“So is your grip.”
I blinked at him.
Hale’s face gave me the slightest twitch toward a grin.
“Youdohave a sense of humor.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“Of course. Wouldn’t want anyone to know there’s an actual personality hiding under all that discipline.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, which was Hale for almost amused.”Your hands, Astra.”
I looked down.
“Right hand higher. Left hand lower.”
I moved my hands.
“No, not that low. There.”
I tightened my grip, but he shook his head.
“Try again.”
“But I haven’t even done anything yet.”
“Just get used to gripping it.”
I tried, but I felt absurd. Never in my life did I expect I’d have to know how to hold a giant stick to swing it at another person.
Hale corrected the grip twice more. Then my feet. Then my shoulders. At first, he used words like tools: shorter, wider, lower, stop, again.
The first ten minutes were humiliating.
The next were worse, because I began to improve and he refused to give me any credit.
Hale taught without praise. He named what was wrong, waited for me to fix it, and moved on as if that were that.
He wanted my back foot two inches in.
So I moved it two inches in.
“There,” he said.
That was how we went about it.
He showed me the first block slowly. Then again at a speed I could follow. Then once at the speed someone might actually use if they meant to hit me.
The stave cut through the air and stopped an inch from my right shoulder.
I held still because I had forgotten I was allowed to move.
Hale lowered the stave.
“That,” he said, “is what they are testing.”
My mouth had gone dry.
