**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi guys, thanks for reading! I would really love to hear your thoughts in the comments and if you are enjoying everything so far, consider leaving a like! Using a bookmark will also keep your place and will send you updates when a new issue is posted. All of this helps the story reach more people and also helps give me some feedback. Hope you are all staying safe in this crazy time. -MKB **
Saren arrived at the dueling arena where Kyron Carnan would meet him almost an hour early.
The arena was circular, with a lawn that looked like it was tried to be kept up, but patches of dead grass and foot-beaten dirt still took up the majority of the arena. Around its edges were grooves in the ground, where barriers of sentia would fence the bounds of the duel.
He’d brought his book with him, and thumbed through it while he waited, sitting with his legs crossed and the book in his lap. He was exhausted, he’d gotten no sleep the past few days trying to prepare for this session, trying to evaluate his weaknesses so he could make the most of the meager hour he had with Rana Carnan. Even waiting here, he was doggedly determined to make the best out of the little time he had. Eltanin had come with him but had left after the first half hour of Saren waiting.
“Don’t let her bite your head off,” his friend had said just before he’d left Saren to review his studies.
Only when Rana Carnan arrived, precisely at midday, did Saren appreciate exactly what his friend had meant.
“Let’s make one thing clear,” she began. She crossed his arms. “I am doing this as a favor to you. You understand? I won’t accept any complaining. You’re here of your own accord.”
Saren nodded in earnest. How many people complain about her to have to precede with that? he wondered. “I understand.”
She looked at him for a moment longer. She had light brown hair that was peppered with gray at its roots, and she was nearly as tall as him. She studied him with dark brown eyes before saying, “Then let’s get started. What are you weakest in?”
Saren recalled those last late-night sessions where he’d tried to identify exactly that. He wanted to say, ‘Everything.’ Instead, he said, “Er—I have trouble visualizing.”
Carnan raised an eyebrow. “You when realize the first duel is?”
Nervous, Saren gripped his already clasped hands more tightly. “Yes, Kyron.”
She sighed and rubbed her eyelids with the tips of her fingers with one hand as the other rested on her hip. “All right. Try to do it now for me so I can have an idea of what ‘trouble’ means.”
Saren nodded and tried to concentrate, his brow furrowing, his eyes narrowing. He reached out a hand to help him visualize and tried to imagine a wall coming in front of him, willing it to protect him. Form at an area of five arm-lengths by four arm-lengths, he instructed from memory. Three paces ahead of me.
Sentia streamed from his hand for a moment, flowing into the air directly in front of him. And then, in a pathetic sputter, a thin layer of sentia formed in front of him, paper-thin, barely recognizable from what Saren had meant to create. It flickered like a candle being blown in the wind, fading in and out. Saren tried to correct in vain, his hand stretched towards the barrier shook at the effort it mentally took him to maintain it.
Carnan flicked the barrier with her forefinger. It shattered into a hundred incorporeal shards of sentia, each hovering in air for a moment before he called for the sentia to return to him. He cringed at the display, embarrassed.
“Dear Basilion, boy.” She sighed and kneaded her temples with the heels of her hands. “All right. I guess it doesn’t matter what the hell you were doing in your free time. First thing is first. What’s the most important aspect of metapathy?”
“Visualization coupled with instructions,” Saren said automatically. That was the first thing any metapath was taught no matter if they specialized in seriturgy, ilisentry; the foundation of everything. If you didn’t have a clear idea of what you wanted to create from sentia or with the aid of sentia, you would be nowhere.
“So,” Carnan said, reaching into her leather bag that she had brought with her. “What do you think about when you try to create a barrier?”
“Just—” Saren chewed on his lip and thought for a moment before he spoke. He already looked like an idiot enough as it was. He didn’t want to look like another if he couldn’t articulate himself properly. “I think of something in front of me, something to protect me.”
