The Weight of Honor (16 page)

Kyra stood in the forest clearing, breathing hard, overwhelmed with frustration. Her hands were raw, her quiver empty, already having fired all her arrows at her targets. She had missed them all.

Kyra felt like a failure. She could not understand how she had missed every single shot, as she had not missed a shot in years. Every time she fired, somehow the tree moved. The skinny trees were very much alive here, dodging her arrows; she could not even hit a leaf. Her arrows had whizzed by harmlessly, landing on the forest floor, while Alva had sat there and watched all morning, silent, expressionless. Failing in front of him had worsened her shame. He was never disapproving, and he never tried to correct her—in fact, he never said anything. He just observed, and his observing set her on edge. She never had any idea what he was thinking. Was this what it meant to train someone?

She stood there, reflecting, and she thought back to her encounter with the Salic. She had been certain, as it had pounced, that it was going to kill her; yet it had vanished just as its paws had touched her. Somehow, that was more unnerving to Kyra than anything. She didn’t understand this place, and she didn’t understand Alva. She just wanted to train somewhere with real warriors, real opponents and real teachers.

“I don’t understand,” she finally said, breathing hard, exasperated. “How am I missing? Why are you not correcting me?”

Alva stared back calmly, seated on the forest floor across the clearing.

“No one can correct you,” he replied. “And I, least of all. You must find your own way.”

She shook her head.

“How can I? I don’t know why I’m missing. Those should have been easy shots. I don’t understand this place.”

There came a long silence, the only sound that of the wind rustling through the trees, of the distant ocean waves, crashing somewhere far off. Finally, he took a deep breath.

“This place is
you
,” he said. “All that you see is a mere reflection of what lies inside you. A target too hard to reach; a fast-moving opponent.”

Kyra furrowed her brow, struggling to comprehend.

“I don’t understand,” she replied. “I feel as if I arrived here as a warrior, and yet now, I am nothing. I no longer know a thing.”

He smiled for the first time.

“Good,” he replied, to her surprise. “Very good. You are beginning to learn.”

She frowned.

“Beginning to learn?” she echoed. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I had thought you would introduce me to new weaponry—magical halberds and spears and axes and swords and shields. I thought I would learn and do all the things that warriors do in advanced training. But it feels like it’s been weeks here, and I’ve done none of that. I’ve chased moving targets; I’ve run up and down valleys; I’ve watched trees sway in the wind; I’ve followed a trail of ants. What kind of training is this? I don’t even believe that you are my uncle.”

She added emphasis to her final words, wanting to provoke some reaction from him, but Alva merely stared back calmly.

“Don’t you?” he asked.

“You won’t tell me anything about my mother,” she added. “Or about myself. I thought I would come here and find answers. Instead, you’ve raised more questions. I am wasting my time,” she concluded, unable to take any more. “I must leave. And I must return to my father. He is at war, and he needs me. It was a mistake to come here.”

Kyra stood there, breathing hard, upset with herself and at the end of her rope.

Alva, though, sat there calmly, unfazed, expressionless. Kyra felt on the verge of breaking down and crying, and yet nothing seemed to faze him.

“The only war that rages lies within yourself,” he finally replied, calm. “It is a far more interesting war, and a far more powerful one. Have you asked yourself why you cannot summon your dragon?”

Kyra blinked, wondering. It was a question she had been grappling with herself.

“I…don’t know,” she admitted, feeling crushed. She was starting to wonder if she had ever been able to summon him to begin with, if she had ever had any true powers, or if it had all just been a dream.

“You cannot summon him,” he replied, “because you are too busy thinking, planning, training. You still think you can control the world around you—and that is your greatest failing. You cannot control anything. Not the woods around you, not the universe, and not even your skills. As soon as you realize that, as soon as you stop trying to control, you will allow the power in. You can never be one when you are in opposition—and when you try to control, you are in opposition.”

Kyra closed her eyes, trying to grasp the concept of his words. She understood what he was saying intellectually, yet she could not grasp it viscerally yet.

“Take me, for example,” he said, surprising her as he suddenly jumped up and walked over to her. “You hold a very fine staff, a staff that you love, a staff that could kill many warriors. And here I hold,” he said, picking up a stick off the floor, “a thin stick.”

He stopped about ten feet away in the clearing and held it behind his back with one hand.

“I am a small boy,” he continued, “with an aging disease. A harmless boy with a small stick. You are the great warrior Kyra, more powerful than most men I have encountered, and you wield a powerful weapon. You should be able to defeat me easily, should you not?”

She looked back, confused, appalled at the idea of fighting him.

“I would never harm you,” she said. “You are my teacher. Even if I don’t understand what it is you are teaching me.”

He shook his head.

“You
must
fight me,” he replied. “Because you look with your eyes, but not with your heart. You listen with your ears, but not with your mind. You still think that what you see is real. You still have not lifted the great veil of the universe.”

He sighed.

“Until you pull it back, you will never see for sure, never understand that all you see is the world of illusion.”

Kyra pondered his words as he stared back calmly.

“Attack me,” he finally commanded.

She shook her head, horrified.

“I will not,” she replied.

“I command you,” he said firmly, his voice darker, ancient, suddenly scary.

Kyra felt she could not disobey. She walked slowly toward him, a knot in her stomach, stepped forward and halfheartedly swung her staff at his shoulder.

To her surprise, Alva swung around with his stick and swatted her staff, knocking it from her hands. She looked at him in shock; an enemy had never made her drop her staff before.

“I said
attack
,” he commanded.

