Shadows and Steel | ✓

chapter twenty-eight

-28-

Cerid blew her off again that week. Sure enough, a day later Tan rushed into the bathroom with the latest report on his whereabouts. Elle didn't break the motion of washing her face as the same girl reappeared in the story. Tan turned to her. "You and Cerid seem to be on better terms, now."

Elle hummed in agreement. Well, better apart from him lying to her face about the endless meetings he had to attend. Tan, as if struck by an idea, clasped her hands together. "You should ask him who the girl is!"

Drying her face with a towel, she shot her a withering look. "Tan, I'm not going to endorse your rumour mill. It's his private life and it should remain that way."

She had never been one to avoid confrontations.

Even the blonde looked surprised at her answer but raised her hands in defeat. From then on, Tan didn't mention the girl again.

When their training did go ahead, Cerid had her work with no breaks, switching from sparring between them, to running laps around the lake until her legs felt like they were going to fall off. On more than one occasion, when she was moving too slowly, he shoved her in.

He was right about many things regarding her technique and attitude. Her tendency to let her anger fuel and make the decisions for her was helpful in some ways, blind rage fuelling every jab but was ultimately not what DETRA was looking for. 

Locking wild emotions such as anger onto an opponent was fine, but when that narrowed focus blocked her awareness of other dangers from different directions, failure was imminent. With every critique she swallowed her pride, rising again just to prove she was better.

She learnt that Cerid didn't like haphazard strikes and frenzied movement. Every blow of his landed impeccably where it was aimed. This scrutinising method had her questioning every slight movement to every breath. He even began to teach her the basic movement of his flip, getting her to practise jumping off things backwards and rolling to embrace the impact. The first few attempts were shockingly bad, but with every session she was closer to performing the flip, minus the kick.

Cerid interlocked his fingers, forming a small net. Elle focused on a nick in the wall behind him, stepping onto his hands. Bending his knees, he counted to three then thrust his hands upwards and propelling her high in the air. "Don't think," he said.

At the apex of the throw the assassin threw all caution to the wind. She tucked into a tight ball, spinning to the floor. Closing her eyes, she put all trust in the limbs which had carried her so far in life. Wobbling slightly, she landed with a groan but otherwise intact.

"You have sound reflexes. With these, you need to pour every shred of your conscious into believing that your body will move as you command, with the speed and precision you imagine." He had said after her attempt.

Their sessions sometimes were crammed into the a few hours in the middle of the day if Cerid bailed on their evening training. After the fourth or fifth time she couldn't help herself from commenting. "What exactly do you have to do?"

He swept his sweaty hair back as they walked through the portraits. "Boring things. Meetings, paperwork."

Just before they entered the lift, she shrugged. "You're a bad liar, you know." This stopped him slightly in his tracks. She continued, stepping into the lift and pressing the button alerting Boyo of their wish to descend. Cerid didn't say anything, although she could tell he wanted to explain himself in some way. Instead, awkward heavy silence accompanied them all the way down.