MIRRI

  The Arrivals trotted off under the shade of the Fang without a single question about Viran's shortcomings, but Mirri wasn't fooled. She had just carelessly planted the seeds of a potential disaster, and Calen had picked up on her slip-up *instantly*.

  They would be paying attention now, knowing there was something to find. Leverage they could walk away with at any time, once they found it.

  None of it would be a problem if things actually worked out according to plan, but the presumption of easy success had flown into squalls before Mirri had managed to break her fast, starting with the harpy from the Wastes practically hanging off Viran's horns in the middle of the mess hall.

  "Come on," Dovin interrupted Mirri's silent contemplation before her tail managed to sweep the sands behind her down to the stone below. "We need to put them through their paces, so you're getting the pits uncovered and the sparring weapons dusted off."

  "I'm sparring with them already?" Mirri blinked away the confusion that wasn't panic. "Both of them?"

  Calen's head would be vulnerable at the slightest bit of stress, but if they restricted the testing to spell-slinging, there was no chance Viran could hide—

  "Not with either of you today, but you will end up in the pit with them before I'm back to my regular duties," Dovin huffed impatiently. "They'll spar with each other today. I need to know what I'm working with, what they're trained on, and how well, without getting them accustomed to thinking of either of you two as threats."

  Mirri nodded sharply, not trusting herself to speak as she moved to the outflows. If anything, the terms were more unfair to Viran than to her.

  *He* hadn't mauled either of the humans yesterday.

  The mechanisms for draining the reservoir were long-defunct now that only the second step of the Fang fed the lake. They were disabled besides, but the deep geometric pits made for perfect sparring areas, and some long-gone Warden of the Spire had recognized that. The coverings dragged back easily, pouring sand over the steep edges as Mirri examined the pit for damage.

  A layer of dried silt at the bottom was pristine, still bearing rake-marks, and she smelled must instead of rot, so whoever had winterized them had done a fine job at the first of the southern pits. The pell was even neatly leaned in a corner, ready for re-seating. Mirri left it for now, moving on.

  The second pit was much the same, and Dovin finished his instructions to Viran moments after waving her off the third. The Arrivals made their return from the cliffside outhouse at the southern end of the plateau soon after.

  "Anything look familiar?" Dovin asked them.

  Laid out in the sands above the two sparring pits was a set of wooden objects from the first sparring pit. Simple weapons that a manaless world would have been familiar with.

  "Axe. Sword. Staff. Spear. Big shield. Little shield." Emma confidently went down the line.

  "Why are they all made of wood?" Calen asked. "And I know you're not exactly about to hand us rifles, but is archery an option?"

  A huff of air escaped Mirri's nostrils without her consent as she noted the size of his shoulders. Someone seemed to think the strength necessary for small game was sufficient to draw a war-bow.

  "They're made of wood so that nobody gets too badly injured while you're learning to swing them. Are you any more trained with a bow than any of this?" Dovin cut to the heart of things.

  The mild chagrin on Calen's face was all the answer anyone needed.

  "People on Earth haven't seriously used weapons like these in centuries," His sister took up the conversation, and pointed at the sparring axe. "Except maybe for chopping firewood."

  "Perfect, I don't have to compete with any bad habits you learned as children," Dovin waved to the spread in the sands. "Basic competency awaits, pick one for now. You're going to learn to hit something properly today."

  Neither of the Arrivals hesitated. The axe left the sands in Emma's hands, along with the larger shield, and Calen reached directly for the sword.

  Mirri suppressed a sigh. *Of course* he was going to be one of *those* students.

  Every other weapon arrayed before the humans would have been a better choice for the male, including bothering with the shield in addition to the sword. Emma, at least, had made the rational decision to test out a weapon she would actually be able to wield from behind a thick layer of Seraph Steel. The spear might have been better for her once she built up the strength to use it one-armed, but it would have been an *actually* effective choice for her brother.

  A sword could still manage some damage in airborne hands, but stance was much more important, which meant planted feet. A spear, at least, could be driven downwards from a safe distance. If he wanted to use his own Seraph Steel effectively, he had just limited himself severely, and added another point of failure if he didn't manage to align the blade properly.

