Page 6 of A Touch of Stars and Stones (Kirrian #1)

four

. . .

Aten

“ F ucking forget about it, Ten. Come on.”

“Come on, what? Huh?” I stare Calix down. He might think he’s got the advantage now, but he doesn’t. I’ll fucking make sure of that, despite his strength.

I tip the cup of ale to my lips and gulp down the contents. We’re done for tonight.

“Wait up, Ten. I didn’t mean it,” Calix calls after me, but I’m in a piss poor mood. I have been ever since my Transference. No matter what I do, it always comes back to that night. And I doubt I’ll be over it for a while.

I stood before The Chamber members, all my friends, and all my family, waiting for my father.

I’d been waiting for that night for as long as I could remember—everyone in Kirrasia waits for their night.

We’ve all witnessed countless others before our own—living at Court meant that it was a common event to attend a Transference Ceremony.

It signified so much.

Coming of age. Coming into your power. Finding your Order and your place in our world.

Yet he sold me out.

So, no. I won’t fucking forget about it.

I rub the leather cuff on my left wrist, something I often do now, still adjusting to the feel of it against my skin.

I’d better get used to it soon because it won’t ever come off unless I want to pay the consequences.

The leather is soft, flexing with my movements, like a second skin, and wrapped around the centre is the purple-hued stone, bound in more leather and silver, woven between the stone and the cuff, ensuring its safekeeping and its connection to me.

Only every time I rub it—every time I look down at it—it spears me in the heart all over again because it wasn’t meant to be purple.

Another reminder.

The only saving grace is that I no longer have to stay under the same roof as him, so I weave through the rest of the Element district and out, past the Naturals and breathe a fucking sigh of relief.

The shadow of The Tower seems to follow me, even at night, but I ignore the itch on the back of my neck and head back to my apartment in the training residence.

It’s probably a little generous to call it an apartment.

A room. Lavishly decorated with all the fine things I’d have expected from living within the quarters of The Chamber all my life, a little luxury to comfort us through training, like fine linens will help when we’re drawing blood.

I slam the door and shove my head back against it as I take another deep breath before snapping out of my mood and moving to sit on the bed in the middle of the room.

Bed, wardrobe, desk, chair, and washroom. The extent of my living space—all our living spaces for the duration of our time as a trainee.

It was meant to be easy. It fucking wasn’t.

My father should have transferred his magic to me, solidifying my own and relinquishing his position as head of the Warrior Order. If he had, he’d have been asked to stay and advise as a Custodian of our Order, and with time, I’d take his place.

But he’d been too… selfish. He didn’t want to relinquish anything.

Instead, choosing to maintain his position and so wither and fade slowly over time, which is the consequence Aslendrix bestows on anyone who chooses to keep their power.

Her own cruel way of ensuring the balance.

Nobody should ever have too much power for too long, according to our histories and the explanation we all live by.

To my father, this was a better option than seeing me thrive.

Every night since starting my training, I arrive at the same ugly truth. The same ugly position. He was too churlish to grant me what most give freely.

Like Mother gave freely.

Frustration pulses, and I try to quash it, but it’s so fucking hard. It’s eating me from the inside.

The creek of my door snaps my attention forward.

“Knock, knock. You know, arriving home late and choosing to slam doors isn’t very considerate, Ten.”

Crimson.

“I’m not in the mood. How about we leave this for tomorrow? Goodnight.”

“Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport. I’m much better company than my brother, after all.” She stalks further into the room, uninvited, but then, when had that ever stopped her from going after something she wanted?

“Tomorrow,” I growl, feeling defensive and more than a little pissed. “Zuns!” My mother never liked me using that particular expletive around the house, but there’s no reason to hold my tongue now.

My wrist pulses, and I can feel the blocks coming down around my mind. I can sense my power breathing to life inside of me, along with my annoyance.

It’s still so strange, feeling the powers of my mother mixed with my own. I knew my strengths were those of a traditional Warrior Order. They hadn’t settled, as was common in adolescence and pre-transference.

But I never considered what would happen if that were mixed with Guard powers. I didn’t fully understand what they were still.

Crimson smiles at me, too fucking sweetly.

She and her twin, Calix, are both Warriors.

