Room to Be Still

A bowstring sounded before dawn.

Rishi opened his eyes.

The guest lodge lay dark around him. Living roots held the night’s cold. Across the room, Maeril breathed beneath a heap of woven blankets, one hand curled beside her face.

The bow sounded again beyond the drape. Farther up the hill, a wet branch gave one quiet creak. No water pattered against the lodge roof.

Twilight-Stream was already awake.

Rishi sat up. The scar across his lower abdomen pulled as his spine straightened, a dull ember where Thiarel’s claws had passed through him. He set both feet on the rough mat and waited for the room to stop remembering the blow.

Then habit took him.

Ankles. Knees. Hips. The long muscles of his back. He rolled each shoulder until his body belonged to him again, drank from the water jug, and took up the Living Staff.

Outside, late autumn lay wet over the Wealdath.

Brown and yellow leaves had collapsed into the paths. Mist pooled between roots. Water beaded along bare branches, and the dark islands of holly and fir held what colour the forest had not surrendered.

Rishi breathed in leaf-rot, mushrooms, wet bark, and woodsmoke.

What fell fed what remained.

He rested the staff across his forearms and watched grey light gather between the trees. In Baldur’s Gate, he had often owned the hour before other doors opened. Here, arrows were already finding targets. Quiet feet crossed paths above and below him.

For once, he was not the first to rise.

Footsteps climbed the slope.

Thiarel came around the hill first.

Her dark hair was bound into a hard braid, the white streak bright even before sunrise. Light leathers left her arms free. She moved as if the path had been cleared for the force of her stride.

Sirael followed, bow strung across her back. Her steps made less sound. Her eyes moved more: Rishi’s stance, the staff, the lodge behind him, her sister’s hands.

Thiarel stopped below him.

“If I am to train you, we begin now.”

No greeting. No question.

Rishi inclined his head.

“As you wish.”

Sirael looked at him, then at the tight line of Thiarel’s mouth. She said nothing.

The three of them walked down through the mist.

Wet leaves covered the edges of the training circle. Water darkened the targets and ran down the standing stones. Mud waited beneath the thin skin of packed earth.

The staff warmed in Rishi’s hand as he entered.

“Put it away,” Thiarel said.

Rishi looked at her.

Her fingers flexed at her sides, already remembering claws.

“No staff between us.”

If he argued, this would become a fight before either of them moved.

Rishi crossed to the rack. The livingwood gave a small resistance when he laid it in the cradle, then settled among the plain practice staves.

He returned to the circle with empty hands.

Sirael took her place beside a rooted stump. Her arms hung loose, but her weight rested ready on the balls of her feet.

Rishi let his breath lower and opened his hands.

Someone stumbled through the leaves behind her.

Maeril appeared with her cloak thrown over yesterday’s shirt. Her hair had escaped every braid. One boot was laced; the other had been tied badly halfway up.

She took in Rishi’s empty hands, Thiarel’s posture, and Sirael standing watch.

“Of course,” she said. “Violence before breakfast.”

“I am watching her too,” Sirael said.

Maeril looked past Sirael to the woman in the circle.

“A yield ends it. From either of you.”

Thiarel’s mouth tightened, but she nodded.

Rishi turned far enough to meet Maeril’s eyes. “I will yield if I need to.”

“I intend to hold you to that.” She stayed beside Sirael, one hand still gripping the loose edge of her cloak.

Rishi kept his attention on Thiarel.

Her feet stood shoulder-width apart. Her knees had already bent toward the charge. Breath climbed high in her chest, too fast for a body that had not begun to work.

Rishi bowed.

Thiarel did not.

She ran at him.

Two strides carried her across the circle. On the third, her outline broke. Bone shortened and widened beneath skin. Dark fur swept over her arms and face. Her hands struck the earth as paws.

The war lynx hit him shoulder-first.

Rishi had time to draw in one arm and turn. The impact emptied his lungs and drove pain through the half-healed scar. He let his knees fold. Mud struck his shoulder, cold through cloth, as he carried the fall into a roll.

Thiarel’s weight came down with him.

He caught her before the claws found his chest.

One forearm crossed the heavy ruff behind her front legs. His other arm hooked beneath her far shoulder. He locked his hands, turned onto his side, and braced one foot against the inside of her rear thigh.

Thiarel snarled into his ear.