  Not that she expected him to be flitting about any time soon, so perhaps it wasn't a horrific mistake on its face.

  "Rational. Ambitious." Mirri commented, pointed at each of them in turn.

  Some fragment of her thoughts must have sept into her tone, because Calen's eyes narrowed.

  "Wouldn't want to pick something I have to leave behind in tight spaces." He said, twirling the sparring sword too-casually.

  Emma awkwardly attempted to elbow her brother in the ribs. Mirri's nostrils flared just a bit at the reminder, but she dipped her chin a scaleswidth to concede the point.

  The little shit even had the audacity to be a bit correct, and it was half a compliment anyway. She couldn't imagine *him* winning a knife fight against much of anything without being injured.

  "Spear might have been a better idea for you, but you can always switch if you run into problems," Dovin grunted. "Done hammering that pell in, Viran?"

  The wooden mallet that had been left out of the Arrival's options echoed from the first pit one last time, and by way of reply, Viran climbed into view up the carved steps soon after.

  "Good. Do the other one before you start your exercises, and I don't mean swimming," Dovin turned to Mirri. "You, in pit one with her, teach her how to stance properly, then basic striking. This one is getting my attention."

  Mirri sidestepped her way over to the stairs, shuffling impatiently while Emma shot glance after glance at the way her brother was disappearing over the lip of the second pit. The Arrival seemed to pause when she finally reached Mirri, as if she were unsure who should lead the way.

  Emma would be going first. They had all shown off enough weak spots for the day. Mirri rested her weight on the spear cinched inside her elbow, making a show of relaxing her weight so that this didn't become a standoff.

  "Come on," Mirri prodded when Emma hesitated again, cocking her horns at the stairs in front of them as Viran started to pound out a steady beat, driving the second pell into place. "He'll be fine. Dovin's growl is rougher than his grip, and you need to learn to use that properly, or it'll just get you into trouble."

  The other girl seemed to remember the weapon hanging loosely at her side for the first time, dropping out of that odd, steady breathing rhythm she liked to maintain.

  "Right. Practice. With a practice weapon. Before it's real." The human babbled, making her way down the stairs.

  Mirri followed, ready to withhold judgment. A beginner with no prior instruction could improve rapidly, and she had persistently underestimated these two. She could handle being in a small space while Emma fought a rope-wrapped post.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Viran had done a good job with the pell. It was straight, at least, and stayed that way when Mirri leaned her weight into it, first with a foot down low, then with her arms up high.

  "This is your opponent today," Mirri turned and gestured to the post. "Show me your stance."

  To her moderate surprise, Emma demonstrated something passable. Bent knees, low center of gravity, and she even had her elbows tucked near her ribs, instead of hanging out to the sides like chicken wings.

  "You're strangling your leverage. Grip the weapon further down, and I'm going to show you what's wrong with the shield afterwards." Mirri instructed her.

  A few adjustments later, Emma had the axe gripped about twenty percent of the way up the haft, instead of at the halfway mark.

  "What am I doing wrong with the shield?" Her student asked.

  Mirri eyed the wedge-shaped wooden club in Emma's dominant hand.

  Perhaps she had fixed these problems in the wrong order.

  "Don't swing that thing at me while I show you," Mirri said, stepping forward only after Emma nodded. "Imagine you're pressed in battle, your weapon is otherwise controlled. Let it happen, you need to know how to fight a stronger opponent."

  Mirri put a palm to the large circle of wood affixed to Emma's arm, pressuring it back into her torso until the other girl backed up a step into the wall behind her.

  She didn't take a chip out of Mirri's horns, but she was still wide-eyed, knuckles tight around the axe and breathing just a *little* too fast.

  Finishing this quickly and concisely was a priority.

  "See how your weight isn't behind this, just your arm?" Mirri drew her attention down to where she wasn't using the shield to gently 'pin' the human to the wall.

  Emma's right hip and shoulder were exposed. A strike to either would disable her fighting arm, or prevent her from running, and a real opponent wouldn't sit there and tap at the openings. They would simply see the gap in her stance, and exploit it.

