I'm still jumpy from last night. Seeing the fear in Roseia's eyes and not knowing what to do to keep that knife from moving really got to me. I was practically useless, powers and all. What good is all this training if it doesn't keep her alive and safe?

I argued with her last night too after it all happened. I wanted her to go back to Fernweh where she would be safe behind the walls and wards and in Willa's care. She didn't want to let go of Darius who didn't necessarily help by holding onto her tighter and not taking a side. He clearly thought my idea was the right one, but he didn't want to let her go either. He's the only reason I didn't tell Rohana to take the girl's hand and mist her back. That and the fact that I, myself, felt like I'd worry more if she was several miles away, too far for us to make it in time.

It only takes a second for a knife to pierce the heart, and it takes a second for the Ginerva to mist. We could be too late, but with what happened and where we're going, I don't think it's best for her to be at our side.

Last night rattled everyone. I wasn't the only one who got very little sleep and is now training on low energy. Breakfast sounds absolutely delicious right now, but we've still got another hour before we start the cool down.

I'm not angry.

Ok, that's a lie. I am furious, but more at myself than anyone. I was supposed to keep her safe, and she nearly died. I'm more scared than anything. Scared of what arriving tomorrow night will bring when we arrive. Scared for everyone around me and their lives. Scared that just like last night, I may not be enough. My power may not be enough.

All this anger and fear pours into my movements. Mal goes on the defensive as I push forward. I feel myself start to move quicker, more anxiously, but I don't stop. He blocks the blows and moves before he can catch the ones he doesn't. So I keep going. I go until he's on his back and clearly not able to block another blow. Before I can stop, the blade flies from my hand and lands right between his legs.  m

I scream in frustration, instantly lowering into a crouch and closing my eyes. I hold the palm swell of the second fighting knife in both hands, the cool metal pommel sitting against my forehead as I try to clear my thoughts by attempting to focus on my heavy breathing.

I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have lashed out at him when he's done nothing wrong. One wrong thought with one dangerous maneuver and I could've injured him. Badly. I could've sent him to Willa who's the only person who could save his Goddam life from my rookie mistake. I can't be injuring the only people I trust. Not when we're all going to need each other the most. I just...I almost lost her.

"Clare." I don't answer. "Hey."

I look at Mal, now truly angry with myself for nearly messing up the pretty face. He doesn't seem fazed though. Perfectly calm, no sign of remorse or anger. It makes me feel worse, somehow.

"It's okay to let it out," he tells me. "Let it out, Clare."

He stands and takes a few steps back, lowering into a defensive stance. I stay vulnerable on my knees, and he just gestures with his fingers for me to come forward. Lance steps up beside him and tries to tell him that he'll take over, but Mal shrugs him off and never lets his gaze leave mine.

"I got it."

"Mal-"

"I got it."

Lance glances at me once, then steps away and back into the large circle everyone's now formed around us. I stand slowly, pulling my other fighting knife out of the ground. I lower into my stance and rock on my toes, but I don't move. I don't want to hurt him.

"Let it out, Clare."

I consider everyone around us. If I get too close to hurting him, they'll stop it. They'll stop it.

He moves first, saving me the choice of doing so myself. I block and rebound, and he jumps and blocks. We keep going and I feel myself pulling punches and avoiding to take certain windows. It only angers him, making his movements smoother and quicker and harder for me to counter as we keep going. He traps me three times in a row within a minute, all his traps ending with his blade to my throat. The reminder breaks my self-control, and then I'm launching on the offensive again, flipping blades and catching them in the other hand. It starts to feel like a dance.

My legs know where to go, my arms stretching and tucking at just the right moments. My feet stick to the rhythm, bouncing me back and forth and leaping over his own legs. Everything starts to make sense and I let my body take over. Instinct becomes the choreography, laying out the next step before I can get there. The world disappears next, blurring as the small tics and tells light up like torches for me to take advantage of. I see his swings before they happen, and feel the wind break as his fist flies past my face.