Her foreclaws ripped two furrows through the leaves where his ribs had been. Rishi tucked his chin beyond reach of her teeth and followed the twist of her spine. He did not try to overpower her. He kept her shoulders too close to turn and her rear legs too crowded to drive.

For three breaths, neither gained ground.

She was faster than her size promised. She committed all her weight once she chose a line.

Her near hind paw found his hip.

Claws caught cloth. She pushed, twisted through the pressure across her shoulders, and used his locked arms as the hinge of her turn.

Rishi released her before his shoulder tore.

They rolled apart.

He came up on one knee, mud down his side. Thiarel landed on all four paws, fur lifted along her spine. Her tail cut once through the air.

Thiarel began to circle.

Her paws made no sound on the wet leaves. Her ears lay flat. Rishi rose and let his hands hang lower than a guard, watching the movement pass from shoulders to hips.

Her weight shifted onto her back legs.

This time she sprang with her claws open.

He waited until her feet had left the earth, then stepped forward and outside the line of her chest. His palm met her shoulder—not a blow, only enough pressure to turn what could no longer change direction.

Thiarel passed him.

Her front paws struck the place he had stood. Wet leaves slid beneath them. Her chest hit the ground, and mud sprayed across the circle.

Maeril winced.

Thiarel raised her head.

Mud clotted the fur beneath her jaw. A tremor ran through her shoulders. She had not been hurt badly.

She had been made to miss.

Roots broke through the ground around Rishi.

They rose beneath the leaves in sharp, twisting lengths. Thorned vines followed, hardening as they climbed. The growth spread away from Thiarel in a widening ring, closing the open ground behind him.

Retreat was where she expected him to go.

Rishi stepped toward her.

The roots nearest Thiarel had only begun to surface. His boots crushed green shoots before they hardened. Thorns caught at his calves but did not stop him.

Thiarel reared above him.

Her weight climbed onto her hind legs. Both forepaws lifted for the downward strike.

Rishi sank onto his back foot.

He hooked his heel into the tendon above her nearer hock. As the leg folded, he drove two knuckles into the hollow where jaw, neck, and shoulder met.

The touch was small.

Her body could not ignore it.

Thiarel’s breath stopped. The raised paws lost their purpose. Her eyes stayed fixed on him while the rest of her failed to answer.

She fell sideways.

Rishi turned with her and guided one shoulder away from the hardest roots. The lynx struck wet earth instead of stone.

The bramble ring shuddered. Vines sagged across one another, thorns softening as Thiarel’s attention broke.

Her body drew inward. Fur gave way to skin and leathers. Paws lengthened into hands.

Thiarel lay on her side, one palm pressed to her throat. Breath returned in short, ragged pulls.

Rishi watched the colour in her face. When the next breath came cleanly, he stepped back and opened both hands.

At the edge of the circle, Maeril forced her fingers out of the cloth at her sleeves.

Sirael was already moving.

She crossed the fallen brambles and dropped beside her sister. One hand steadied Thiarel’s back. The other touched lightly beneath her jaw, checking breath and swelling.

Thiarel struck the hand away.

She pushed herself upright. Her first foot slipped; Sirael caught her elbow. Thiarel tore free of that hold too and stood with mud along one cheek, leaves caught in her braid.

She did not look at Rishi.

For a moment, her weight pitched toward the circle again.

Then she turned and walked into the trees.

No one followed.

Sirael watched until the white streak vanished among the trunks. Her jaw worked once before she spoke.

“I am uncertain who was training whom.”

Maeril’s arms dropped to her sides. A short, ragged laugh escaped her.

“If that was the first lesson, I object to the advanced course.”

Rishi waited for his heartbeat to slow. The thorns had left shallow tears along his trousers. His hip burned where Thiarel’s claws had caught, and the scar across his lower abdomen throbbed with every breath.

He bowed toward the path she had taken.

Then he faced Sirael.

“This ground was even. One opponent. No arrows in the dark. No frightened people behind me. No Mythal breaking under our feet.”

He looked at the churned mud where Thiarel had landed.

“There was room to be still.”

Sirael’s gaze dropped to the marks in the earth.

Rishi said, “She saw what she lost. Not where she stood.”

His hand flexed once at his side. Mud darkened his sleeve, and his breath had not yet settled.

Sirael looked from that hand to Maeril’s pale face.

Then her attention moved to the rack.

The Living Staff rested among the plain lengths of wood. Sirael studied it without approaching. Then she looked back at Rishi.

He waited.

At last, her gaze settled on the practice staves.