“Close,” he replied. “It's Jasmine. But you’re right about the lemon.”
I nodded, determined.
“Now feel,” he ordered. “What do you feel?”
I reached out.
“Not with your hands,” he barked. “We feel with our whole bodies, Dante. Not just our hands. Tell me what you feel, whatallof you feels.”
I frowned, furrowing my brow in concentration. Feel without my hands?
“I—I don’t…” I started, confused.
“Do you not feel the hard stone beneath your boots?” he chided, growing impatient. “Do you not feel the breeze from the window to your right, blowing the stuffy desert air into this already stifling room? Do you not feel the tension in your own muscles, gravity itself weighing down upon you each and every moment of the day? What of the material of your clothes against your skin? Heavy leather across your torso, arms, and legs, over the smooth, stretchy material of your training garments beneath? Your hair blowing across your brow or at the back of your neck? Do you feel none of these things, Champion? Are you so unaware of your own existence that you cannot pinpoint what is closest to you?”
I frowned, reaching up and ripping the blindfold off of my eyes in frustration.
“How, exactly, will this help me survive against theZver?” I snapped, losing my temper before I could think better of it. “I survived the beast this morning but if it’s capable of killing gods—”
“It is,”Kleioanswered, frowning at the blindfold in my hand I'd removed. “I’ve seen our own fall to the beasts. I’ve seen what they’re capable of. Do not be so dimwitted as to believe the only way to defeat them is through weaponry or brute force. Will strength increase your odds? Sure. But theZverare beings of magic and therefore the most effective means of destroying them is through magic. They're also stealthy, near silent on those massive paws when they wish to be. So if you cannot detect a breeze in a house, there's no way you'll be able to detect a shift in the wind as they lunge at you from the shadows. If you cannot see in the dark, you won’t identify them stalking you in the night. If you cannot smell their scent on the wind, you will not know they're near. If you cannot hear their low, warning growl, you will not know to raise your guard. Your senses are a muscle you must forge like any other. Make no mistake; if you neglect them, you will die.”
I frowned but bowed my head and nodded, thoroughly scolded. I felt like a small boy standing in front of my grandfather’s enormous desk in that foreboding office of his once again. A disappointing failure, same as always. Taking a breath, I brought the blindfold up to my eyes, determination settling onto my features as I rolled my shoulders and cleared my throat.
“Again,” I said, and so we began.
Kleioand I worked on enhancing my senses for the remainder of the afternoon. He assisted me in identifying my normal capabilities as well as those enhanced by magic. He helped melearn how to turn them on and off and how to keep them on even when it began to hurt, the magic leeching more energy from my body than I had to give. Endurance, he promised. We would work on my endurance until I could leave my enhanced senses on all the time without hardly noticing.
I was bone tired by the time we were finished, nearly more exhausted than I'd been after fighting theZver. I’d had no idea that using magic could be even more tiring than fighting a god-killing beast. So when I finally emerged fromKleio’s home, promising I would return the next day for more training, the moon was already high in the sky. I stared up at it in awe, taking a deep breath of the cool night air. Somehow, it seemed clearer here, brighter.
My senses were so exhausted, however, that I almost didn’t see the soldier stepping from the shadows until he was upon me. I raised my gaze to him and he frowned, looking over me in examination, strong arms crossed against his chest.
“I’m Castor,” he told me, his voice gruff but friendly. “Valin’sSecond. He asked me to fetch you after your lessons.”
I nodded, too exhausted to argue or question him further. He frowned, noticing my hesitation, but slapped me on the back and steered me toward the barracks all the same.
“Let’s get you a stiff drink,” he said, chuckling under his breath.
That, at least, was finally a plan I could get on board with.
Chapter Six
Adrian
"I do not believe in gods of pain. Gods of misery and suffering. Gods of separation and struggle. These are the gods the Houses worship. But I serve a higher power.”
— As Spoken by Wisteria Sallow, Leader of the Origin of Divine Cult
“Level ten,” Tiberius announced as the lift slowed and clanged softly onto the metal plate below. “Also known as the mines.”
The doors opened with a mechanical whir that still made me jump a bit in surprise every time. Glancing back warily at the strange feat of engineering, I followed Tiberius out of the lift and into a dimly lit tunnel.
A group of miners swarmed around us toward the dark, on their way to preassigned shifts and dirt and minerals they were more familiar with than most. Much unlike the florescent lights of the tunnels above, the lights here were softer, warmer somehow, and flickering as if blown directly from the forge a few levels above.
I shifted slightly and adjusted the high collar of mygraysupervisor’s uniform. I did my best to avoid the wide-eyed stares of the miners returning from their shifts as I'd avoided the stares of all the others since I'd arrived. These headed for the lifts, faces coated in the dust that had long settled into the very fibers of their pale yellow jumpsuits. They wore hard hats that hung lopsided on their heads because they refused to use the straps which would secure them. Pausing only for a moment to place their pickaxes back on the hooks at the end of the tunnel, they turned down the opposite way and headed back to their quarters, dirty work clothes and all.
“You’ll need to wear a hat down here at all times,” Tiberius said, pulling me out of my reverie.
I glanced down to find him pressing a pristine white hard hat into my chest.I took it, turning it so I could see the symbol on the front. A shiny silver one for supervisors.
