On the last day before they were due to march Avin awoke with an impressive headache.
He cast a healing spelling before he even opened his eyes.
It took away most of it but he still felt like Gant looked after a session of drinking.
Then he realised that was because he had had a session of drinking. His assessment was that perhaps it might be his first and last.
Magic seemed to work better on some things than others.
It looked like he’d have to put up with it.
He could feel Riani at his side and hear her breathing.
He turned to face her and risked opening his eyes to look at her. It was worth the pain the light gave to see her there.
He leant up slowly on one arm and stroked her hair with the other hand.
She started to wake and he slid his arm underneath her and held her close to him.
She yawned and then reached up to put her arms around his neck.
“Avin I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how it felt for you, when…”
He silenced her with a kiss, and they lay with the sunlight shining through the window onto them,
feeling the warmth of the sun and closeness of each other.
“Time for work” he said not moving, “Yes” she said.
They lay in the embrace of their mutual forgiveness for a few minutes, and then both sat up and made ready
to start the day.
This was the last day before they marched with the Legion to meet Arrin’s forces.
The last morning of this normality that they had all settled into. Riani told him about his father.
“My turn to be sorry” he said. “I should have been here.”
“Why? It all went well, and now I can do it with no one needing to catch me.
Its moved into the “something else that I can do” list. You needn’t worry anymore.”
“What was I like when I was drunk?” he asked curiously.
“Like anyone else whose drunk. Everybody’s your best friend and you love the world. Drunk is a state.
You, Terin, my brother…you were all probably drunk and doing and saying exactly the same things.” she said smiling.
“Oh no.” he said quietly as he remembered some of Gant’s drinking sessions. “Oh no, please no…”
She laughed. “Ask Jan. He looked after you mostly. I just sat worried you that you wouldn’t wake up.
Not for as long as you did for me, but long enough to know how it feels.” her voice had lost the laughter.
She wanted him to know that she knew.
“Did I say that I loved you?” he asked cautiously.
“Yes.” She was pouring tea as she saw him walk to the back of her chair.
She felt his kiss on the back of her neck and tingles of pleasure scampered through her body.
“Good. Because I‘m sober now… and I still love you.” he whispered, caressing her shoulders, his breath on her neck
an audible invitation to desire.
“Good.” She managed to whisper back, wanting nothing more than to let this moment take them both away from everything.
She might have let it too, if Jan hadn’t have walked in at that point without knocking.
He turned on his heel to leave, whistling his intrusion away, but they both shouted for him to come in.
“Sorry, should have knocked, just checking where I am. Are you going to the school today Riani?
“Yes Jan, and thank you for covering for me yesterday.”
“Its OK, I liked it. They’re not so arrogant when they know it’s the real thing coming, and not just an exam.
How are your lot Avin? Had to run any baths or arrange special dietary requirements?”
“No, they’re fine too now. I think you’re right. When they see its for real they want to do their best.
The biggest problem is lack of confidence.
Today I want them to try mixing what we’ve shown them about defending themselves with their magic.
I think you could help with that. After all when you tackled Ren you used both.”
“Yeah, OK. I’ll go see Sil and make sure she’s awake. You don’t happen to know if she’s on her own do you?
I always seem to be walking in on people.”
“No idea” Avin really didn’t know what Sil was doing.
He guessed that if she was with anyone it would be Hirn, but he also had a feeling that a reunion of those two would
take a little more than a few days. There were a lot of complicated feelings to settle down.
“Just blunder in like you normally do.”
“OK. See you later,”
and off he went.
He and Riani were alone again, but time had cheated them, and they knew it.
It didn’t matter because they both knew that they loved.
They got ready for the day, the last day before everyone had the exam of their lifetime, including the more experienced
Northern Edge group. Certainly they’d had to think on their feet more than the rest, but they’d never faced an army.
Gant had a few times, but the rest of them were in unknown territory.
Avin found himself thinking of Sil and the torture that the Order of the Elite had called an initiation.
She’d faced their army on her own then, as both commander and troops against fifty of them.
He looked at Riani and couldn’t help but wish that she would stay out of it, he would be the better in combat if
he knew that she was safe. He also knew that to be a dismissal of her and everything that she was.
They needed her. It was possible that she was now the strongest of all of them magically.
She was brave, and she was tough. She was also his lover, and he wanted nothing bad to happen to her.
She noticed him deep in thought. Her new sense told her that he was thinking two sets of thought about her.
She didn’t need the empathic sensing to guess what.
She kissed him and told him she was going to meet Alena to plan the days training.
