ALL NOVEL Chapter 53: Shook
“Siya…”
I heard Mara’s voice softly reach out to me through the darkness.
“Get ready, and meet me outside in 5 minutes.”
Everything after that was a blur until I somehow found myself standing up. Before I knew it, my internal clock was already telling me two minutes had passed.
It was pitch black, and the lingering feeling of impending hardship weighed heavy on me. My mind began wondering, trying to cope.
‘Mara and I didn’t even look similar, so it's hard to feel connected to her at all. She is muscular and toned, tall and fierce, it's hard to believe we're related. I have some muscle, sure. Enough to look decent on my small frame at least, and I’m pretty toned too, although I am a lot more normal looking now that I've recovered from the magic my father cast. Still, Compared to her I'm basically a kitten trying to roar like a lion.’
I thought back to what she had told me. ‘I don't need to be like her though do I…’
“Ugh… Focus.” I rubbed my fists against the side of my head. ‘I need to get ready.’
I glanced around the empty room trying to adjust my eyes to the dark. The candle helped a little, but I was still uneasy. ‘It's not too dangerous. Logically I have nothing to be afraid of, my room is simple. It has rickety floor boards but it's not like I'll fall through them. It is ridiculous for me to be scared of the dark at my age…’
It didn't matter what I said to myself. I couldn't shake the uneasy feeling of not being able to see my surroundings.
My foot got caught on a floorboard sticking ever so slightly out of the ground and I fell with a crash. “Ow…” I whined, looking up to see Bhaltair standing in the doorway.
“Siya, did you really just trip over your own feet… Seriously, you need to get it together before one of our parents kills you.” He yawned and swept his long hair back behind his ears before continuing on his way.
The entire house began to feel suffocating. It was all I could do to stand back up on my feet. My heart raced. It was beating so hard that I could feel its thump all the way in my head as I slammed the door.
I focused on slowing my breathing, looking down at my chest slowly rising with each puff of air.
The fact that I had new clothes calmed me down. It was an odd thing to settle my nerves, but it was hard not to appreciate them. Effectively they were the same as my old rags, the difference was the material.
They still didn't cover my stomach or my arms, or anything below my knees, but the thick padded linen they were made out of was a drastic improvement from the itchy sackcloth I had before.
When I arrived outside, my nerves finally began to calm down and I was able to think clearly again. ‘Even if he beats me it's not like he would ever try to kill me… Not without permission anyway.’
With a deep breath in I took a step out into the fields. ‘I thought I was desensitized to all of this, is three days really all it takes to reverse that?’
I felt the mud squish between my toes as I walked towards Mara. ‘It must have rained last night.’
I took another deep breath. The panic was gone, the hesitation had left with it. All that was left was my own calm determination to get through my training one step at a time. No matter how calm I was though, given that it had rained, one thing was for sure. ‘This is going to suck.’
I slowly approached Mara, rubbing my eyes. As I started to relax again they began to ache from my poor sleep, and when Mara saw me rub them a scowl covered her face.
‘Was I late? No, I should still have 36 seconds left.’
“Siya, you look rattled, did something happen?”
‘It's that obvious… Why am I suddenly so sensitive.’ I thought back to everything that happened during the three days off I had, and before that to my conversation with Agis. ‘Oh…’
“Siya?”
I looked up at her. “No, nothing important.”
She grimaced, but her eyes were softer than usual. That was the only reason I was able to stand next to her. Her expression was cold, but her eyes were completely different from the Mara from my dream.
To try and hide what I was really feeling I filled the silence with whatever I could think of, trying to avoid the topic. “Do we really have to get up this early every morning? I mean, the sun hasn't even risen yet.
“No, unlike your siblings, you were-”
“Born weak I know I know. But…” I stopped and looked at her. She didn't say a thing, just stared at me calmly. ‘She isn't mad that I just cut her off like that?’
I suddenly remembered years back, when she would get so mad at me for interrupting her. ‘I wonder when she stopped doing that?’
My mouth hung open as I started staring at her. She was already stretching, no doubt she was joining me for our morning run. ‘No point in saying anything. She always stands her ground, in some ways it's respectable.’
There were some things that I did admire about her. She never took a day off for instance. No matter what she was going through, it never affected her work, her duty as the lady of the house. No matter what she was always there to train me… No matter how much I wished she wasn't.
“But what?” she asked
A jolt shot through me. I thought that the conversation was over. Normally, if she said no, and I gave up pursuing the topic, we just left it at that.
“I… But…” I paused as my mind jerked in a different direction. “You actually want to know my reasoning?”
She let out a breath of air, coming back to a passive stance. “Sure, it would make it easier for me to explain my own, then maybe we could understand each other a little better.”
I paused again. “But why do you care though?” I wasn't trying to sound rude or offend her. It was a serious question, blunt as it was.
Her eyes stared directly into my own. “I want you to know that everything I do, I do for a reason…”
‘I guess… If she wants to know what I think, then I'll tell her…’ “I was going to say, that even though I'm weak, wouldn't it help me recover more if I could sleep in? I could train harder since I had more rest, right?”
“I'll think about it.”
Another shock ran through me. “You'll what?”
She gave off what almost looked like a smile if her eyes weren't so sad.
‘The heck?’
She always wore armor covering her legs that was made out of heavy interlocking metal plates. Supposedly they were extremely heavy, and the design was to help her swing heavy weapons without getting thrown off balance.
For her upper body though she just had a tight-fitting shirt that resembled what a track sprinter might wear, not even covering her stomach. I never actually asked, but I assumed it was a cultural thing, or that she liked showing off her scars.
Her body was a perfect match for her steely glare, so seeing her smile at me just felt wrong.
Her white hair was silklike and flowed in the wind, darkening to golden blond at the ends I didn't measure up at all, not in appearance, and certainly not in physical prowess. I suppose the one thing we did share was our pale skin, although mine burned… badly. ‘Maybe that's why we train so early.’
She turned and looked to the distance. “If you're fast we can make it all the way to the abandoned well and back in 45 minutes.”
Hearing her give me a goal flipped a switch in my brain. It became completely void of thought, only one persisting feeling remained. ‘Ok… let's get it over with.’