The Broken Halo

Rowan and the guard walked out of the training ground together. Sweat had soaked his collar, and he couldn’t quite settle his breathing, but a small smile remained at the corner of his mouth.

The guard slowed down when Rowan fell behind. The boy was trying to straighten his fingers. Each clash with Leon had jarred them, and they trembled when he opened his hand.

”How did you learn those movements?”

”By watching them.”

”I saw you watching them. I mean before today.”

Rowan scratched beside his ear.

”I learned them today. From the students and the instructor.”

The guard stopped walking.

”Just by watching them?”

”Yes.”

Rowan waited, wondering whether he had said something wrong.

”Unbelievable.” The man rubbed his jaw. ”I didn’t expect you to have a talent like that. The Saintess will be pleased.”

Rowan smiled again. He tried making a fist and winced.

”Could we go back now?”

”Had enough of the city?”

”For today.”

They returned to the residence without stopping at any more shops. By the time they reached his room, Rowan was using the wall to steady himself.

”Rest those hands,” the guard told him.

He was about to leave when Rowan caught his sleeve.

”Could you teach me how to use a sword?”

The guard was taken aback for a moment before he shook his head.

”I’m a spearman.”

Rowan looked at the weapon hanging from his waist.

”This is a spare,” the guard explained. ”I can use it, but swords aren’t my speciality.”

”Then one of the other guards?”

”We have duties, Rowan. The Saintess assigned me to escort you today. Unless she orders someone to teach you, none of us has time to take on a pupil.”

”Oh.”

Rowan released his sleeve with a disappointed expression.

”I understand.”

”You can go back to the yard if you want to. Instructor Martin will teach you.”

”How much does Instructor Martin know about the sword?”

The guard glanced at him.

”Definitely more than you. Why?”

Rowan scratched the side of his head.

”I was just thinking... what if I learn everything he can teach me quickly? Would I need to find another instructor after that?”

The guard blinked in confusion.

Rowan hesitated before continuing.

”I’m not trying to sound arrogant, but I think I might learn it all quite quickly. Then I’d need someone else.”

For a moment, the man stared with a stunned gaze. Then he laughed.

”He’s been using a sword for decades! He isn’t a master, and no one ever called him a prodigy, but give him some credit. You’ve only had just one spar.”

Rowan glanced down at his sore fingers.

”Talent helps, but it doesn’t mean you’ll learn everything Martin knows in an afternoon.”

”Is that so?”

”Go back and find out. After you’ve rested though.”

Rowan thanked him, although he remained unconvinced.

The guard left.

Rowan watched the door until the footsteps faded, then sat on the rug and let out a long breath. His hands lay open upon his knees.

”It’s been so long since I felt like this.”

He smiled at the trembling fingers.

Back in Miresti, he had known he learned quickly. His father would show him something, and Rowan would repeat it until his father laughed and admitted there was nothing left to correct.

There hadn’t been many movements to learn.

Other villagers had let him try against them occasionally. He had picked up their techniques too, but copying a grown man’s swing hadn’t given him the strength behind it. They could knock his weapon aside and end the bout whenever they wanted.

”When you’re older,” they used to tell him. ”Wait until you’ve awakened.”

His parents had believed them. They had talked about his sixteenth birthday as though everything would become easier afterward.

Rowan pressed his hands against his thighs.

In Miresti, he had already seen most of what those men could show him. He hadn’t known where to find anything else. Here, one afternoon had given him enough to keep replaying it all the way home.

And there were academies full of people who knew more.

”Nine days.”

He pushed himself upright.

”I have nine days. I should use them.”

He moved a chair aside, leaving a clear stretch of floor, and closed his eyes. His hands came together around an imagined hilt.

At first, he rehearsed the instructor’s demonstration. His feet found the steps more easily now. The turn that had troubled him in the yard began to feel natural, and he shortened the distance his hands travelled between strokes.

An imaginary outline of Leon stood before him.

Rowan knew he was remembering him. There was no one in the room. Yet he could picture the raised sword, the one-handed grip, the lean before an attack.

He moved to meet it.

The first exchange ended as it had that afternoon, with Rowan stumbling away. He returned to the beginning and tried a different step.

