The court was mine for an hour. I spent the first few minutes making sure no one else thought so, looking up into the gallery and down the passage behind the racks. Rainwater ran from a gutter beyond the covered floor. Otherwise I could hear nothing.
I took a wooden sword and tried its weight. My fingers shifted on the hilt; my right foot went back. By the time I looked at the practice post, the blade was already angled toward it.
I had never taken a sword lesson.
I opened my hand a little and lost the stance. Closing it brought the same adjustment through my wrist and elbow, though this time I could feel myself getting in the way. I thought Cedric's name and waited, embarrassed even with nobody there. No answer came. Whatever remained of him in the movement had nothing to say to me.
One slow cut. That was all I intended, with no attempt to draw power. I stepped in, the wood knocked against the post, and my shoulder followed through. For an instant I was pleased by how little I had needed to do.
Then something pulled hard beneath my breastbone.
The return cut was there in my arm, ready to follow the first. I stopped it and let the sword's point sink toward the floor. Dropping the thing would have brought someone running; I kept hold of it while I tried to breathe. My mouth was open, but very little air seemed to be getting in.
I managed to prop the sword against the post and sit on the boundary step. Across the court, the gutter dripped into a basin. I counted seven drops before a breath went all the way down, then another seven with my palm pressed to my chest. The post had scarcely moved when I hit it. I could still see the place.
After a while I got up for the jug beside the racks. The water was lukewarm. I brought the cup back to the step and sat with it between my hands, taking small mouthfuls because I didn't trust myself to swallow more.
There had been soup in a chipped blue bowl. I remembered that suddenly: my mother's hand putting it beside my elbow while I tried to finish an assignment, her work shoes still on after a double shift. Nothing special about the soup. She had made it before.
"Eat while it's warm, Kael. I'm here."
She paused a little before my name, her voice rough with tiredness. Then she asked me to move my elbow so there would be room for her own bowl. I had moved the assignment instead and dragged its corner through a wet patch on the table.
I tipped the cup, expecting something hot, and nearly spilled the water down my front. I set it on the step.
Hana would have had something to say about the wooden sword. My sister was four years younger than me and very particular about bad props, except when she wanted them. She and June, a friend from school, were making a radio play; the last version she had made me hear was still unfinished. There was a kettle noise I thought I could improve. Hana had played the joke again, thumb hovering over the button, and asked why my noise would make it funnier.
I couldn't explain it. She wouldn't let me change the subject until I admitted hers worked better. I had been so annoyed with her.
The cup stayed beside me until I could stand without using the wall. Then I carried the sword back to the rack. With it safely in place, I began finding reasons to take it down again. I hadn't eaten much. I was frightened. A different stance might help. I kept my hand around the hilt while I worked through these possibilities, then let go.
There was chalk beside the targets and a broken slate underneath them. I used its back to record the cut and the pain that followed. For the recovery time I wrote down the number of drops, looked at it, and added that I didn't know how many seconds that meant.
I spent what remained of the hour walking. No power, no sword. Turning left made me sway until I shortened the step. Sometimes the pressure returned and I had to wait by the rack. Each time I started again I chose a nearer point on the opposite wall.
Near the end of the hour, a boy came through the service door with fresh towels. He glanced at the posts, then at the ones stacked ready for use.
"Are any to come out, my lord?"
"They've survived."
His hand went to the nearest post, uncertain whether he was supposed to test it. "Leave them," I said. "Just the towels."
He put the towels on the step and left. I pressed one to the back of my neck and found that my collar was wet through.
Back in my room, I laid the slate beside the examination plan. I had meant to endure the opening attack and use a gap I remembered from the game. There was an entire paragraph about where to put my feet afterward. I crossed it out, including the diagram.
Underneath I wrote: Find a way to make stopping look deliberate. I sat with the pen for a while, but nothing useful came after that. I covered the slate with a sheet of paper and went to wash the chalk off my hands.