  "Cover your opposite hip with the shield, or your guard is open." Mirri released the pressure, backing away before the human could change her mind about sharing space.

  The Arrival nodded rapidly, lapsing back to that uncannily even breathing.

  Perhaps it was a memory technique, but...

  "Are you alright?" Mirri checked in, taking another step back.

  Best to check if she was ignoring a sign of distress, before she created a cornered animal.

  "I'm uh, not used to being on the other end of that. Size and strength, I mean," Emma's eyes widened before the hurried clarification. "It just caught me off guard."

  Mirri nodded her understanding. *Now* the competent stance made sense.

  "You've had training, but not with weapons." She presumed.

  "Yeah, that's uh, what I meant," Emma confirmed. "No weapons, just knife defense, grappling, and throws against other humans."

  "Tell Dovin about it when we're done," Mirri jerked her head at the post. "Try again. This is your foundation, leaving cracks now will create larger issues later."

  Emma's next attempt at a proper stance required minimal corrections. She also seemed less and less nervous each time Mirri reached in to make them, taking the instructions in stride with minimal argument.

  Dovin had clearly spared Mirri the more difficult of the tasks on purpose, judging by the mostly-unintelligible exchanges floating over the lip of the pit. Emma worked through some basic strikes one at a time, achieving passable competence with each type of swing before moving on to the next.

  "Roll your wrist for this one, and draw back quickly," Mirri demonstrated the underhanded strike before handing the sparring weapon back. "Your elbow gets involved last. Make sure you're hitting the bottom of the rope."

  The Arrival had so far taken everything else in stride. Teaching her a nonstandard trick now would save Dovin the trouble of doing it later, and if she was going to have trouble with complexity, well, knowing that would be useful too.

  "Why underhanded?" Emma's brow wrinkled. "Doesn't that reduce power a lot?"

  Which simultaneously identified the weakness that made the trick a trick, and missed the point. Hopefully the Arrival was willing to be a bit flexible once she knew *why* she was learning it.

  "It does. Striking low also drops your guard, you'll need your weapon to come out easy afterward, to resume defending yourself," Mirri agreed. "The benefit is that a threat to the bloodline will pause all but the most determined opponents, and force them to be wary even if you only try it the one time."

  Mirri let a grin out, and got one back as Emma realized what she was implying.

  The practice axe thunked home into the proper section of the rope with solid accuracy after Emma's first few fumbling attempts at reaching a proper rhythm. She was almost ready to start mixing strikes by the time the sun started to creep around the Fang, which would have been slightly more impressive if she had been completely untrained to start.

  Still, the progress was respectable, which was half the reason Mirri's guard stayed down when Emma let out a huff of air and stepped back from the post.

  "Thank you."

  The gratitude caught Mirri completely off balance, despite the support of her spear.

  "For what?" She asked. "Half a morning of beginner's drills?"

  "That. The clothes," Emma paused, still facing the post instead of Mirri. "Actually catching my brother yesterday, even if he's being a jerk right now."

  "I had some very explicit instructions about what was expected of me." The glib response slipped off Mirri's tongue of its own volition.

  Emma seemed to wince as the words struck at their intended target.

  Whether Mirri *should* have said them was another matter entirely, but there was no putting that spell back together. She braced herself for half a dozen different biting comments, ready for a glimpse into the political acumen of Earth's socialites.

  Instead, she got something entirely different.

  "I'm sorry," The misery was readily apparent in Emma's tone, and on her face as she finally turned to actually look at Mirri. "I didn't mean it. I thought I was dying, and I thought I needed to make sure you bothered saving my brother."

  Mercy's breath, those were *tears*. Was this misty-eyed girl playing her with the oldest trick in the scroll, or was Mirri trying to play Immortal Games with someone who was still learning how all the pieces moved?

  Either way, the correct response was the same, but Mirri was starting to suspect that Emma had more experience with fighting than manipulation.

  "I would have caught him either way. Tried to, at least," Mirri frowned. "Everyone deserves a second chance."

  Emma was already looking away again, maintaining her silence for far too long. No, she wasn't pointed away from Mirri.

