One Life

FIVE

. . . 

. . .FOR TWO DAYS Kane and I train together in tense pleasantry. I come to learn his strengths and weaknesses organically, and he even notices some things about me.

On the second afternoon, as I'm correcting him on his unsteady form during target practice, he watches me shoot a flame out at a target with my palm.

"Try shooting it from your fingertips," he says.

I blink at him, then at the marred chest of the target. I've never had anyone but my Singe trainers tell me how to do things, but I suppose Kane's methods for precision with water manipulation would be similar to mine.

I do as recommended, and a blast of fire collides with the target's forehead in a contained circle, with the surrounding space not half as burnt up as my previous hit.

Kane smiles in satisfaction and tries out my stance. We continue that way for an hour or so, teaching each other different fighting techniques. Kane is much more experienced in combat than I thought. He's just so uncertain and I don't know why—whenever I bring it up, he dodges the subject.

Hemsworth gets caught up helping Kane with his force at the punching bags, so I peruse the training gym for an exercise to pass the time. Nox is busy with Nymisa at the sparring mat, so I steer clear of that and head to the obstacle course. A pair of voices behind a.

"...Have to be quick," a gravelly female voice says. Gwen. "Don't think about it, just do it. They'll be waiting for you—"

"And what if I get caught?" Griffin, as anxious as I've ever heard him. "The Aura wants this stupid competition to go one way only. They won't let me—"

"You're lucky, you know?" Says Joaquin from over my shoulder, startling me out of my eavesdropping. He glances back at where Kane shoots ice piercers at the targets, running up and down the line until he's heaving with exhaustion. "Hinata actually talks to you. Finch won't even look at me with a straight face, and we've got a day."

Odessa and Helios are training the two of them again. Bianca hits a punching bag, far away from her partner, and Odessa glares at us.

Everyone else is working with their partners now. Teros and Cyra have found a groove, Delphi seems to be waiting impatiently for Griffin to finish his strange conversation, and Ares waits with her for Gwen. Nymisa seems to have tamed Nox to some extent, and the only pair I can see to be outwardly fighting is Jameson and Donatella. They're never going to work.

"Sorry you're stuck with Odessa," I say. "But at least she's not your enemy."

"I don't know about that," Joaquin mutters. Then he plasters on a smile, says something optimistic about trying again, and walks back to the sparring mat with determination.

I crane to hear Griffin and Gwen again, but they're gone. What did Gwen mean, "They'll be waiting for you"?

Kane calls me over to the punching bags once Hemsworth is distracted by a fight between Odessa and Teros at the weaponry wall. I have no choice but to push my questions to the back of my mind.

. . .

It's the final day before the competition arrives, and we have our last interviews with Malus the evening before. My nerves have skyrocketed completely.

I don't want to tell Kane that I'm nervous because of him; the interviews are in partners, and we have to do a demonstration of our skills to impress audiences, as has always been standard for One Life interviews. But there's never been an Onaian and Vaeli pair. So much could go wrong. If I fail, if Kane fails, we could damage our image going into the contest.