Disciple of War Disciple of War (Art of the Adept #4) - Michael G. Manning Page 0,19

misery he had endured. A second factor was that Selene was a few years older than he had been, and while she was in good shape, she didn’t have the same physical endurance he had had.

Will discovered all this after the second hour of exercise. Since Selene was compelled to obey by the heart-stone enchantment, her body continued to force itself onward even after she probably should have collapsed. He’d made the mistake of ordering her to stop complaining without thinking through the consequences, and subsequently he didn’t realize she was in trouble until her body folded up and she began vomiting onto the ground.

Her arms and legs were still fighting to try and get her back on her feet. “Rest,” shouted Will, finally realizing what he had done to her. Selene’s face was cold and clammy, though she was sweating profusely. Heat exhaustion, he noted with chagrin. Just a little more and she might have slipped into heat stroke. Summoning a water urn from the limnthal, he began using the water to wet parts of her clothing. Then he summoned a towel and soaked it before wiping her face and head with it.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I shouldn’t have told you not to complain. You couldn’t even tell me what you were going through.”

She was too worn out to reply, but she turned her eyes away, not wanting to meet his gaze. Will didn’t know if that was because she was embarrassed, or whether she blamed him. His guilt tended to make him want to interpret it as the latter. Pushing his feelings aside, he lifted her and carried her into the house and up to bed.

After he had undressed her and made her as comfortable as possible, he retreated to the study and took out the Ring of Vile and Unspeakable Knowledge, studying it in the palm of his hand. I might have killed her with my inexperience, he thought. Slipping the ring onto his finger, he activated the limnthal, bracing himself for Arrogan’s assault.

As expected, it came instantly, but he weathered the storm until his grandfather gave up. “I need your advice,” he said.

“Go to hell.”

“I know you’ve written me off as a lost cause, but I’m trying to keep from killing Selene. You might be able to help.”

The ring didn’t reply.

“I got the heart-stone enchantment from Lognion and I used it on her, as I told you I would,” said Will, before explaining the rest of what he had done over the past month. When he had finished relaying the information, he brought up his current concern. “When I went through the first compression, I remember you forcing me to exercise almost every waking hour, but she nearly died after just two and it isn’t even that hot outside. Obviously, she can’t handle that much, but as healthy as she is, I don’t understand why this happened so quickly.”

He was answered by an empty silence, so he added, “Please. This is for her, not me.”

“You’re a fucking moron.”

“Duly noted,” said Will. “I agree with you.”

“The problem is your memory. All you remember is being tortured constantly with exercise.”

“You’re saying I remember it wrong?”

“Obviously. I only made you exercise for an hour or two every day, spread out over several short sessions. You spent most of your time trying to sleep when you weren’t eating or exercising, which is to say most of the day.”

Will blinked. It had seemed much worse to him. “Really? Just an hour or two?”

“I’m sure it seemed like an eternity to you, but I was doing my best to keep you healthy and whole. The main point of the exercise at this point is just to keep her muscles from atrophying until she stops lying in bed most of the day.”

“You told me it was to help my body adapt to not having enough turyn.”

“That’s partly true, but without turyn she can’t do much.”

“Didn’t you say physical exercise required attention more than turyn?”

“Well, that’s an old platitude, but it isn’t entirely true. Until she adapts and starts absorbing environmental turyn, she’s going to be very limited in what she can do. Without the proper energy, her body’s internal regulating mechanisms are going to be all kinds of screwed up, everything from her breathing, to her appetite, to heat regulation. You need to be very careful with her.”

“Will you help me through this?” asked Will hesitantly. “She doesn’t deserve to suffer because of my inexperience.”

“For her sake, and since I obviously can’t