Kyra retrieved her staff and faced him again with trembling hands, unsure what to do. She stepped forward and attacked again, a little bit harder this time.

As she swung, though, he spun around, knocked it again from her hand, and leaned back and kicked her in the chest.

To her shock, his kick knocked her halfway across the clearing, and she landed on the forest floor, winded.

She sat there and stared back at the boy in wonder. He stood there, still smiling, looking as if he had not moved at all, and for the first time, she felt fear. She realized she had vastly underestimated him, and she wondered who he was. Finally, she was beginning to understand that all was not what it seemed.

“The greatest warriors do not present their hand in battle,” he said. “They deceive. They project weakness, inexperience. They disarm foes who judge by appearance. Now—attack me.”

This time, Kyra, angry, still smarting from the blow, ran, grabbed her staff, and charged him with all her might, no longer holding back.

She swung, and to her surprise, she missed, hitting air as she stumbled forward. At the same time she felt a crack in her back, and she turned, red-faced, to see Alva standing behind her, stick in hand. She fumed, her back stinging from the blow.

“Good,” he said, “you no longer patronize me. Now let us see what you can do.”

Kyra let out a shout of frustration, raised her staff with both hands, and slashed at him. He raised his stick and blocked it easily. She swung left and right, pushing him back across the clearing with a dizzying array of blows, blows strong enough to take down a dozen warriors.

Yet each time he calmly raised his skinny stick with one hand and blocked, deflecting her blows as if he were wielding a steel shield.

As she thought she was gaining ground, driving him all the way back to the edge of the clearing, he slashed upwards, catching her staff from beneath and sending it flying up out of her hands. He then stepped forward and jabbed her in the solar plexus, and she fell to her knees, defenseless before him, her staff on the ground.

She knelt there, feeling like crying, feeling lower than she ever had in her life. She was defenseless, ashamed, and she felt as if she had no skills whatsoever. Had her skills been an illusion? Had she ever been good?

She slowly looked up at him in shame, but also in awe at his powers. Clearly, he was no mere human.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“The question is not who I am,” he replied. “Who are
you
? That is what you fail to grasp.”

“Who am I, then?” she asked. “You know. Tell me.”

He looked at her for a long time, expressionless.

“You are more than a mere girl, Kyra,” he finally replied. “Which is why you—and you alone—must answer that question.”

*

Kyra hiked deeper and deeper into the forest, as she had been for hours, utterly alone, having left Leo and Andor behind, needing time to be with herself. Still reeling from her encounter with Alva, still trying to understand everything he’d said, she hiked deeper and deeper into the mysterious forest of Ur, past glowing, light green trees, swaying in the wind, their long leaves rustling, their shapes constantly changing. She replayed her encounter with Alva in her head, again and again. How had he beaten her so soundly? How could she have been so ineffective? What had he meant when he’d said the answers lay within her? What was the veil of the universe?

The training had been much harder than she imagined, not only physically, but mentally and spiritually. It would have been easier if she had had traditional targets, weapons, opponents to fight against. But this training of the mind was stumping her, pushing her farther than she had imagined. She was afraid she could not achieve what her uncle wanted of her. Did that mean she was a failure?

She closed her eyes as she went, trying to summon that deeper part of herself, to turn on that energy she had once experienced.

But try as she did, nothing came. She was no one now. Nowhere.

So many people in her life had had faith in her. Had she not deserved it?

Alva had urged her, after their sparring, to seek out the Pool of No Reflection, deep in the forest of Ur, and had pointed the way. She was so lost in her thoughts that, as she looked up at the sound of a bird, she forgot why she had even come this way—when her eye was caught by a glistening red color. Kyra hurried toward it and found herself at the edge of a clearing. She stopped, amazed at the sight. There, hidden in the thick wood, was a small red pond, its waters shimmering. She sensed a strange power emanating off of it, even from here. It must be the pool Alva had spoken of.

Kyra stepped forward cautiously and knelt beside it. She looked down, searching for her reflection, hoping.

Yet she found none.

It was as Alva had said. This pool did not reflect the outside world; instead, it reflected only what lay inside, what one was unwilling to see within one’s self. Kyra hoped for the waters to show her something, to help point the way.

But she waited for a long time, staring down, and was disappointed to see nothing. All she heard was the rustling of the leaves, high overhead.

What was it the universe demanded of her? she wondered. Why couldn’t she be like everybody else?

There came a sudden snap behind her, and Kyra turned, on edge, reaching for her staff. A noise raced past her, like a weapon racing through the air, and she looked over and was astonished to see a silver spear flying in her direction.

It whizzed by her, and Kyra realized it wasn’t meant for her. She turned and was shocked to see the spear puncture the breast of a Pandesian soldier—standing but a few feet away from her, sword raised high. He grunted and fell, and as his sword fell to the ground, she realized he had been about to stab her in the back. That spear had spared her from death. How stupid she had been to let down her guard.

Kyra wheeled, peering into the wood, wondering who had thrown the spear, who had saved her, and why.

Another snap followed, and she turned in the other direction and her heart caught in her throat. There, but a few feet away, was the most striking boy she had ever seen. He stood tall and proud, looking about her age, with broad shoulders, a smooth face, a chiseled jaw, and fine, golden hair longer than any man she knew, down to his waist. He stared back with flashing steel gray eyes, and as he did, she felt her breath leave her. She couldn’t look away if she tried. For the first time in her life, she was mesmerized.

The boy looked away. He stepped forward, extracted his silver spear, and rolled over the Pandesian soldier with his foot.