Then she looked at him very seriously and said “I aren’t going to let them hurt me, you know, or anyone else if
I can help it.
Tomorrow, when it comes to it, you’ll try to keep your group safe, I’ll do the same.
Afterwards we can give each other points out of ten.”
He nodded. She knew what he was feeling.
It was not that comfortable knowing that she did, but it also felt good not to have to explain and trip over words.
They both walked out into the mess room, in light leather armour and cloaks of autumn gold,
looking like warriors, as per their standing instructions from Gant.
At the end of the sessions the Sol, Marg and the teachers accompanied Avin, Sil and Jan to the school to meet with
Riani and Alena and all the students there. It was noticeable that all the teachers had a new stature and at least
some more confidence than they’d had a few days ago. Derel in particular was a different person.
Since the experience he’d had in the court room it was all very real to him.
He was neither over confident or unsure of himself. He was going to do what Hirn had suggested.
He was going to make sure that no-one else ever gave him the compliment of being delicious.
He wanted none of the students that he taught used and drained either.
Jan had said that life happens while you’re busy doing something else.
He didn’t think even in his dreams he would be preparing to fight monsters tomorrow, yet here he was,
striding alongside his companions doing just that.
When everyone was gathered in the large room used for lectures, presentations and examinations Sol addressed everyone.
“Those of you coming with us in the morning, get a good nights sleep because its a long march.
Five miles, and some of you were worn out walking back from the barracks. Those of you who aren’t coming, do the same.
If we don’t prevail you need to quite simply run.
I’ve left instructions with a few of the senior people who are staying of how to work the portal.
If you get word that we couldn’t hold them, you take your magic and you keep it safe from them as best you can.
Don’t get the idea that they’ll accept you as members.
By the time we’ve finished with them, even if every one of us falls, they will be starving, and all they’ll want
from any of you is a meal.
Good luck, and don’t waste energy feeling guilty because you decided not to come.
We only want those who are confident enough to fight. Your turn will undoubtedly come another day.
The one’s who are coming, are there any questions for me, or the trainers sitting up here with me that you need
answering before tomorrow?”
There were a few questions about what to take with them and what was best to wear for travelling.
Alena answered those and was pleased that such practical questions had been put.
It showed that they were simply wanting to get on with it.
After giving some general advice about fabrics that chaffed and the need for basic toiletries she finished with,
“You all still have the dagger and short sword issued to you?”
They all nodded.
“Good. Tonight clean them. While you’re doing it think about what you’ve learned.
Those are yours now.
Whatever else you wear is a matter of individual comfort, just make sure they are the focal part of your ensemble. “
So that was it. The teachers and students headed off to prepare for leaving. Alena and Sil went to the Legion camp,
Alena because it was where she belonged. and Sil to talk some more to Hirn. Jan stayed at the school to listen to
Derel’s music for a while and Riani and Avin walked slowly back to the barracks.
It was about seven o'clock and still a warm, sunny evening.
“What do you think they’ll throw at us?” Avin asked
“Hard to say” Riani was wondering that too. “I hope they’ll waste a lot of energy on simulations to scare the
warriors. Our people can deal with those easily, and it will wear the Elite down. I think we’ll have to watch out
for mentally coercive spellings and counter those. Some of the people I’ve been working with are quite expert in
that, and so I’m not too worried. We’ll have to wait and see.”
He nodded, “Sil told me that Hirn is standing with us. That should irritate Arrin. “
“It all feels like something is putting us all there tomorrow for its own reasons,” Riani said, again a sense of
the coincidences of everything feeling just like the weaving that that the voices had sang about in her dream, and
that Jan had then made into a song.
“I’m glad whatever it is decided to put us together” he said.
“I thought earlier today that I’d be stronger if you didn’t come tomorrow. Now I know that isn’t true.
Whatever it is wants us together.”
Riani agreed, “and it will keep us together one way or another. Not just us, look at what Hirn went through to get
back to something that “felt right”. Sometimes I think …” she was worried about saying it in case he thought her foolish.
She’d say it anyway she decided.
“Sometimes I think its not you and me, or Hirn and Sil, or Elen and Teransir.
I think that love wants people to let it in. When they do, it lives in them.”
He threw his arm around her shoulder and hugged her to him as they walked.
This was so like her, her feet walking on practical ground whilst her heart flew away to little lights from a dream.
“ I don’t know, but its welcome in the home that’s me if you’re right.”
They walked the rest of the way with Riani teaching him Jan’s song.
They sung and laughed and by the time they reached the barracks they felt refreshed and renewed.
Nothing remained of the argument that had separated them.
It was as if it had happened to two other people.
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