Like a click, everything clears and I go on a rally. Move after move, advance after advance, I feel it all snap into place. He does well to block and stay standing, but  I'm on a high. In two moves I have his blades on the ground, another and he joins them, and then we wrestle for a few minutes before I get my blade to his throat. He freezes when he feels it, having moved to sit up without taking notice of my win. His breathing is heavy, but mine is controlled and calm, no more anger or fear coating me now. For a moment I feel out of body looking down at him. His eyes are glazed with awe and fear which is completely confusing.

I pull the knife away and stand up, offering him a hand. He doesn't take it, but I still offer it.

"Clare?" I look up and find Lance standing there, looking at me concerningly as if I just had a knife held against my throat. "You okay?"

Something about his words shifts something in me. I blink it away and feel myself snap back into myself, my body suddenly becoming slightly heavier. "I'm fine. Why?"

He shakes his head, but his eyes don't seem very convinced. "It just...nothing."

I squint at him, then down at Mal who still hasn't taken my hand. He does then and I help him get back onto his feet. When I turn I find everyone with the same confusing expressions on their faces as they stare at me.

"Well that was...fun," Henry muses, breaking the silence.

"Gods, you must be a bore if that was your definition of fun," Rohana retorts.

"You know what, fuck you, Rohana."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you."

And here we go again. They start their sexual banter which makes me all too uncomfortable with how quickly and easily they come up with their retorts. I'd cover my ears if I knew that it'd completely get rid of the tension between the two.

Mal comes us besides me, his own disgust at their words scrunching his nose. "Feel better?"

"Yes, actually. Thank you." He nods once and I watch his expression change again. His eyes look back and forth between my own as if he's searching for something. He opens his mouth to speak, but he seems to change his mind. "Are you okay?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." He gives me an unconvincing smile, but I drop it, letting him walk away and find a new partner to spar with.

He's acting weird. Everyone is. They all looked at me like I was some kind of ghost, come back to haunt them. I don't know what would make them look at me like that. I didn't use my power. I was careful not to. I didn't kill him which was my top priority over everything else. I was just...fighting. Getting all the feelings out as he told me. So why are they all acting weird?

"You wish you knew my tongue, then you wouldn't threaten to cut it off."

"Fine. I won't cut off your tongue," Rohana says. "I'll cut something much smaller."

"What? Your ass?"

"You know, maybe if you weren't so horny and needy, you'd actually find someone to sleep with you - and stop looking at my ass!"

"I was only trying to find it," Henry admits, plans exposed.

"I'd try to help you find your virginity, but it's kind of written all over you. Forty-year-old virgin in bright big block letters, right there," she depicts, gesturing to all of him.

They go on and on, spouting retort after retort and unknowingly getting closer and closer to each other. They were at opposite sides of the circle, but now they're five feet apart and closing. If I didn't know better, I'd say they're about to kiss.
Or kill each other. It's hard to tell.

"Ten gold coins says she makes the first move," Gabe bets behind me.

"Double says it's him," Vanya counters. I roll my eyes and turn to find everyone else joining the bet. All except Darius. He seems to have disappeared elsewhere. He always does that when these two fight, and I still don't know why. Though I do have a working theory.

They all make their bets and Ro and Henry don't seem to notice. We're meant to be training, not betting. Garrison comes up next to me, and I can feel his distaste at their words all over him.

"Who'd you bet on?" I ask him.

"You."

"What?" I fully turn to him now, wondering how in heathens I somehow became a part of this.

"I bet fifty gold coins each that you would stop them before it went too far. Don't tell me you weren't thinking about it." I go to argue, but he's not wrong.

Víđarr finds us, having come over to me because I called him s few seconds ago and was going to have him drag them both elsewhere. That seems too obvious now, and if he's going to win fifty coins from everyone then I mind as well get him his money's worth.

"How is it none of you are broke yet?" I ask him.

"We're the King's guard. We're on his payroll." I roll my eyes again.

"You better share your earnings with me," I tell him, then I head for the two sex-deprived children.

With a flick of my finger, a water arrow shoots right between the two, stopping their words so that they both now look at me. "You both have two options. Either fuck each other already or shut up and get back to the training you're supposed to be doing. Choose wisely."

