the runes cupping his ass cheeks, but he needs to start using them. I pull up a barrier just as Bastien shoves his sunset-orange magic at me. It hits my barrier, causing it to shatter, but I’m already moving.
I know my shields pretty much work as a failsafe, but I don’t want to test their infallibility, so I’ve been working hard on different barriers. I call a new one into place, the orange-yellow sheen glimmering around me. I drop it for a heartbeat and send three daggers flying toward different parts of Bastien’s body. Warmth slams into me from behind, and I’m forced forward by Kallan’s unsurprising tackle. I use Elemental magic to create a forceful gust and blow myself out from underneath him. He swears as he slams into the hard dirt minus my body to cushion his fall.
I twist cat-like mid-air, landing upright, and send daggers flying toward Kallan on the ground. He rolls to avoid them and kips up onto his feet. Bastien comes up on his side, and they both rush me. I palm two daggers, and in a blink, the three of us are caught up in a dance of movement. Lunging, twisting, striking, looking for access to each other, one tiny opening where we can land a hit or a blade and win.
I breathe in with each defensive move I make, and out with each attack I deliver. The three of us are a blur of action, and we all move so well together, as we evade and assault one another, that if I didn’t know better, I’d think this was choreographed. I lean back to avoid a kick Kallan sends my way, and I realize too late that I’ve left my stomach exposed to Bastien. He doesn’t capitalize on the opening, and I know he saw it. His eyes flit from my stomach to my legs where he then tries to sweep my feet out from underneath me while I’m off balance.
This fucker isn’t going for the kill shot.
I pull on my Sentinel magic and send a pulse out that throws Kallan and Bastien away from me. I stomp over to Bastien on the ground, who’s slowly getting up and shaking the rattling my magic just gave him out of his limbs.
“Are you fucking pulling punches?” I demand.
“What the hell, Bruiser?”
“Don’t what the hell me; are you pulling your hits?”
Bastien doesn’t answer, but I didn’t really need him to.
“My stomach was open. You should have shoved a blade into my side and given yourself the upper hand, but you didn’t. Why?”
I’m in his face and shouting, and the other guys have stopped their training to watch.
“I’m not going to fucking stab you, Bruiser. Shoving a dagger into your stomach isn’t going to make us better fighters. I don’t have to actually beat the shit out of you to prove that I can.”
“You need to know what it feels like to go for the kill so that you can rebound accordingly. You need to be prepared for how your opponent will respond to being hurt.”
“Bruiser, that’s not how training works. We execute supes as paladin, but they don’t have us actually kill them in training as conscripts to guarantee that we know how.”
“They’re producing subpar paladin then,” I argue.
“Bruiser, I appreciate your bloodlust—it’s hot as fuck—but you’re wrong on this. Repetition of movement and muscle memory, that’s more important than actually shoving a knife, sword, mace, arrow, or any of the other magical weapons we can conjure up, into someone so that we know what it feels like.”
I know Bastien is still talking to me, but this situation triggers the memory of the first time Talon ever hit me in training. One minute I’m with Bastien in Belarus, and the next I’m with Talon in the ring.
I wipe at blood from my split lip and stare at Talon in shock.
“You fucking hit me?”
“And?” Talon asks, his breath even in spite of the hours we’ve been sparring.
“We’re training,” I tell him, confused.
“Yeah, and you need to know how to shake off a hit.”
Beth’s rage-filled face pops up in my mind, and I try to shove it away. “I know how to take a hit,” I tell him, my voice low, my eyes filled with fire.
“No, you know how to mentally and physically protect yourself while taking a beating. What I’m teaching you is how to work through the pain of a hit so hard it scrambles your senses. I’m teaching you how to navigate that