This time, he avoided the blow.

He went through it again, remembering another attack Leon had used. Then the sequence that had nearly caught him.

His breathing roughened, but he no longer noticed.

The Leon he remembered gradually ran out of ways to touch him. Rowan could answer every attack he’d seen, even when he imagined them coming in a different order.

Another student took Leon’s place.

Then the cropped-haired girl.

He worked through their bouts until he could get past each of them. Sometimes he had to stop and reconsider what he remembered, then repeat the exchange.

What would the instructor do?

Rowan couldn’t answer. The man in his mind kept repeating demonstrations. He hadn’t seen how the instructor responded to an opponent.

He would have to watch him fight.

Rowan opened his eyes with a broad smile as he stopped his training.

His movements were cleaner than anything the students had shown him.

He took a step toward the bed, but the room suddenly blurred.

His knees gave way before he reached the bed.

”Oh shi-”

Thud!

He fainted from exhaustion.

He woke in bed that evening. A maid had heard him fall, and a healer had already checked him. There would be no more practice that night according to them.

Rowan had no choice but to obey. He ate what they brought him, drank his water, and waited for morning.

During the first day back at the training ground, he sparred with every student in the class.

Martin kept the bouts short and insisted on long breaks. The older, awakened students weren’t allowed to use their Blessings or strengthen their attacks with Aether. Even so, several had a considerable physical advantage.

Rowan beat them.

Leon lost his rematch. The cropped-haired girl lasted longer, used different techniques, then stood staring at the wooden point resting against her sleeve.

”Again,” she said.

”After he’s caught his breath,” Martin replied.

By midday, nobody needed reminding to let Rowan rest. They watched him struggling to lift a cup with the same disbelief they had shown when he beat them.

Martin tried a new exercise.

Rowan repeated it.

The instructor corrected the position of his elbow. On the next attempt, there was nothing to correct.

So Martin showed him something harder.

”Have you seen this before?”

”No, sir.”

”Watch carefully.”

Rowan did. Once wasn’t enough for that sequence, so he asked to see the ending again.

Then he performed it.

Martin went through movements he hadn’t intended to teach that class for months. He explained how to draw a guard out of position, how to recover when a cut missed, and how to recognise a false openign, and how to counter.

Rowan listened, tried them, and asked for the next lesson.

Martin glanced at the yard’s clock. Less than an hour had passed since he began teaching Rowan specifically.

He didn’t want to admit it, but... he had run out of sword techniques to demonstrate.

And he could see that Rowan was waiting for another.

Martin put his practice weapon back on the rack and left his hand there.

”Who taught you before you came here?”

”My father. And some men in our village.”

Martin had asked the guard the same question. The answer hadn’t changed.

On the second day, Rowan asked to spar with him.

Martin agreed to a controlled bout. He was an E-rank. Using his full strength against an unawakened boy would prove nothing.

Even holding back, he gave Rowan no room to relax. He changed his attacks, interrupted familiar sequences, and punished Rowan’s attempts to copy him without considering the distance.

Rowan followed, learned, and grew frighteningly difficult to catch cleanly.

Then Martin stopped with his blade against the boy’s ribs.

”That’s enough.”

Rowan bent over, gasping.

A short tear marked the side of Martin’s shirt. The wooden tip had caught it during their last exchange.

Rowan pointed at it.

”I got you.”

”You got my shirt.”

”I know, but it’s still the same thing to me.”

He sounded delighted.

Martin looked at the cut on his shirt again.

The guard had to help Rowan to a bench before his legs failed. His head throbbed, and the effort of following Martin’s changes had left him struggling to answer simple questions.

He had lost, but for Rowan, a scrap of torn cloth was enough of a victory for now.

After two days of continuous practice, he knew where his problems lay. His stamina was awful. His hands weakened after repeated clashes, and sometimes his feet wouldn’t carry him into an opening he could plainly see.

Winning against the students had cost him far more effort than it had appeared to cost them.

Against Martin, he had almost fainted again.

When Celeste visited on the third day, Rowan was sitting with his aching forearms resting on a cushion.

She pulled up a chair.

”Rowan, your medicinal bath is ready.”