"That's not necessarily a hard choice," Rohana says, drawing her weapons.

"I don't sleep with grannies. They're wrinkly."

Rohana looks prone to throwing a knife at him, so I cut her off before she can. "Good. Then you two can take on Nilsa."

"What?" They say at the same time. I smirk, knowing they wouldn't like the idea of having to work with each other.

"Try not to die," I advisr, and turn around to face Nilsa. "Do whatever you want. I won't stop you."

She looks at them and snirks evilly. I leave her to deal with them and walk back to Garrison. Everyone else is sulking, mad to have lost fifty cold coins.
We watch them for a moment. Rohana and Henry clearly can't work together, which makes it even more entertaining as Nilsa tears them both apart.

"Alright, enough lollygagging." I turn to Garrison and hold up my hands and bend my knees. He matches my stance, and then we're sparring, starting slowly to get our muscles moving again before launching into a full fight.

The others soon join us, and I pause sometime later to find Darius returned and taking on Vladimir. The glance gets me on my back and a lesson learned.

Don't have distractions.

By the time we're done and we move onto the cool down, Ro and Henry try to stop as well, but I don't let them. "You keep going until you work together to pin Nilsa," I tell them.

They whine and try to start their banter again, so I look at Nilsa and watch her kick their legs out from under them. They still haven't figured out how to work together by the time the rest of us leave. It's not until an hour after that they return.

"And?" I ask Nilsa. She walks over and helps me put the saddle back on a horse. My anxiety wasn't letting me rest, so I've been walking around everywhere to do anything. This had proven to be a challenge, so I decided it was the best task for me to take on.

"They're hopeless." I laugh at her dead tone. I knew they wouldn't get it in one session, but it was still fun to see Nilsa win time after time, and them getting mad again and again. "In fighting, at least. I think their sexual desires have actually grown."

"I don't understand why they can't just get along."

"That's because it's Rohana. She doesn't do the whole feelings thing." She tightens the straps, then checks to make sure the packs won't fall off.

I slip the horse some food, running one hand through its soft hair. "Aside from Tsil and Kathika, do any of you do the whole feelings thing?" I counter.

She shrugs her disinterest. "Not really, but out of all us, Rohana doesn't get attached."

"What about Branka?"

"That's different."

"How so?"

She sighs, finished with the saddle and the packs. "Rohana and Branka had a bond from the very start. They became inseparable, and after losing their families to Xaxias, even more so. Rohana had no one left, so she clutched to Branka like a barnacle."

"And then she died," I finish. She nods.

"Rohana was right about what she said that day that Branka came back from the dead. We all changed after she faked her death, but none of us more so than Rohana herself. The Rohana you know wasn't the Rohana we knew at all. She wasn't so harsh and cold and overly protective to the point of annoyance. I was, but she wasn't. When Branka came back and they made up, I'd thought she'd revert to her old self."

"Why didn't she?"

"Just because Branka came back, doesn't mean we can't lose her all over again. Rohana doesn't like getting attached because she doesn't like to lose. It reminds her that even though she's immortal, it doesn't mean that everyone else is. We'll die eventually, but we'll die having already watched generations upon generations pass. It's just easier to have no connections."

I look over at the Bhaltayr who all help pack up. I try to imagine losing them, but I can't.

"They'll grow old, and you'll stay young," Nilsa says, following my gaze. "The first loss always hurts the most because you'll forget about it until they start getting gray hairs. I'm not telling you not to love, I'm just...it's easier not to after so long, that's all."

She walks off to go check on her own horse. I think about what she said, and I suppose I understand her logic, but how can you be happy if there's no love in your life? How can you live for thousands of years without finding people to get attached to? I don't think I'll be able to do it, and it might hurt to see them all die and leave while we still live on, but sometimes you can't help the cards you're dealt. I don't want to lose the Bhaltayr, they're...family. All this power and I can't prolong their life to stay with us forever.

