here a few weeks. But I think it’ll take longer than that to sort out your issues.” The man smiled. He always did enjoy teasing them with his stealth expertise.

  Pervonarik—one of the strongest in Sharirun, known both for rarely staying home and for being one of the few who encouraged the youth to handle the nest on their own—was not one to waste time.

  “Well, if it’s going to take so long, maybe you should start teaching instead of messing around!” Pervoick snapped.

  “Son, do you think I tease you just for fun?” Pervonarik hopped down from the tree with fluid ease. “Our sparring has already begun. Say what you want about my annoying habits, but you can’t deny I’ve already got you all on your feet, ready to begin.”

  “What’s our task, then?” Sil asked.

  “Land one hit on me before this session ends—and you win.”

  “Wait, just one hit and I win?” Kacur shouted.

  “No way I’m letting you beat me to it!” Mair yelled as the twins rushed forward, blades drawn.

  Pervonarik vanished in the blink of an eye. The twins clashed where he had stood a second earlier, smacking heads and collapsing onto the grass.

  “That wouldn’t make sense,” Plum said quietly, as always. “He wants us to work as a team. That’s the lesson today. I’m guessing if one of us lands a hit, we all win.”

  “Spot on, Plum,” came a voice behind them.

  They spun around to find Pervonarik sitting cross-legged behind them, arms folded. “Pitting you against each other would only fuel your childish rivalries. What we need is a team.”

  “So,” Sil said, “you’re saying sparring a Stearna is worth our time?”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Pervonarik tilted his head. “Yes, of course. If you can hunt a Stearna, you can definitely hunt a bear. Did someone tell you otherwise?”

  Sil turned to Pervoick with a smug grin.

  Pervoick rolled his eyes. “I may have said something to that effect.”

  “Well,” Pervonarik said, “sparring each other isn’t quite the same as sparring me. But more important than what was said is what we get to work on now.”

  “Has it started?” Sil asked.

  “What—the spar?”

  “Yes. Can we start now?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s already started.”

  Sil, Pervoick, and Plum drew their blades without hesitation, slashing forward as they leapt toward their teacher.

  Pervonarik kicked up a gust of grass as he launched into motion, disappearing faster than their eyes could track.

  They instinctively pulled back their strikes, heads snapping upward. It was the right move—Pervonarik had jumped. He came down fast, kicking each of their faces before landing in a crouch behind them.

  Each of them brushed off the impact. Sil had reinforced her face with mana just in time to absorb the blow, and she assumed the others had done the same.

  Pervonarik chuckled. “Good work, children. You make excellent punching bags!”

  Kacur and Mair attacked, seizing what they thought was an opening. This time, Pervonarik didn’t vanish. He weaved side to side, dodging their blades, then tapped both of them squarely on the foreheads with a precise, mana-infused strike.

  The twins staggered back, squinting in pain as they tried to steady themselves. While their teacher’s focus remained on them, Plum dropped to the ground. He summoned clay spikes beneath Pervonarik’s feet—sharp and swift. The master leapt, then hurled a spinning knife toward Plum.

  Sil lunged, hoping to intercept it or block it with her body. But the moment she moved, she knew she’d be too late.

  Plum whipped out his sword and struck the knife midair, sending it spiraling off-course. Pervoick, appearing from nowhere, caught the spinning blade and threw it back—aiming for where his father had been. But he’d already moved. No one knew where. The knife skimmed over Mair’s head. She did not look amused.

  A sharp thwack turned Sil’s attention to Plum, who collapsed forward, struck from behind. Pervonarik loomed above him, his leg still extended mid-kick. He rested a hand on Plum’s back, using the momentum to launch himself into a second kick—this one landing squarely on Pervoick’s cheekbone.

  Sil, furthest from their master—aside from the twins—reached for her knives, not expecting Pervonarik to vanish before even hitting the floor. Had Plum really offered all the resistance he needed to spring off, or was it a technique Sil couldn’t even guess at? Questions like these clouded her judgment, distracting her from the task at hand: figuring out where their master had gone.

  A strip of parchment wrapped around her neck. She was yanked backward, choked, and slammed against someone’s back. With a sudden jerk, she flipped fully over and landed hard on her torso.

  She glared upward and spotted her master’s feet. He’d thrown her over himself. Damn. It seemed as though Pervonarik knew every way to disorient them. They could read him about as well as they could an expert gambler.

  Plum and Pervoick stepped forward, both slightly dazed by the last few strikes, but still determined. They stood on either side of their master, hands up, and within seconds, the three exchanged dozens of punches.

  Though not officially part of the stealth arts, hand-to-hand combat was something all Stearna were expected to learn to complement their mana control. Pervoick and Plum happened to be the most avid practitioners of the discipline—aside from Host.

  Their exchange was like a dance, though the advantage was clearly Pervonarik’s. Every punch from the two students was countered, then returned twofold.

  Irritated, Sil rose to one knee and began conjuring and tossing knives of clay, hoping to catch their master off-guard. Yet he remained unshaken, seamlessly adapting his close combat to the incoming projectiles. Still, for the first time that day, Pervonarik appeared to struggle.

  When one clay knife flew a little too close to his ear, something in his technique shifted. That strike had come uncomfortably close. But none of them could have predicted what came next.

  Pervonarik burst into a cloud of smoke, obscuring half the grassy platform. Plum and Pervoick nearly collided, their balance disrupted by the swirling veil.