From her bag, she produced a charcoal pencil and a piece of parchment clipped with a wooden back. “Too many people think metapathy is some sort of mystic art, some sort of abstract conjuring of nature. It isn’t. You’re just thinking of what you want the barrier to do, you’re not thinking of what the barrier actually is. Metapathy is literal, that’s where the instructions come in. But visualization is just as important, you must envision what it needs to be, not what you want it to. Without a strong mental image of what you’re trying to conjure up, you’re building a house on a foundation of wet mud. Instructions are the easy part. Eventually, you might be able to get to the point where you can visualize things quickly in your mind, but for now, you just need to focus.” She handed the pad of paper and charcoal to Saren. “Now draw yourself.”
“Draw myself?”
“Draw yourself with your barrier in front of you. It’ll help you visualize it better in your mind.”
He hesitantly took the pad of paper and the charcoal. He could draw about as well as a one-legged dog could walk. In other words, Saren couldn’t draw at all.
Excellent, he thought, as he began to draw a crude figure onto the paper. Just one more thing I can embarrass myself doing. He scribbled a line in front of the stick figure representing the barrier, and after a moment’s inspection handed it back to Carnan.
Her lips curved upwards as her eyes went over it. “The tuft of hair was a nice touch,” she remarked.
Saren’s cheeks burned.
“All right, try it now,” she said, crossing her arms with the pad of parchment in one hand, the stick of charcoal in the other. “Remember, in ilisentry you’re creating objects out of your own sentia—which you’re the master of. You control what the sentia does. It belongs to you.”
Saren exhaled, clearing his mind and thinking of the drawing of the barrier and the stick figure that represented himself. He reached his hand out to the air in front of him. White sentia sprouted from his hand and flowed in front of him. It formed a weak, barrier, still thin. It still was flickering but was visibly more stable. He called it back to him, the barrier breaking into shards before it returned to him to rest underneath his skin.
“Good,” said Kyron Carnan wryly. “Now do that at least five thousand more times and you’ll almost be able to do it freehand.”
That sent a bolt of anxiety through him. No, he thought. No, that won’t work.
He didn’t have that much time before the next duel, less than a full cidem. He couldn’t afford to focus on one move, one that couldn’t even be used in combat, only in defense. “Kyron Carnan,” he started tentatively. When she didn’t interrupt, he continued, “I won’t be able to master that to be able to use it in a quick, fast-paced setting by the time the first duel will start.” He leaned down to his satchel and produced his notes from the last two nights he’d spent up, trying to find a solution. “I know I’m not very good,” he said. “But I do have strengths in other areas. I was hoping combine those to help me do well. I had some ideas.”
He handed her his notes and she took them. She perused them for a few minutes, before asking, her eyes still raking through his writing, “These notes are from The Principles and Applications of Metapathy?”
“Yes, kyron.”
“What do you think of it?”
Saren paused. “I’m sorry?”
“The book,” she said. “What do you think of it?”
“Oh, the book? It’s excellent,” Saren said, eagerly. “I’ve been reading from it since I was a child. Since I wasn’t even allowed to practice metapathy.”
She took pause at that. “Why were you not allowed to practice metapathy?”
“My father,” Saren said, reluctant. “He wasn’t always very popular. I had to spend most of my childhood in hiding, and metapaths—they’re a small portion of the population. It would have made me easy to spot.”
She was silent for a few moments as she continued to read. “You’re good at sparring?” she asked finally. “Swordplay, I take that to mean?”
“Yes,” he said, trying to peer at his notes as she read. “That’s my biggest strength, I think.”
She nodded absently. “And you made these notes yourself?”
Saren nodded.
“I have a class today, so I have to leave. But we’ll meet tomorrow at dawn,” she said. “For three hours that time.”
“Really?” Saren said, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.
“Yes,” she said simply.
Saren thumped his fist to his chest in a salute. “Thank you,” he said, chest swelling. This was the first time something was going well for him in a long time at Divion.
She studied him, then gave a slight nod. She walked away, leaving Saren alone in the arena with his fist still on his chest. The book. What do you think of it? Saren hurriedly reached down to his satchel and pulled the book out of the bag. Upon turning the leather-bound cover, he found only the book’s title. Then, he flipped to the end of the book, where a list of the book’s authors was written. He found her name nestled there.
