Page 14 of To Scale the Emerald Mountain

My frustration quickly bleeds into something more fierce. The fact that Locane is right on both accounts just fuels that bubbling anger. At first, I was overthinking it. I was very self conscious with him standing there just staring at me—utterly naked in my lack of clothes and shoes.

Locane kept asking me to show him my stance. When I hit him before, I didn’t have a stance. I just swung out in blind terror, but it did feel right. All that natural intuition is evading me completely. I timidly stood with feet shoulder width apart, right foot cocked out slightly, and held both fists up, boxing my face.

After he told me it was terrible, he repositioned me and told me to strike.

In my anxiousness to succeed, I threw my weight into the hit too much and nearly fell on my face. That, he said, was even more disappointing than my stance. That was when I decided not to even try. His words now are doing nothing to soothe my stubbornness and desperation for this humiliating interaction to just be over.

Fighting his frustration, Locane pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. He releases a loud sigh and tells me, “You obviously have been taught how to hit. Perhaps that’s not really your strong suit, but it’s somewhere inthere,“ he throws the word like an insult as he waves a large hand towards my head.

I swell with fury. Before I can spew it at him, he continues. “Somewhere in there you have the knowledge. Perhaps you justneed the right situation to make you drop your insecurities and justdo.”

“I swear on the fucking Mother, if you try to sneak attack me to elicit a fight response, I will skin you alive.”

Snatching the waterskin from where it sits on a rock, I take a long guzzle. I’m about to sit down, when Locane flatly says, “No.”

“No, what?”

“Get up. We are not finished.”

“Oh, I’m finished.”

“We haven’t even really begun.” He walks towards me, extending a hand. The simple act—on top of my mounting frustrations that have slowly simmered for the last couple days—has me seeing red.

Slapping his hand away, I leap to my feet. “I don’t need your help to stand. In fact, I really don’t need your help for anything. The only thing you have managed to do at all is make me angry and doubt myself, which in turn, makes me even angrier.” I am seething. Mottled patches of red spread across my cheeks.

“Oh, Ellya,” Locane smirks at me. “You don’t need my help to doubt yourself.”

I rush towards him in three quick strides.

He clears the remaining space between us, until he is standing so close we could share breath. Locane leans down, rubs his nose against mine, and says on a gentle whisper, “I’m starting to think that you struggle to recall anything about yourself because you aren’t worth knowing.”

The taut energy between us snaps, and I break.

Screaming, I rear back and bring my forehead hurtling into his face. The pain exploding in my head is worth it as I crush his nosethat so smugly rubbed against mine while he whispered to me with a lover’s tone that I’m worthless.

There’s a satisfying crunch as I break Locane’s nose for the second time in our short stint of cursing each other’s presence. He barely stumbles back before wiping blood from his face, streaking it above his full, smirking lips.

Locane beckons to me with bloody fingers, and I rush toward him, fists swinging. He dodges my first throw with fluid grace and spins to come up behind me.

He smacks the back of my head, increasing my rage into untethered flames.

I turn, swinging again, and just before my fist collides with his jaw, he vanishes. I spin, searching for where Locane reappeared and am hit with a light smack, again, on the back of my head.

Dropping down, I kick out my right leg as I turn, trying to pull his legs out from under him.

He disappears again, and I scream.

This time, I anticipate him reappearing behind me and swing around, managing to just barely grab his wrist. I punch him in the jaw just as he jumps again, and we disappear together.

We land as my fist connects with enough force that he falls to the ground, and I go sprawling on top of him, still holding his wrist in a death grip.

Locane smiles at me. “There you go. Fight like you mean it.”

The words reignite my fire. “I want to know what you’re not telling me!” I scream into his face.

“I will. But now is not the time.”

“When?” I demand, anger still urging me on.