Chapter 42.
903 Words
The weeks had bled together into a blur of grey skies and freezing wind. The wooden trainers had become extensions of Rhiannon’s arms, the blunt ash scarred and dented from a hundred collisions with Fenris’s unrelenting defense. They had danced that bloodless dance until her muscles ached with the memory of the "gap," until she could sense the shift in his weight before he even committed to a strike. Only when her draw became a reflex- sharp, silent, and accurately, did Fenris decide the mimicry was finished.
The wooden sticks were gone now. In their place, resting in Fenris’s open palm, was the silver dagger Sora had woven into Rhiannon’s life. The sun was low, bleeding a bruised violet across the training ring, and the air had grown so cold it felt brittle, as if the world might shatter under the weight of a single heavy footfall.
"The wood was practice," Fenris said, his voice dropping into a register that felt like a physical touch. "But this... this has a consequence."
He handed her the weapon. As Rhiannon’s fingers closed around the wire-wrapped hilt, a sharp, singing vibration raced up her arm. The silver didn’t just sit in her hand; it hummed, recognizing the blue spark of her magic. It felt alive, a cold extension of her own nervous system.
The atmosphere in the ring shifted instantly. The playfulness of the "tag" from their earlier sessions vanished, replaced by an electric, razor-edged tension. One wrong move, one slipped foot, and the dance would end in red.
"The rhythm changes when the blade is live," Fenris murmured, stepping into his stance. He had removed his heavy outer vest, leaving only a thin linen shirt that did little to hide the powerful play of muscles beneath. "You cannot afford to be frantic. Speed is useless without stillness. If you panic, you bleed. If I panic, I die."
He began to circle her. His eyes were already rimmed with gold, Malphas pacing just behind his pupils, agitated by the scent of silver and the predatory intent in the air. The wolf didn't like the blade- he remembered the sting of southern steel, and he certainly didn’t like Rhiannon holding it; but Fenris kept him on a white-knuckled leash.
"Show me the gap, Rhia," he challenged.
He lunged, but it wasn't the blunt, heavy shove of the previous days. He moved with a terrifying, fluid precision. Rhiannon met him.
The shing of the silver leaving its sheath was the only sound in the quiet arena. She moved with a new, terrifying grace, her feet finding purchase on the frozen earth without a single slip. She didn't flinch when he crowded her. She didn't pull away when the heat of his body threatened to overwhelm her senses.
She was the stillness at the center of the storm.
They moved in a blur of crimson and blue hair. Fenris was a wall of muscle and heat, his hands snapping out to catch her wrists, his weight shifting to pin her. But Rhiannon was liquid. She flowed around his strikes, the silver blade a lethal arc of light that never quite touched him, yet always threatened the space where his pulse beat strongest.
Fenris’s breathing grew heavy, his lungs burning with the effort of holding the wolf back while matching Rhiannon’s increasing lethality. He was pushed to his limit, forced to move faster than he ever had in a spar.
"Good," he growled, his voice more beast than man. "Again!"
He committed to a heavy, downward strike, his large hand reaching for her shoulder to pivot her into the stone. Rhiannon saw the gap- the slight over-rotation of his torso. She stepped in, her body brushing against his, the scent of fresh rain and cedar filling her head. She spun, the dagger held in a reverse grip, intended to pass harmlessly beside his ribs.
But the ice beneath her heel finally betrayed her.
A hairline fracture in the frost gave way. Her foot skidded an inch to the left just as she drove the strike home.
The sound was different this time. It wasn't a dull thud. It was a soft, sickening shuck- the sound of steel meeting something yielding.
Time seemed to stutter.
Rhiannon’s breath hitched in her throat as the resistance of the blade changed. She felt the warmth before she saw it. Her hand, still gripped tight on the silver hilt, was suddenly slick with a dark, blooming heat.
She looked down, her green eyes widening in horror. The silver blade had sunk two inches into the meat of Fenris’s side, just below his ribs. A jagged line of crimson began to spread across his white shirt, stark and terrible against the pale fabric.
Fenris froze. His breath left him in a long, shuddering hiss. The gold in his eyes flickered, then vanished, leaving only a pained, startling blue. He didn't fall, but his hand came up to rest on her shoulder, his weight suddenly heavy, his knuckles turning white as he braced himself against her.
"Fenris," she breathed, her voice a fractured whisper of the panic she had tried so hard to kill.
The silver dagger stayed buried in his side, the hilt still vibrating with the rhythm of his labored heart.
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