Binarius (21 page)

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

Victimator

As Lazata
promised, she came to wake them before the Great Star had risen in
the sky (not that they had known that, after all, they were hidden
deep in a mountain). After they had woken, the old woman fed them
water and oats for morning’s feast. She told Firinne and Kaolin
that today they would be training in combat, rather than with their
weapons.

“
I’ll leave you to it then. I’ve
got some things that I’ve got to take care of today, which includes
taking that Stag of yours out for a bit of fresh air.” Both Firinne
and Kaolin nodded as she closed the door behind her.

During their short time in the
Ephipanous, they had seen their training. Somehow, it had shown
them the exact combat moves that they were to practice. It was just
a matter of perfecting the moves, and executing them
properly.

“
Well, this’ll be fun. I promise
to go easy on you.” Kaolin said lightly as he punched the air in
front of his face.

“
Don’t get cocky.” Firinne shot
back. They were masking; finding a way to get through it. Now as
they both stood in front of each other, their arms hung lax at
their sides.

“
How’re we supposed to do this,
Fir?”

“
Ugh, I don’t know. We’ve got to
do it, though. How about you imagine that I’m…” She didn’t want to
be insensitive.

“
What that you’re the Desiderium
that killed my parents? And how about I’m…Cyneric?”

“
Yeah, okay. Let’s just try not to
kill each other all right?”

“
Agreed.”

The next few hours were a mixture
of anger therapy, and comedy. At one point, Firinne went to kick
Kaolin in the ribs but her dress stopped her short, which gave
Kaolin the perfect opportunity to grab her leg and flip her. She
landed on her chest and shortly after, Kaolin was on his, both
laughing hysterically.

They both got a couple good shots
in. Kaolin was now bleeding just above his eyebrow. Likewise, he
had cracked Firinne’s lip open, and of course, this had given him
the opportunity to call her a cannibal. Firinne followed that with
grabbing his leg and watching as he fell flat on his
back.

Overall, they were doing well.
Their precision was improving and even though they were sore, they
were doing well with not taking all of the blows personally. They
would lighten every hit with a joke; determined not to impede their
friendship.

Lazata came to check on them before
their session ended, remarking that they were doing well and that
she was beginning to prepare evening’s feast. They hadn’t rested
since midday meal when they scarfed down some almonds and oats.
Now, it was the last stretch of the day and they were both tired
and ready to be done. They had worked on every move, twice over.
Just as Firinne was coming in to throw a hit to Kaolin’s head, he
had moved in on her and connected his fist with her solar plexus.
Instantly, the air was knocked out of her and she landed on the
floor on her knees. The pain was incredible and without any
control, she began to sob.

Kaolin rushed down to her. “Fir,
I’m so sorry!”

Firinne pursed her lips together
and put her hand up as to say it was okay, as tears rolled like
tidal waves down her cheeks. She couldn’t speak, she was still
trying to get her breath back, but if she had been able to, she
would have told him that it wasn’t the hit that was making her cry.
It wasn’t Kaolin’s fault that he managed to hit the part of her
body that would release these emotions that she had refused to
release in the past week. Her heart needed to mourn for its loss
and she hadn’t allowed it. She hadn’t allowed it to break down and
be weak.

It was at this moment as she held
herself up, inches away from kissing the floor, that she realized
that in order to be strong she had to allow herself the weakness.
She had lost or been betrayed, by almost every single person that
she had loved. Everything was easy to understand. Triphosa, she was
sick, but Fir could understand her. She couldn’t understand where
that sickness came from, though. Cyneric was what made her ache so
badly. She couldn’t piece together the real from the facade. It was
the Blood. His dependency on Fia’s Blood is what made her question
everything.

Back and forth, back and
forth.
Did he love me? Did he use me? Did
he do both? When he kissed me, did it mean something, or was it
just his mission? Does he work for the Blacken, or does he work for
the Blacken because of the Blood? Without the Blood, would he have
ever changed into this monster that he is now? How does someone let
go when there is no resolution? When there is no truth?

Firinne lifted herself up and
grabbed hold of Kaolin. His eyes were as clear as aquamarine. “Why
did he do this to me?” she said through a mouth full of thick
saliva; as if it’s your body’s way of making sure you don’t talk,
so it has a long enough time to cry.

“
Because he loves you and he knows
he doesn’t deserve you.”

“
But he had me. I gave him,
myself…he had me.”

“
You let him have you, but that
doesn’t mean that he took you. How could he take you when he’s
already taken the Blood? He’s a coward, Fir. He’s afraid to face
the world. He’s afraid to face himself, and he’s afraid to face
you.”

“
I tried to help him Kaolin! I
tried to heal his broken parts…I tried everything I
could—

“
But he didn’t want your help Fir.
He doesn’t want to be saved because he’s comfortable being the
victim, and the perpetrator. He thinks it protects him.”

Firinne held his gaze. For the
first time since all of this had happened, Firinne felt a wave of
clarity. Cyneric is the victim and the perpetrator because he knows
his skin is not thick enough for the world. Because it’s easier to
choose to be helpless, and it is
easier
to betray everyone in your
life, rather than to give them your heart and risk them breaking
it.

Regardless of how much that
realization both angered her and caused her to pity him, she would
have to treat him as such. And then it hit her. She had been one of
his victims, yet she was also a traitor to herself. She allowed
herself to be his victim for so long, and so she was also the
perpetrator. It wasn’t just about forgiving Cyneric for what he had
done to her — it was about forgiving herself for what she had let
be done to her. In the end, it is our choice, but the real pinnacle
is what we learn from the pain.

