tie it all into something more fluid.”
I thought about it for a moment. For as long as I was here, I could certainly spare an hour or two a day training with Kalon Visentis, one of the Blood Arena’s highly acclaimed champions. I had nothing to lose, only to gain from such an arrangement.
“Is there an endgame here?” I asked him, tired of all the guessing I’d done from the moment we’d met. If I was to trust him with my training, I had to be able to look at him and not see a potential enemy.
Kalon grunted, a shadow settling between his eyebrows. I’d made him angry, and I almost regretted raising the question, but it had to be done. Like a band-aid, it had to be removed quickly. The pain was sharp, but it would only last a split second before the benefits emerged.
“I resent the implication,” Kalon said, his voice rough and low.
Had I been paranoid this whole time? He was clearly offended, and the last thing I needed was Kalon Visentis holding a grudge against me.
“No offense intended,” I replied. “But, like I said, you make it difficult for me to trust you. After all, we’ve only just met, Kalon. If I’m to trust you with anything, my training included, I need to be able to… you know, trust you.”
As if suddenly enlightened, Kalon seemed to relax, his shoulders dropping slowly. His expression changed, and a faint smile danced across his face. “Sometimes, taking a chance on someone is all it takes to change your life for the better,” he said. “I made it clear last night that I value honor above anything else. I see potential in you as a fighter, and I wish to amplify it, that’s all. You can choose to say no, or you can pick up your swords and get ready for another round, Esme. It’s pretty simple.”
Kalon didn’t feel the need to justify himself. This was the best I would get out of him regarding his trustworthiness. Then again, what should I have expected? I had never trusted anyone outside my family who’d ever told me to “trust them.” Anyone who said that raised a red flag in my book. So what more did I want from Kalon, in this instance, in terms of reassurances?
Nothing. Settle for what you got.
And I did. With a brief nod, I picked the twin swords up and took my defense stance.
“All right, then. Show me what you’ve got, teacher,” I said.
Tristan
I lost track of time in the library. Having planned to only spend the first part of the day in here, I was quickly absorbed into the dozens of leather-bound volumes that documented the Black Fever and its devastating effects in painstaking detail. Derek and Sofia were busy with Amal in one of the study rooms, having collected enough Aeternae blood to begin their tests and analyses, while Nethissis was busy compiling a more comprehensive report of our first couple of days here.
Esme had mentioned something about the training halls, and I didn’t mind her keeping busy like this at all. I did appreciate the freedom we had as guests in the palace. Of course, I knew everyone was watching us—servants, valets, handmaidens, gold guards. They all had their eyes on us, as did the nobles living in the many other rooms of this enormous building. But we were respectful and didn’t bother anyone. From that angle, I didn’t see anything wrong with my scholarly endeavor. Besides, I needed something to wipe away the memory of the bloodshed I’d witnessed last night in the Black Square.
Everything in this place was meant to be read. I assumed the more delicate documents were kept separately, in a secure and secret location.
Reading about the Black Fever was more emotionally ravaging than I’d imagined. It was one thing to hear about it killing millions of Aeternae every ten thousand years, and something else entirely to take in the accounts of doctors and shamans who had fought tirelessly against the disease’s rapid spread.
It was late afternoon, and I’d reached the fifteenth such document, enclosed in a third volume surrounding the Black Fever. Its author, Merus Corinth, had been on the forefront of the outbreak five hundred thousand years ago—though, to be honest, I had already lost count of those before him. There were just too many.
Merus talked about the first symptoms, which he’d witnessed in his own daughter. The fever set in at first. The Aeternae girl’s skin had