  Her eyes were cast upward at the lip of the sparring pit, towards the sound of wood on wood, where her brother was practicing. Ignoring any play for personal advantage, to point herself directly at her one priority.

  Mirri could almost see the resemblance between the siblings now. They even set their jaws the same way when they decided to take a risk.

  "Is your wing healed?" Emma blurted.

  Mirri's shoulders tightened without her consent, and she felt herself shrink in, pulling her wings just a little tighter behind her back.

  *Of course* the Arrival had noticed, it didn't matter how much of the Spire stairs Mirri had taken backwards, she had faced front for the entire walk down the halls. Mirri had thought she was ready after the winter in town, but no one in Second Bend had *asked*. They all *knew* how it had happened.

  Yet here she was, having spoken with four actual strangers in two days, if she still included Mahira, and the third one was asking.

  Gods, would it never end?

  "What about my wings?" She avoided snapping, heroically keeping her tone level, and good thing too.

  "Yesterday," Emma blindly blundered forward, completely oblivious to the phantom fears she had just stirred to activity. "You were holding one of them... wrong when you came back with Calen. Like you couldn't close it."

  Mirri found herself measuring her breathing in the same manner the Arrival had been, but not for too long. She had to reply. It wouldn't do to give away the game twice in a day.

  "The landing was rough," Mirri stuck to the facts. "The rest of the potion was enough to get me moving, and good night's rest will fix most things short of broken bones at my mana density."

  "Oh," Emma seemed to deflate where she stood. "Okay. Good."

  Mirri's eyes drifted to the pell, and the peeking sun cresting the mountain high above. There was still plenty of time to practice. She had narrowly avoided overreacting and burning the relationship to cinders, best to leave it lying where it was for now.

  Curiosity got the better of her anyway.

  "Why?"

  "I... Calen burned himself this morning, and I fixed it by accident," Emma took a breath, seeming to steel herself. "I didn't know if I could... maybe help, if it was still bothering you."

  The offer was... well-intentioned. Mirri had no intention of subjecting her *wings* of all organs to the ministrations of a novice healer, but there was something more important buried in Emma's account. Something that cast doubt on the Arrival's perception of events.

  "You healed a *burn*?" Mirri asked. "How did you put that much power through a patch by accident?"

  Cauterization was the one near-sure way to disable healing. Seraph-fire was the weapon Sanctum's enforcers deployed not for preference, but because without it, monsters would blindly force power into bursts of regeneration, sacrificing their future power to replace limbs in moments to maintain their assault.

  Healing didn't work on slagged flesh, because it just... wasn't flesh anymore. It didn't sound like Calen had gone that far, but even mild burns were resistant to magical healing. Emma must have burned an extraordinary amount of power, and that wasn't something she could have even done by accident.

  But Emma shook her head.

  "Viran hadn't given us the equipment yet," Emma said. "I didn't do it on purpose, I just punched him in the arm for being a dummy with magic, and the skin grew back."

  Mirri instantly decided to believe her. They could test it later, and if she had been fooled, it would only cost Emma credibility. There was no reason to disbelieve the account, and every reason to investigate.

  On that assumption, she was too busy trying to figure out what to do with the incredible information she had just been handed to worry about asking what Calen had been up to, burning himself first thing in the morning.

  Foolishness seemed to be the norm with that one.

  "I... I can't make you disclose anything about your channels, but you should tell my mother. In private." Mirri added hurriedly.

  Talking about something like this out in the open was dangerous, even up here. The Warden would know what to do. Healing was rare enough, but with a talent like that, this worried girl was going to need to learn to protect herself.

  And it was Mirri's job to make sure she knew how.

  "Is it something bad? Do we need to warn Calen?" Emma looked ready to sprint up the steps behind Mirri.

  There wasn't an ounce of guile on display, just naked worry that something had gone wrong.

  "No. Nothing bad. It can wait," Mirri kept the quiver of trepidation out of her voice, pointing at the pell to distract the Arrival. "Again. We'll have plenty of time to talk about magic later."

  Attacks on the groin area are banned in almost all professional sporting contexts, being the original meaning behind the term 'low blow', which has also come to mean underhanded or unscrupulous conduct.