Blade of Glass: Chapter 16

Geneve visited her tree a lot. It was peaceful standing in the field, surrounded by other trees waiting for their Knights to be strong enough. She didn’t understand how she’d ever be able to break hers. Five years of growth put thicker bark on the tree and it was now wider around than she was. 

The trees were all planted from the same kind of acorn, yet flourished in a hundred ways. Hers was straight as an arrow as it reached for the sun. Israel said the trees weren’t oaks, elms, or hickory. Nothing here carried a name from the outside world. They were just trees, and each belonged to a Knight.

Geneve expected all trees to grow strong and true, but many didn’t. Some carried myriad branching limbs, seeking the sky in all directions of the compass. Others were low, hugging the ground, with thick, gnarled roots emerging from the soil. It seemed impossible they all grew from the same seeds, but she’d seen enough planted as Novices were brought here to know the truth of it. 

Wincuf’s tree was twisted, as if it’d tried to grow around a rock, but there were no rocks in this sparse forest. Ready as he was for his Trial, he hadn’t felled his own tree yet. The thing was as ornery as the young man, and Geneve felt it would be difficult to shatter with a punch even if you were Israel.

Wind ruffled her red hair. Above her, leaves whispered their response. Like the rest of the keep, it was warm here, untouched by the southern climate outside the walls. It’d be easy to drift off, relaxing while the trees watched over her.

Geneve put her back against her tree. She closed her eyes, waiting for sleep to come. She used the tree’s girth to hide herself from the steps. Privacy was difficult to find in the keep, and a Novice found not training was moments from vile chores. Geneve cleaned her share of privies, or the big kitchen floors, to learn hiding was the best approach for a moment’s peace. Few came here unless it was to plant new trees.

Geneve never saw the magic of their growth. One day, an acorn went into the ground. The next, a tree was there, the same height as the Novice attached to it. The trees grew as their Novices learned and fell as their Novices took the Adept’s black sash and gold bar. It didn’t matter if a Novice was five or fifty when they joined the Tresward. Each got a tree and kept it until their Trial.

She heard a hiss. Nothing carried so far or so fast as a whisper. Talking in low tones was better for secrecy, but not everyone knew that. Geneve felt she’d learned that from a Feybrind but couldn’t remember their face. Like the rest of her life before coming here, it was missing in action.

Craning her neck around the trunk of her tree, she saw four Novices coming down the steps. They looked about like they were stealing the queen’s jewels. Three carried bundles in rags. She recognized them all. Bald-headed Hettie kept her head shaved like the rest of her people, the purple tattoos of her tribe walking their spidery legs down the side of her face. The broken nose of Barbet was unmissable, mostly because the break had been bad, and made him squint. He claimed to get it in a fight with six men before becoming a Novice, which seemed unlikely, because he’d joined at four years old. He was quick with a laugh.

Raja’s signature braids were bound together into a single rope that hung down beside the girl’s face. She looked lost, like she shouldn’t be here. Geneve knew her to be kind most of the time and wondered how she came to be in this company. Indeed, all three were mostly decent. She’d had no trouble with any except their leader.

He was empty-handed, but it didn’t stop his fingers clenching as if hungry for the hilt of a blade. Wincuf.

The group headed toward Wincuf’s twisted, misshapen tree. They cast furtive looks about before setting their bundles down. Fabric cast aside, Geneve spied drills and bottles of green glass corked tight. Wincuf gave a last look around, and Geneve shrunk behind her shelter. “Okay. We’re alone. Let’s get to it.”

Geneve peeked from cover. Each hefted a drill and set it to Wincuf’s tree. They rotated the cranks, wood shavings falling to the ground. They worked for a handful of minutes, fast and sloppy, until they’d drilled three or four holes apiece. Wincuf retrieved a bottle, uncorking it. He held it out from his body, whole face puckered as if he smelled a latrine.

Tipping the bottle, he poured a little into his drill holes. His companions followed suit. Geneve didn’t know what was in the bottle, but she could guess its purpose. They’d come here to poison Wincuf’s tree. Weaken it, so it was easier to break. Or perhaps make it fall by itself. The Light protected against many things, but poison wasn’t one of them. She didn’t know if the protection for Knights spread to their trees, but if her mind walked the nasty little trails Wincuf’s did, Geneve might try the same trick.