After practicing by himself for several more hours, Saren made his way back to his dormitory. They had practiced on a Clanire, the twelfth day of the cidem and usually set aside for rest and worship which, unfortunately, all of the kyrons seemed to mistake for a day of excess reading and work instead. These new sessions with Kyron Carnan would take away from his time to do other work, but it would have to be worth it.
It was nearing evening by the time his feet found the way to Divion’s main courtyard, which was also in the shape of a circle, with a concentric road scaling across its circumference. From there, different paths spiked off to the different sections of Divion’s campus. It gave the roads the semblance of a sun, with the diverting paths acting as the sun’s rays. The likeness was only exaggerated by the pavement’s ambient white glow from its embedding with a solution of syrana powder.
The same pattern neatly matched the tattoo on Saren’s hand, though instead of one circle, his tattoo had six concentric circles, one ring for every year he’d spent at Divion. Once he reached his twelfth year of education and completed his time at Divion, a unique set of symbols would be imprinted into the twelfth ring, marking him as a graduate.
But even without such symbols, the six inked rings on the back of his hand would afford him almost any job he applied for, seeing as Divion was the only school in Vandris that taught ilisentry. Unfortunately, Saren doubted that any employer would keep him on with how rudimentary his current skills were.
After walking about a quarter of the circular road, he turned onto one of its diverting paths, which lead him into an alleyway made by two buildings adjacent to each other.
He entered and was met by an uncomfortably familiar face.
“Saren,” Rydon said. He had dark hair cut short, against pale beige skin. He was a handsome man, well-liked by most students. However, he had a particular dislike for Saren. In fact, Saren understood why Rydon disliked him. Saren’s father had been general of the Empire’s armies for years, the armies that had invaded Rydon’s country of Teresi. In the Selenian Conquest, in which its inhabitants had been annexed into the Empire, many of its citizens enslaved. His father hadn’t swung the sword that had ruined Rydon’s life, but he was the mind that controlled the hand. Rydon couldn’t hurt Wezen, so Saren served as his proxy.
However, understanding and tolerating Rydon’s hatred for him were two entirely different affairs.
“Look, Rydon,” Saren said. “I don’t want any trouble.” They were the same year and had had multiple classes together over the years. Unlike most students, who were content to just ignore Saren, Rydon was set on making a spectacle of Saren in public to make some sort of statement. However, now, they were not in public, which made Saren distinctly uneasy.
“And what are you going to do if there is?” he asked, taking a step towards him. “Tell your father?”
Involuntarily, Saren stepped back. A step too far, he realized, as his back hit the wall, effectively cornering him. “We’re adults,” Saren replied, trying not to let the nervousness cycling through him leak into his words. “Of course, I’m not going to run to my father.”
Rydon took advantage of his position and promptly punched Saren across his face, his knuckles connecting to Saren’s cheek. Saren doubled over with a grunt, his hand reflexively going to where he’d been struck.
“You’re a pathetic nepotist,” Rydon spat. “You can’t even use ilisentry. It’s a damn miracle you haven’t failed out yet.”
Saren forced himself upright, leaning on the wall as he helped himself onto his feet.
A sudden clatter sounded outside of the alleyway, and Rydon glanced at the space to Saren’s back, losing his courage.
Physical altercations between students had hefty consequences—usually students were fined by an increase in tuition. If the student couldn’t pay for that increase in price, they would be expelled altogether.
Rydon glanced back to Saren, eyes seething with hatred, then rushed out of the alleyway in the opposite direction of the noise.
Saren wiped blood from his nose with the back of his hand and blinked hard. He hadn’t broken anything, but he had slammed against the stone ground hard, and he could already feel a lump forming on the back of his head to match an escalating headache. He put a sensitive hand to the back of his head and trudged out of the alleyway in the direction of the noise. No one was there, and the alley was empty all but for a wooden lid to a waste bin lay on the ground beside its mate.
Saved by a rat, Saren thought, glancing around. Sounds about right.
He would have to stand up for himself one day, he knew. He straightened out his clothes and dusted himself off. Not today. But one day. One day he hoped was soon because, Basilion, he hated being a coward, and he hated being a nepotist.
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