The Chimera

Chapter Thirty-Four: Kit Starts a Fire

Amid the crisp air and amber tones of their second autumn at the citadel, Jasper sits in one of the citadel's gardens. Twirling the brittle stem of a yellow-speckled leaf, he calls out colors to Skander.

From where she stands beside Jasper, Edeline slowly counts backward from seven every time a color is shouted out. It's her first time being an observer to this game instead of the archer being directed.

With his bow in hand and a quiver tied to his belt, Skander's eyes scan the colored wooden targets that hang intermittently among the tree branches. Any time Jasper calls out a color, Skander must locate the corresponding target, take aim, and successfully hit his mark before Edeline finishes her count.

The soft mist of the morning is so enticing, and the copper quality of the light so inviting, that others have come to sit outside as well. Skander, willing his fingers not to quake from the tension of an audience, hits each target steadily.

The last one is painted a rust-orange and hangs the farthest away. It's the most challenging mark by far-- not only for its distance, but for the way its color blurs into the warmth of autumnal foliage. Skander takes careful aim, breath slowing as he wills his eyes to sharpen and his arms to keep from loosening the arrow prematurely.

Just as Edeline reaches "one", his final shot rings true. The arrow sinks decisively into the orange-painted wood.

Even while panting from the exertion, as well as the sudden onslaught of every nervous feeling he'd so far been biting back, Skander is visibly overjoyed. The sudden look of elation as he lowers his bow makes his onlookers wonder if he had been expecting this to go half as well as it had.

Jasper is ecstatic, flinging his leaf to the side and scrambling up to throw his arms around Skander. "You did it!" he exclaims. This is the first time Skander's hit every mark within the seven-second limit. Edeline delivers her congratulations as well, basking in the glow of having her tutelage finally pay off.

"Thank you," Skander tells them, still smiling.

He couldn't have accomplished it without them: Edeline has tried her best to disseminate two decades of archery knowledge to something palatable for a newcomer like him. And Jasper is someone who has been so easy to confide in since their conversation after the chess game, so many months ago. From then on, the knowledge that Jasper understood something of how he felt had been invaluable.

His audience had grown to include Lionel and Zahara, hand-in-hand now as they often are. His brother's loud exclamations make Skander flush, but he doesn't have it in him to ask Lionel to quiet down.

Far removed from the small celebration, Skander realizes that at some point, Tai had come to watch too. Someone as rigid and poised as him stands out oddly under the crimson garland of the garden's trees. Despite this incongruity, though, there's something about the sight of Tai that makes Skander's joy go crooked. The resulting feeling is almost similar to nostalgia: an odd combination of pining and bitterness.

He tries to gauge Tai's reaction to his little victory: indifference, maybe? His feat certainly isn't as flashy as silver swords or golden shields. But the expression Tai is watching him with is one that he can't read at all. "Well done," is all he says.

Skander drags his eyes away, back to his brother and friends. But his mind is elsewhere: trying to parse through the look on Tai's face; calculating how many rustling, leaf-strewn steps there are between them.

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Tai wakes on the morning of his birthday to a face full of sleeping cat. He clicks his tongue in irritation. Puzzle has curled himself onto the bed's second pillow, a sizable gray lump that Tai already knows will leave behind countless scattered hairs.