“Because your aimwastrue. It’s your reach that is lacking.”
“Explain,” Rain said.
“It’s actually easier to show you than tell you. If you would indulge me?” He waved Rain and the others back. “This will require a little room.”
Ellysetta had turned to watch Rain back up a short distance, when suddenly Gaelen called, “Ellysetta,bote hamanas!” Hands at the ready!
That was all the warning he gave her before one of his own black-handled blades flew through the air straight towards her.
Her mind froze in surprise, but an instinct she’d never known she possessed took command of her body. Even before she realized what she was doing, she snatched the whirling blade out of the air and sent it flying back towards Gaelen in a single smooth, graceful motion.
He caught the dagger on its return flight with similar ease and launched a second blade immediately. He launched a third before the second even reached her hand, then a fourth and fifth shortly thereafter. She caught and returned each blade until there was a constant stream of Fey’cha arching through the air between them, and her hands moved with a blurring speed that matched Gaelen’s own.
He spoke a word, and the Fey’cha disappeared in the blink of an eye, reforming securely in the sheaths crisscrossing his chest. Silently, he dissolved the barrier of magic he’d erected to keep Rain and the others from rushing to Ellysetta’s rescue when the first of his blades had flown.
The moment the weave was down, Rain leapt forward. His hand shot out and a hammer of power exploded from his fingertips. It slammed into Gaelen and knocked the formerdahl’reisenoff his feet, flinging him several man lengths through the air to smack into a tree. Rain snatched Ellysetta up into his arms, his eyes glowing fierce and deadly bright.
“Every time I begin to trust you, vel Serranis,” he snarled, “you insist on proving me a fool for doing so. You dare throw a blade at myshei’tani?”
“She was never in any harm,” Gaelen muttered. With a grimace, he peeled himself off the tree trunk and gingerly took two experimental steps.
“You didn’t know that. What would have happened if she had not caught your Fey’cha?”
“Don’t take me for such a dim-skull,” Gaelen snapped. “I am herlu’tan. I would die before letting her come to the slightest harm—and you need to begin believing that. I can’t have you trying to stop me every time I do something without explaining it to you first.”
“And yet you knew I would distrust you. That shield was up even before you threw.”
Gaelen grimaced. “I know you, Tairen Soul. But put your mind at ease. Before I threw my Fey’cha I spun a weave on them that would have invoked my return word if her catch were even a fraction off.”
That admission mollified Rain. His tight, protective grip on Ellysetta loosened, and she slipped free.
“Next time, give a warning.”
“I wanted to see what her instincts were. A warning would have negated the test.”
“What sort of test, Gaelen?” Ellysetta asked in a shaken voice. She stared at her hands as if they belonged to someone else, then lifted her gaze to his.
Tajik answered in Gaelen’s stead. “You reacted to his throw like a warrior dancing the Cha Baruk. Though how vel Serranis knew you would escapes me.”
Cha Baruk, the Dance of Knives, was what the Fey called warfare, but it was also the name of the warriors’ dance in which deadly blades were tossed back and forth in a show of power and dexterity. Ellysetta turned to Gaelen in confusion. “How did I manage to do that, when I haven’t hit a single target I’ve aimed at since we began?”
“I spun a weave on the blades to make you see them as if they were a bit higher and farther away from your hand than they truly were.”
“Why?” Rain asked, his eyes narrowing.
“For the same reason I drew a red circle on a tree when a brown circle was the real target. I knew where her hands would be when she saw my blades coming.”
“And how did you know that?” Bel asked softly, his eyes steady on his friend’s face.
“Because everything she has done since she gripped her first blade has been without flaw. Every throw she made, the way she held her blades, the way she released them—everything was exactly as I would have done it. The only difference is that I stand a head taller and my reach is a hand or two longer. No one—no matter how natural a talent—just picks up a blade and executes such perfect form the first time they handle a knife.”
Gaelen turned to Ellysetta. “You modified the grip Bel showed you before you threw, to put your thumb on the spine of the blade for better guidance and surer aim. Why did you do that?”
“I…” She glanced at her hands in surprise. “I don’t know. It just felt…rightthat way, more comfortable.”
“I throw theDesriel’chatathe same way. As does Gil. As did our mentor, Shannisoran v’En Celay. It was the grip he taught all hischadins.”
“What are you getting at, Gaelen?” Rain demanded.
