The Boon of Alon

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The fourth time I activate my boon, I keep myself still, and try to notice what I'm noticing. Like the way Suthi shifts her weight—I'm not sure that would've struck me otherwise, but my body tenses like I'm expecting an attack.

I move first, though, stepping in like I did before—she moves aside, too, and I watch my sword as my hands move it up, around, down. I see the angle at which I catch Suthi's sword so that it's wrenched from her hand. And then I step back and let my boon go and I don't know if I'm going to be able to see any of that otherwise, but I think I understand it better.

"Good," says Suthi. "Let's try it without, nice and slow." She picks up her sword and we reset.

I spare a second to try to tell if she's shifting again, and I think she is a little bit, though it's meaningless to me now. Then I step in again, sword first. She moves, slowly, aside, and I follow.

This time I get it right. We're still moving at less than half the speed we would in a real fight, but her sword falls out of her hands and damn, that feels good.

"Nice job." She grins at me. "Wanna try it full speed?"

"I'll give it a go." I don't know if I have a solid enough grasp on what I'm doing to pull it off, but I won't get there without practicing.

I definitely see her moving this time—in preparation?—before I lunge in. She dodges, as expected, and I follow and—I do it, holy shit, I catch her sword just right and it actually goes flying out of her hand.

"Yes!" She steps in, neatly avoiding my half-raised sword, and wraps her arms around my shoulders. I grunt in surprise as she lifts me off the ground for a second, then let her squeeze me a couple seconds more before I gently push her away.

"I didn't think that was gonna work that well," I admit. I don't think it's that much different from her or Chama showing me a move so I can copy it—it helps a little to feel it, but it helps more seeing the things I didn't know I should be looking for.

"Then let's try it a couple more times to make sure you've got it," she says, grinning.

We do. It's far from muscle memory yet, but I'm getting used to the motions, and maybe learning to spot when I can use it, too.

"That was great," says Suthi. She's been beaming the whole time—she's definitely more excited about being repeatedly disarmed than I've ever been. "Do you want to try a new one?"

"Yes." I think this method might really work. "But, first, tell me what happened with Yrite."

"Ugh. Okay." She stabs her sword into the ground at her feet so she can run both hands over her braided-back hair. It's nice to know that when the disappointment isn't soul-crushing, she gets a little theatrical about it—if she went still and quiet and blank, I'd be worried. "I don't think it went well. He asked me a lot of questions but I didn't know the right answers."

"The right answers?" Most of the questions dragons have asked me so far have been opinions or rhetorical. "What was he asking you?"

She shrugs, glaring at the stone wall of the monastery a few feet away. "Why I wanted to be a rider, what I care about, what I—think of you. That kind of thing."

In other words, entirely opinions. "He was trying to get to know you. The only 'right' answers are honest ones." Or at least semi-honest—I've left stuff out for sure, though I think by now I've told Yrite specifically pretty much everything. "Haven't other dragons asked you the same kinds of questions? What have you been saying to them?"

"Well...not much?" She scrapes her boot back and forth in a little semicircle in the dirt around her sword. It's kind of cute how she's acting so sheepish about this—whoa, no, shutting that thought down immediately. "I don't think any of them have liked me so far but it was worse with him. He's gold."