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EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT

The blade is her; she is the blade

*Dhai'va*

✽✽✽

Dhai'va pants; the air burns her lungs.

She inhales the cold forest-breeze; its piney-scent soothes her lungs but for a second. Ven'ur advances, a swift blur, pounding her fh're over Dhai'va's. The force sends Dhai'va reeling backwards. Collecting herself, she surges forward, swinging the weapon at Ven'ur, spear tilted awkwardly in front of her. It barely touches Ven'ur's spear. Instead, the momentum romances gravity and pulls the spear to the ground, smashing it hard, dislodging soil. Ven'ur laughs.

Dhai'va yells in frustration throwing her weapon. 'I hate the fh're!'

Ven'ur smiles, twirling the longspear in one hand. The fh're, a longspear, has a blade on one end and a heavy solid sphere on the other. Used right, one hit from the sphere spells death. Dhai'va hates the weapon.

'You're not finding balance,' declares Ven'ur.

Incensed, Dhai'va picks the fh're for another attempt. She charges at Ven'ur, who's poised to defend. Dhai'va struggles with the spear's weight; it wobbles, clumsy in her grip. She swings it at Ven'ur, who blocks it, pushing back on Dhai'va. Dhai'va stumbles under Ven'ur's weight and her unbalanced weapon. Ven'ur retracts her fh're; weight absent, Dhai'va flounders. Ven'ur strikes; Dhai'va pivots, escaping the blade by a hair's breadth. Ven'ur uses the momentum to knock the fh're out of Dhai'va's hands. The spear tumbles to the ground.

'Zuh'tih!' Dhai'va curses, sitting on the training-grounds, energy, focus, and patience spent.

'Up,'

'No,' Dhai'va retorts.

Barricaded-patches for practice fleck the training-grounds. They lie between the Palace-Complex and the cusp of the dense woods that cover the land this side of Ytéan. Four kingdoms rule over the expansive forestlands; the largest is Xzia'on. The Xzia'on-range rims the forests - Dhai'va's land until A'ed conquered them, renaming Zya'ara to Xzia'on to boast she owns the range.

'The fh're's unnecessarily long and heavy.'

Ven'ur's silent.

It's not that Dhai'va's unable to find its centre and her steadiness around it. She's simply uninterested in the fh're. Dhai'va's great with swords and blades. She loves the feel of the blade in her hand; intimate, sharp, an extension of herself. The blade is her; she is the blade. Dhai'va is a weapon. The fh're is cumbersome, a separate entity to her. Dhai'va was born to be a blade.

'Why must I learn it?'

'The more you know, the better,' Ven'ur waves her hand to motion Dhai'va to stand. 'Anything may help against Ahst.'

'Like the rurké?' Dhai'va scoffs. 'What? I just wave the instrument at Ahst, hoping it kills him?'

Ven'ur rolls her eyes. Dhai'va glares at the Tv'orm, demanding an answer. Ven'ur nears a hundred-twenty Ytai-years. She's startingly recognisable from the Izarn region, land of Um'rei-Hi'er, with her red-interwoven brown hair, blue-green eyes, and light-tan skin. She wears bone-white gear of the Defenders, her progress through the years indicated by the gold-ring piercing an eyebrow for Ri'l-level and a gold-ring piercing her lower lip for Ru'n-level. Ven'ur arrived at Xzia'on to train Dhai'va in the fh're and eventually became her personal guard. Some days, Dhai'va misses her previous guard, Em'nor, a sweet man who made her laugh. Ven'ur's serious, astute, quiet, the very way one imagines the Tv'orm; a presence physically felt, fizzing over one's skin. Though rare, Ven'ur has her light moments too.