If she was a cheat, that is. She wondered if she should get someone. A Knight would be a call away. Israel was at the keep, back from his latest task. Help was at hand. Geneve looked at the four, taking in Wincuf’s sneer and the others obeisance. No, she wouldn’t call for help. If she did, shy Hettie, brash Barbet, and gentle Raja would be caught in the net. What had Kytto said?

Choosing how and when to hurt isn’t just done at war.

Geneve stepped from the shelter of her tree, calling out, “Hello, Wincuf.”

All four startled, like they were rabbits and she a very surprising fox. Wincuf spun so fast soil scuffed from his heels. Hettie looked like she wanted to run but was anchored to the ground by steel chain. Barbet squinted more than usual, and Raja just looked at her feet, like Geneve was the end of all things.

“Where’d you come from?” Wincuf marched toward her, his long legs eating the original fifty meters down to thirty, then ten, and before Geneve knew it he was before her, sneer in place. “Looking for trouble?”

Geneve shook her head. “I was looking for peace.”

“Today’s not your day, is it?” Wincuf loomed. His frame bulked out over the years. Fifteen, with a teenage boy’s restlessness in every movement. He seemed agitated while standing still.

“It might be today’s not yours,” she countered. His eyes locked with hers, which was good, because it let her make shooing gestures with her hands. She hoped the other three would run. Get clear, so a call for help wouldn’t get them snared. “What would someone be doing near their tree with drills and poison?”

“Poison? You mistake your position, Novice.” He leaned on the title, like he was so much more. But he wasn’t yet an Adept, his Trial incomplete. “I came to tend the tree. Nurture it, to make it grow bigger.” He slapped his chest. “When I break the tree, all will see Wincuf’s might.”

She nodded as if agreeing. “It’s funny how nurturing can be mistaken for something else. I’ve never seen someone nurtured to health by use of a drill.”

He lunged for her. Geneve wasn’t sure what he meant to do—it wasn’t a punch, or even a proper grapple. Both hands out, fingers stretched like claws. If he’d swung, his strength might have beaten her, but her smaller, lighter frame slipped out of his grasp. Wincuf tried to snare her again, and she darted under his hands. Geneve saw his companions were gone, like leaves on wind. It was just her, Wincuf, and the trees.

She sucked in a lungful of air to cry for help, and he sucker punched her in the solar plexus. Geneve felt the awful feeling of it, her diaphragm spasming before locking up. Wincuf tried to sweep her feet, hand on her chest, leg scissoring in from the side, but she tumbled aside.

Go on, she urged herself. Take a breath.

Nothing like that happened. She needed to breathe, but her body wasn’t on board. She backpedaled, trying to get a little distance from Wincuf, but he was Knight-trained and as relentless as they’d made him. He clocked her a bruising blow to the cheek, her vision going bright with red stars.

Patterns. Remember the patterns. She wasn’t a Knight. Couldn’t command the Storm like so many others. But she danced better than most when her feet were on the practice mat. She found one of Ikmae’s patterns coming to mind. The name escaped her as much of her sense did at Wincuf’s punch, but her feet remembered well enough. Her left foot swept back, bringing her retreat to a halt in a spray of dirt.

Wincuf jabbed for her face again, lightning-quick. She felt the Storm in it and smelled salt spray. But the pattern knew what to do. Geneve swayed like the younger trees around her, hands enclosing his wrist with sticky fingers. He pulled back, and she went with him, right foot coming against his instep. Wincuf stumbled, and she rotated with all her strength, bringing her elbow into his jaw with a crack.

He laid his length along the ground, the air going out of him in a rush. 

I should finish him now. End it, because there will always be another time, then another. Geneve sucked air, diaphragm finally remembering how to breathe. She thought about whether she should hit him again or leave him be, and the delay was enough. He scrambled back, coming to rest against her tree. His face was twisted in spite. “I’ll end you.”

Geneve sighed. “What did I do to you?” 