  Sil, who had stayed at a distance, was unaffected by the smoke—though now she could only make out her teammates as blurry silhouettes. What she could see clearly, however, was their teacher: hovering eight feet above the ground, arms bent inward, hands behind his back.

  “Get down!” she shouted.

  Plum and Pervoick obeyed immediately, rolling to the ground as Pervonarik rained down a barrage of knives. Sil drew one from her belt and deflected the blades flying toward her, while the rest stabbed deep into the earth, dotting the grass like strange metallic flowers.

  She flung her own knife upward toward her airborne teacher, hoping his positioning would prove a mistake.

  He raised his leg and kicked it away—a feat of agility Sil should have anticipated. Then he landed with the quiet grace of a Stearna, flipping onto the grass with the sound of a falling leaf. The twins rushed him, eager to test their own close-combat skill. A foolish move. They hadn’t trained nearly as thoroughly as Plum and Pervoick. Pervonarik dismissed them with five precise strikes, sending them each flying four feet in opposite directions.

  Plum sprinted toward their master, signaling something to the twins—something Sil recognized, though Pervonarik clearly did not.

  Plum conjured a large square of reinforced parchment, big enough to roof a small hut. It unfurled like a blanket, casting a shadow over Pervonarik as it descended. Kacur and Mair each grabbed a corner, and the three pulled down hard, wrapping their master like a piece of unused furniture.

  Two blade-shapes pressed up from beneath the parchment, but they failed to pierce it. Their master had underestimated them—clearly not expecting them to reinforce the parchment with mana. Still, Sil felt a twinge of concern. That move must have cost Plum a substantial amount of aura. Efficient aura use was key to mastery. Then again, knowing him, he’d recover in minutes. Their aura levels had skyrocketed from training.

  The blades beneath the sheet receded, and a moment later, a pillar of clay erupted from the ground, lifting the parchment—and Plum, Mair, and Kacur—high into the air.

  By the time it stopped, the clay had tripled their height. The students dropped the parchment as they realized what had happened—but even that second of hang time was too long to gift their teacher. He was no longer focused on them.

  Instead, Pervonarik conjured three clay knives and hurled them at his fast-approaching son. Pervoick knocked them aside with his short blade, too focused on his father to see he’d been baited—his arms wide from the follow-through of his swing.

  Sil leaped forward, shielding Pervoick with her body, absorbing the elbow strike meant for him—an attack so fast it was nearly invisible. But Sil had anticipated it.

  She was thrown backward by the blow, pulling Pervoick down with her. As they hit the ground, Sil clutched her ribs, bracing for sharp pain. But it didn’t come. Was she in shock? No.

  “Hey!” Plum shouted. “Look at the knives!”

  Sil and Pervoick turned to the clay blades their master had thrown seconds earlier. They lay shattered on the grass, broken by the sheer force of Pervoick’s own counterattack.

  “They weren’t mana-enhanced?” Pervoick screeched, quickly covering his mouth in surprise at his own shrill tone.

  “Of course they weren’t,” Pervonarik said, as if it were obvious. “You lot didn’t think you were in real danger, right?”

  “But your knives pierced into the ground!” Mair shouted.

  “Those ones were enhanced,” Pervonarik admitted.

  Plum inspected the weapons scattered around them, still sticking out of the dirt.

  “They’re blunt,” Plum said.

  “Calm down, children,” Pervonarik said, gesturing with his hands. “We’re just training.”

  Pervoick grasped Sil’s hand and helped her up, then patted himself down. “This is the sort of thing we need,” he said to his father. “You here, with us, training.”

  “No, you don’t,” Pervonarik replied. “You lot are perfectly capable of killing those bears.”

  “Even so, where could you possibly have gone that was more important than staying here and teaching us?”

  “I did a job for one of the Royal Knights.”

  Silence.

  Sil had known the adults were doing odd jobs for increasingly important people—but a Royal Knight? One of the six greatest warriors in the world?

  “Sir,” Plum said. “I knew you were strong, but…” He trailed off. Whatever he wanted to say, he couldn’t find the words.

  “Was it easy?” Pervoick asked.

  “No. Far from it.” Pervonarik smiled. “They’re real monsters, those ones—but in the best way. We’re lucky to have them.”

  “And do they believe?” Pervoick asked. “Do they believe in Mechilpinna?”

  “Oh yeah, they believe.”

  “So, is the lesson over then?” Kacur asked. “Did you win?”

  “There’s no winning for me in this game. Only for you. But it seems I’ve tired you out.”

  “It’s only been five minutes!” Mair yelled.

  “Heavens,” Pervonarik said, amused. “How long do you usually spar for? We’ll get back to it soon. Let’s take a break, maybe have some food.”

  Food, Sil thought, her mouth starting to water. The feeling of starvation she’d known as a child had left her with an appetite she was always eager to satisfy.

  The six of them walked toward the tree, hoping to rest in the shade while they ate.

  “Hey,” Pervonarik said to her as they moved. “Don’t be so quick to jump in front of others. You’re worth more than that, you know.”

  Something about that struck Sil deeply, though she wasn’t sure why. “They’re my allies and teammates. What else do you expect me to do?”

  “Trust them,” her master replied.

  Sil thought that over—then dismissed it.

  I do trust them, she thought.