It plagues my mind all morning when we finally leave while I'm clearing a path through the fields for us to pass through, and while everyone else around me has easy conversation and laughs. I keep my thoughts to myself, hiding them from Darius. If I told him then he would worry himself sick with the thoughts, and he already has so much to worry about that I don't want to add this. Even little Roseia who sits with him atop Melody will eventually leave us. She looks so peaceful sitting sidesaddle and curled up against Darius, and he looks so content to hold her there.

I don't know how long I stay silent, but soon enough I grow annoyed with my own silence and speed up Víđarr's pace to pull up with the Ginerva. Vanya and Nilsa are arguing about something in Thralian, Dee and Mak trotting ahead of us with their heads constantly on a swivel. Rohana doesn't seem to want my presence, which only makes me want to bother her first.

"How was the training?" She gives me a heavy side glare that I smile at. "Oh, come on. It couldn't have been that bad."

"You're lucky you're the Mater, otherwise, I'd kick you off of your wolf."

"Oh, Rohana, always so quick to resort to violence," I tease, poking her arm for good measure. "Is it really so hard for you to show gratefulness and compassion?"

"Yes."

I laugh, which only makes her glare at me more. I'm determined to keep going if only to see how far I can get before she actually does push me off of Víđarr's back. "Even towards Henry? I mean you two seem to really get along."

"Are you deaf and blind?"

"You can't tell me that you feel absolutely nothing for him."

"Aside from hate and murderous temptations?"

I gasp dramatically, pretending to glance around to make sure no one is listening. "Saints spare me, you like him."

"What?"

"And he likes you." I gasp again, and she nearly flies off her horse in a rage.

"You clearly have a brain injury from training this morning."

I pause a few moments, letting her rage dwindle a little. "You can't tell me you don't think he's hot."

Her whole face contorts into disgust. "He looks like a fucking ogre."

"A hot ogre." She cringes at my wiggling eyebrows. "Come on, Rohana. Life's too short to vow to never love."

"You do realize that we're immortals. We have anything but a short life."

"So then live it to its fullest nonetheless," I exasperate, tossing my arms in the air. "Love a thousand people-"

"And lose a thousand."

I sigh, absolutely hating how her negative behavior can take my positive one out like a light. "No matter how long you live and decided how to live it, you will always have someone to lose. Always, Rohana. So what's the harm in surrounding yourself with a large group of good people?"

"All those good people die," she stares easily.

She's starting to get on my nerves. "You know what, Rohana. At this point, not even your life is guaranteed. I'm sure your best friend's father has figured out some way to kill all us immortals by now - and if he hasn't, then he's bound to figure it out sooner or later. You could die at the end of this war. You, Nilsa, Vanya, Dee, Mak, Branka...they could all die, yet you still love them. So what's the difference? Mortality? Yeah, cause that's a good reason."

"What I have with my sisters is different. I knew them before immortality."

"And that changes things?"

"Yes."

"No, it doesn't. You're telling me that once you became immortal, you never loved any of their families before they died?" I gesture to her sisters, the ones who are now listening to my hushed tones. The two up ahead are listening too, their horse's pace slowed. "I understand that you're scared of the pain that comes with death, but that pain will forever plague you if you never find love to push it away every time it comes back. Your philosophy of never loving to never get hurt is flawed because you'll always hurt until you let love back in. You want that pain to go away? Go tell the damn man you like him."

"I don't like him."

"Then tell him that you don't hate him," I counteract. "Just...go somewhere with him. Get out of this sexual feud that you two seem to think is entertaining to the rest of us."

"But it is entertaining-"

"Shut up," I snap at Vanya. She leans back into her saddle, pursing her lips. I make sure she and the rest of them aren't going to say anything else. "I'm not telling you all to go changing who you are, just...change how you see the world because one day it might not be here."

No one says anything, and I glance over at Rohana to find her in deep thought. I really do hope it's because she's thinking on my words and not thinking about the quickest way to kill Henry. It's hard to tell her scheming face from her thinking face sometimes.

"Where are you going?" Dee asks. I turn to see Vanya pulling on her reins and