He spat, then scuttled upright. Wincuf ran to his tree, and she let him go, suddenly tired. She shouldn’t be. She’d trained day in, day out. Kytto had her dragging ‘heavy shit’ from one end of his smithy to the other. But today, the fight of moments felt like a battle of ages. It was as if this moment made it all real. One against another, with no witnesses but the trees.

Geneve walked back to her tree, putting a hand on its smooth bark. Wincuf scrabbled to gather the collection of potions and tools at his feet, no doubt to get away before someone came. Geneve didn’t know if Hettie or the others would get help. She didn’t know if she wanted them too. It’d bring questions, and she was too tired for answers.

Wincuf wasn’t done. She heard the scuff-scuff-scuffing of his feet at the last minute as he charged her. Geneve looked up, seeing him framed against the trees and sky beyond. One hand held a green bottle, the other a drill.

He tossed the bottle not at her, but her tree, then screamed as he dived on her, both hands trying to plunge the drill through her head. The bottle smashed on her tree, viscous, pale-gray liquid splashing on its bark. The drill wasn’t the best of weapons, but they were training to be Knights, and anything with a sharp point would do.

Geneve flung herself aside. Wincuf’s eyes were bright with rage, the young man slashing with ferocity where patterns would have worked best. Despite her speed, he got fingers through her red locks, dragging her backward. She landed on the ground with an oomph, and then he was atop her, pinning her down.

The drill came for her face. Geneve twisted, the drill biting earth by her ear. She writhed, desperation getting her arm free. Wincuf stabbed again, and she threw her hand up to ward the blow. The drill bit into her hand, the corkscrew teeth finding a home in the small bones of her palm. Geneve screamed, bucking, and Wincuf fell back.

She crab walked backward, crying out as her injured palm found dirt. It felt like someone sandpapered her flesh. Geneve felt sick with the pain, her breath coming in short pants. Wincuf found his feet, a trick of the light throwing his face into shadow. All she could see was his smile, all white malice.

The drill in his hand dripped red. “It’s got a taste for your flesh.”

Geneve rolled over and tried to stand. He made it to her side, kicking her in the ribs, and she went down, groaning. Wincuf stood above her. Strong, bigger, older Wincuf. More training than her, and the first glimmer of the Storm at his fingertips. He raised the drill.

The air … popped. One minute Wincuf stood against the trees and sky, and the next a red, drifting mist floated on the breeze where his arm was. The drill fell beside Geneve, and a heartbeat later the older boy screamed, a long, keening cry of loss. He clutched the stump of his arm with bloody fingers, face pale with shock.

Beside him, glass in hand, body paused at the downstroke of his blade, stood Israel. Geneve hadn’t seen him arrive. He moved like the Light itself. The air smelled of coconut and poppyseed, and tiny blue butterflies fanned their wings from their roost on the edge of his sword. One took flight, then the rest, vanishing on the wind like the blood spray from Wincuf’s injury.

The boy stumbled back as Israel straightened. The Chevalier leveled his blade at the Novice, the tip wavering less than the stones of the keep. Wincuf scampered back, blood seeping through his fingers. Israel’s voice, like the warm touch of golden sun, broke the silence. “Novice Wincuf, I find your behavior unbecoming of a Knight of the Three.” He shook his head, as if disgusted at what he saw. “See Lucent Eleni before you bleed to death.”

Wincuf nodded, pale and shaky, turning to flee. Then, blood loss being a natural consequence of his injury, he fell flat on his face. Israel sighed, sheathed his immaculately clean glass sword, then hauled Wincuf up by his shirt. He turned for the stairs, then paused. Israel didn’t look to Geneve. “Are you okay?”

Geneve shook her head. Her hand bled freely, and it hurt like it was on fire, but all that paled beside her tree. The bark was ash-gray, peeling where the liquid Wincuf threw scorched it. “My tree.”

“There will be questions. I need to deal with this,” he shook Wincuf’s body, blood spattering the soil, “but I’ll send help.”

“Who?” Geneve didn’t want to be seen in defeat. Not by Wincuf, and not again.

“A … friend. Perhaps the best of them.” Israel marched off, armor gleaming as light found it. Geneve huddled on the ground, hugging her knees, then made her way to her tree, where the bark smoked and flaked.

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