If I can learn from this, then I
am not the victim or the perpetrator. If I can learn from this,
then I have not suffered; not really.

She looked up at Kaolin. Her eyes
were bloodshot; her voice was hoarse. “He’s been playing both sides
for so long, I don’t think he even knows who he is anymore.” The
victim or the perp?

His hand was on her back. “He’s a
living contradiction. C’mon Fir, let’s go put our feet up.” He said
as he helped her up.

Kaolin never mentioned to Lazata
what had happened in the training room, and Firinne was
grateful.

The next week was the hardest week
of their lives. Every day, it was the same: wake up at dawn, eat,
train until midday, train until evening, sleep, repeat. The first
couple of days their muscles felt like they might actually fall off
of their bones. Fir was sore in places she never knew she could be.
Kaolin’s muscles would sometimes give out as he made his sword
connect with the dummy, and the sword would fall from his hand
making clanging noises on the rocky floor. As the days passed,
though, every day got a little easier. At the end of the week, they
were waking up before Lazata knocked on their door, eating their
meals faster, and they had further perfected their
training.

During combat, they found
themselves blocking almost every hit and kick of the other’s. As
for Firinne’s bow, she could now make arrows in a millisecond,
shoot in one, and she almost never missed. Sometimes during
training, she would stop to watch Kaolin’s progress. He had
sufficiently learned how to control the electrolifi, and magnify it
through his sword. His dummy wasn’t looking so great; it was more
like a charred log now, with jagged pieces missing from its
torso.

Overall, Lazata was proud of them
and they were proud of themselves. Neither of them knew that they
were this capable.

“
So, when do we head out?” Kaolin
asked Lazata.

“
To where?”

“
To…you know…fight the Blacken,
save the world…all that?”

Lazata chuckled. “So hasty! I like
the enthusiasm, though.”

“
Good…so, when?”

“
There’s two other doors, Kaolin.
Tomorrow you will start training with the second. I gave you both
three days for physical training, but now we’ve gotta speed things
up a bit. Every day, you will walk through a new door. Every door
is unique and important.”

“
What is the next door, Lazata?”
Firinne asked.

“
The Temporal Door.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

Electrolifi Krystallis

They sat
on the pillows and faced each other just as Lazata had directed
them to do. She had placed a stone bowl on one of the small tables
in the room, and the smoke from the dried herbs had now clouded the
room with a smog of aroma. Lazata was walking around them in a
circle gathering her thoughts. She said that this was something
only Firinne and Kaolin could do and therefore, she had never done
it herself, but she had been instructed by The Clandestines on how
to teach it to them, when the time came.

“
Okay, I need both of you to hold
hands. If you can master this, then you will eventually be able to
do it without contact. You will close your eyes and focus on each
other’s soul. Try to speak to each other at first. If you can
manage that, it will prove quite useful during attacks. After that,
we will get to fabrication.”

“
You ready, Fir?”

Nod.

They began.

First it was darkness and solitude.
Gradually, she could feel his energy in front of her and she
reached out to him with her mind and her spectralin. She
concentrated on him, forcing herself to push past the black mass in
front of her. It was like she was trying to push passed, and
through, the tail of a comet — boundary breaking. Then, there was a
twinkle and then more light; a spectrum of colors. She could feel
him now. It was like they were standing together in this private
space filled with light, but they could not see each
other.

“
Kaolin?”

“
OI! THIS IS
UNBELIEVABLE!”

“
Gah! Not so loud! You just
bounced off the walls of my skull I think.”

“
Ha, sorry about that! This is
amazing, though!”

Firinne laughed.
“How can I laugh without moving my mouth? This is
so peculiar.”

“
Beats knocking the shit out of
each other, though, eh?”

“
Yeah, I won’t argue with you on
that.”

“
So now what do we do?” he
asked.

“
I guess we should snap out of it
and tell the old woman that we are incredibly talented, and we’re
ready for whatever she’s throwin’ at us next.”

“
All right”

“
See you in a bit.”

“
You’re such a dork,
Kaolin.”

She moved herself away from his
energy. It was like backing out of a hole underwater, but she found
the darkness again. She slowly opened her eyes. Someone had pulled
the cork off of the sounds of the world, and for a second, she
could hear her heart beating like it was in her mouth. Then she
noticed that Kaolin was lying on his back, holding his head, and
laughing amid
Ow
’s, and
Oi
’s.

“
Did you go mental on me?” she
asked.

Lazata took the opportunity. “Silly
boy let go of you too quick and now his head hurts.” She shook her
own.

“
Fir, have you ever drank a cold
stream too fast and your head starts to tickle and feel sick?” he
squealed out.

“
Remind me not to introduce you to
my friends, mate.” She rolled her eyes. “Absolute nutter, that
guy.” Then she laughed.

“
When both of you are through, we
still have more work to do and I refuse to feed you two until
you’ve completed today’s tasks.” Lazata’s arms were crossed
now.

“Oh, all right!” Kaolin said
though he said it between fits of laughter so it sounded more
like,
ahhoho
rii-ii-ttttt
.

Firinne grabbed his arm and pulled
him up. His face was red and Firinne was trying not to fall back
into a fit of laughter.

“
So I assume that you were
successful?”

They looked up at her trying to
hide their smiles with an awkward puckered kind of look and
nodded.