Kai smiled back, hazy and exhausted, as the next item on his to-do list began to take form.
He was surprised Ione didn’t fight.Well, he supposed she did in her own way, turning up late to the walled courtyard behind the altarhouse to practice at the fountain – the water here devoid of koi, and Kai was sorry about that, seriously – and ignoring him unless necessary.She listened without looking at him, tried roughly half of what he suggested, and overall just ran through the basic exercises her old teacher had taught her.Gods bless her, if that was what Jorah had her doing, no wonder she was shit.
Worse, she brought her retinue with her, Cynthia, offering advice and metaphors about fish; the attendant, looking like an actor who’d walked into the wrong play; River, pointedly polishing his sword like an asshole and distracting Kai.
Over a fortnight later, Ione’s skills remained stagnant.Great work, Menon.
Kai wasn’t worried.Actually, he was worried about everything, but not this.He could get anyone to crack.It was how his own parents fell in with one another, a story his mother regaled him and his brothers with after enough wine.Malia Lua, a highborn girl sneaking out to bars frequented by pirates, drinking and smoking and playing cards; something about Kai’s father, the admiral of the Seven Star Islands’ most cutthroat fleet of traders, piqued Malia’s interest.
They didn’t like each other much at first, either.But as Malia carved a place for herself first as Ahe’s advisor (also bank account), Kai would become Menon Apparent’s most valued seleneschal.
Somehow.
“Ah, don’t you dare,” Kai snapped from his perch on the stone bench beside the fountain.Thunder rolled distantly; a few fat drops of rain plopped onto the flagstones, and already Ione was complaining to River of the cold and making like she was going to go inside.“Shield the rain, Ineen.It’s basic shit.”
She scowled at the nickname but gave up correcting him sometime last week.“It’s lunchtime, anyway.”
More raindrops, faster now, peppering the flagstones and their clothes with blooming wet splodges.The cool air, fragranced with sweet petrichor, hauled Kai back to nights on the deck of the Cetos, to drifting to sleep on a hammock.His eyelids drooped, but a bright spark of pain wrenched him back to the present.
Automatically – it was all automatic now – he healed his fingertips before they bled onto his jacket.A shard of ice shoved up his fingernails always did the trick when he was sober and needed to stay awake.
He darted to stand in the way of the door.“It’s been – ” He’d lost track.“ – more than long enough.I have been more than patient.”
A heavy droplet landed square on Ione’s head, making her shiver.“And it is more than rainy, and you are more than annoying me.Aside.”
Kai thrust an arm out, barring her from moving past him; she sent River aCan you believe thislook.“This is one of the most versatile skills.”He lifted one hand and the rain billowed out overhead, trickling to the ground around his feet.He left the rest of them unshielded.“A strong enough shield can withstand physical blows or be woven into wards, and you’re only fighting me because you can’t do it.”
She remained impassive.“You cannot provoke me.”
“Give me time.”He sent her a bleak smile, feeling uncomfortably like his brother Etan when he trained new Leviathos crewmen.“We’ll see how confident you are when I drag you to the sea floor.Your options are to create an air pocket with this technique, or drown.Shitty way to go.I’ve seen it once or twice.”
“My gods, you’re so scary,” Ione yawned, utterly unthreatened.
Finally River sighed.“Word to the wise,” he said mildly, “harming her isn’t going to end well for you.”
Kai switched focus, River’s sword in his periphery.“You’re all enabling her.”
“Oh, it’s why I like them so much,” Ione said.
Cynthia sniggered at that, but the attendant hugged herself and rubbed her arms, chilled.Seeing it, and seeing too that Kai was getting fucking nowhere with Ione, Cynthia wordlessly raised a water shield over them all.The attendant bowed her head and whispered her thanks.
That woke Ione up.She whirled, softening: “I’m sorry, I’ve let you all get wet.”She opened both hands.“I’ll dry us off.”
River started forward, lowering Ione’s hands.“Don’t trouble yourself.Cynthia will.”
“You hold the shield,” Cynthia suggested.
“I can do it,” Ione hissed so hotly that Kai wondered what the hell she’d done the last time she tried to pull water out of something.He envisioned a dried-out human husk and a lot of screaming.He didn’t realise he’d laughed until they all looked at him.
After a moment Ione gave in, her expression souring; she took control of Cynthia’s water shield and let Cynthia wick the rainwater from their hair and clothes.Ione’s handiwork was stable enough, Kai noted, although she was tiring herself out needlessly by holding onto the water and not letting it drop to the ground: by the time they were all dry, Ione’s arms were shaking.
“After you, please,” Ione said to the girls, her face pinched with pain as the sheet of water above them grew thicker and thicker.
At a loss – she’d done it, after all – Kai stepped aside and issued them a mock bow as Cynthia and the attendant skirted past him into the altarhouse.
Kai had read once that praise was helpful, so he said, “Very good, Ineen.”
Ione reeled back – “Thank you.”– and hurled the entire shield, every drop of rain that had formed it, over Kai’s head.The weight of it knocked him back into the wall, but worse was the coldness, the icy chill of loathing she had poured into her magical signature.