Calix is brutishly strong, while Crimson is agile and has unnatural speed.

They’ve been here since before their Transference, working as a team, just as they have since we were all kids, growing up in The Chamber residence together.

It’s hard being best friends with a twin, especially when their sister is Crimson.

“Can’t I tempt you? You know I can make you forget?—”

“Leave it, Crim.” She’s never stopped pushing for us to be more than we are—friends. Who occasionally sleep together.

“Tomorrow, then,” she concedes and then slips back out of my room.

Three moves, then I’ll have him.

Six weeks into training, I still flinch when my mind does this—strategising, working out the plan to overthrow my opponent before I even give it thought.

In this case, it’s Calix. His strength is the added advantage, but he has tells, and I’ve been watching him fight my entire life. Now that knowledge fuels a part of me, as if I’m feeding wood to a fire.

My feet play out the plan my mind has mapped out, and my right hand reaches around my back to my dagger resting at the base of my spine, where it always is, as I twist and spin, dodging Calix’s right hook.

“And you’re dead.” The tip presses against the back of Calix’s neck.

Our contact is limited—a few brushes of knuckles or blocks with arms, but it’s enough for me to feed off his strength and push it back at him.

This is the hardest and most exciting part of training. The unknown of how our own power will meld and work alongside others through touch.

That was the purpose of training: to learn.

Experience. Master.

Calix grins at me. “Didn’t take you long, Ten. Maybe I’ll stop holding back next time.”

“I know you. You weren’t holding back.” I grin at him.

“Really? Care to place a wager?” His eyes light up. Calix loves to gamble, always making bets. Luckily for him, he’s only wrong half of the time, but he never learns.

“Aten, Calix, next round,” Rowan, the Warrior Custodian overseeing our training, barks.

We all have to spar against one another. All trainees, all Orders, it doesn’t matter if some of them have never thought of fighting before. They have to go up against Calix, or Crimson, or me. And we’ve been fighting our entire lives. Raised as Warriors.

But while we had advantages in the sparring ring, training wasn’t just about fighting skills.

I was the ninth trainee this year, and we represented all the Orders of Kirrasia. Natural, Elemental, Warrior, and Guard.

My next round has me rolling my eyes. Micah Star.

He’s a weak Elemental, his power limited and basic.

I can feel it whenever we have to spar, but he seems to love everything about training.

It’s clear he feels that the opportunity is the greatest gift that anyone could give him.

Or maybe he’s fed up with living in one of the poorest parts of the Elemental district.

Not everyone has friends when they move to training, and I didn’t know much about Micah or the other trainees when I arrived. That hasn’t changed on a personal level.

Micah steps into the ring of sand as if he has a chance of winning this. He doesn’t.

Our instinct at this early stage of training is to work solo.

Twenty years of that is hard to shake off, but the ultimate goal of training is to find our Triune—the other two partners who complemented our own magical powers so evenly, so well, that all three of us became a force far beyond the sum of our individual gifts.

It’s rare. Stupidly rare, and only a few dozen Triunes exist throughout Kirrasia, which has always made me sceptical, especially after working with these trainees for the last few weeks.

“Come on, Micah,” I encourage, sheathing my dagger.

Without even making contact, my mind is already assessing, planning, and working out the best offensive move against everything I already know about him.

He’s smaller in build and height than I am. Only Capella, a Natural from The Chamber residence, is shorter than him, which gives me every advantage in this game.

He’s a fast learner, but the praise ends there.

He’ll rush. You’ll dodge. Twist his arm, hold, done.

And like Deja Vu, he does exactly as I see in my mind. When I grab his arm to restrain him, I can feel the tremors he can call from the Earth, like they’re trying to shake me loose. But my hold on him is stronger than his power.

It doesn’t force his surrender, but he rears his head back, connecting with my chin and knocking me back. As I stagger, he drops to the ground and places both of his hands into the sand beneath our feet.

The tremor is soft and gentle to start, but as if he’s using my own strength, it grows, shaking me and keeping me off balance. I stagger to one side, but I keep my feet. “Nice try.” I smile at him, knowing that’s all he’s got.

It fades, and he stands to meet me. “It’s the closest I’ve been. You gotta give me that.”

“Fine. I’ll give you that.” I give him a sharp nod of my head.