The drop of sweat hits the ground right as the pommel slips out of my hand. I watch the moonlight turn it a crystalline silver as it slides into the sand under my feet. My eyes refuse to glance at the offending weapon as I pick it up. Again. I set my feet and draw in a short breath. One...two… a gentle twist and i'm airborne again. A flick of my arm brings me into the second form of the movement and I guide my body and my dagger along the lines of energy that I've been taught to find in the frigid air of the channel. Again. My toes thrum with blood as I loft them above my body. Again. I close my eyes against the blur of my limbs. Again.
The wind whips my hair into knots as I hurtle through the forms. I move too fast for any more sweat to fly off me, but as I reach the closing movement, the dagger slips out of my hand and lands tip down in the bank. A passing wolf nudges it with her snout and it slides into the black water. I half-lid my eyes and watch her energy swirl through her core and spiral out to her cubs hidden in the brush. I sigh, but I know she's right. It's time to stop, so I retrieve the dagger and wrap it next to my longsword. Then I make my way up the cliff, scarves whipping in the wind.
The lights were off but my feet were used to the curves that led up to the dormitories. The wood and marble dip in the middle from thousands of years of feet, but the steps are as stable as the hill they sit on. I knew Mei and Reila would still be awake. None of us could sleep when one of our own was going up to the mountains. I'd kept my own vigil, now I'd join theirs
Owl, Lemur and Bee sat lounging around the hearth keeping watch while the elders took Noah up to the peak for his testing, The flames danced across their hatis and I felt that familiar twist of jealousy and excitement of knowing I would get my own soon. Not soon enough. Owl caught my glance and winked, stretching out his legs to block my path, He wanted to make me climb over him, but I wasn't about to give that satisfaction tonight. Drawing the heat from the fire in through my bare feet on the marble, I caught a breeze and gently flipped up and over his gorgeously smiling body. Bee rolled his eyes and Lemur shook her head as I slid down the hallway and away from the warmth of the fire.
My friends' voices replaced that warmth as soon as I walked into my room though. I wasn't surprised to see a handful of others along with my roommates clumped together under blankets on our floor. A sea of skin and and hair and eye colors turned up from their soft conversation and smiled at my tossled curls and salt-lightened skin.
"I'd still rather have four legs," Selgin said, picking up the discussion where it must've been when I came in.
"Nope, sea creature," Laila said dreamily as I rolled my eyes and slipped in next to Jelan. We'd worn the lines of this conversation in enough that I knew what each of my friends would say, but I wrapped their words around me like another blanket.
In Shang, initiated warriors are given names of animals to further connect us to the earth and our wild brothers and sisters. At sundown tomorrow, Noah would come back to us no longer known by that name. I had two silvers on it being a bird, but Noah was so fragile that I wasn't even sure he would come back. It happened. Every year or so a few didn't come back from the mountains. I tried not to think too much about them.
"Well I hope I'm a myth," Merana's silky voice chimed in, "Dragon and Unicorn are taken, so I guess i'll have to be a something a little more spectacular. Maybe a Griffin or something."
If any of us were worthy of achieving mythical rank, it was Merana. Her swordmanship matched any of the full warriors and she could manipulate energy to an extent that was almost unheard of in a student our age. None of us were envious of her -she worked hard for her skills and was still one of the kindest people that I knew- but we also knew that we couldn't hope to match her. I ignored the mix of encouragement and irritation everyone threw at her and drifted my eyes closed to watch their energies interact.
All of our lights were subdued with drowsiness, rainbows covered a bit in smoke. Mei and Ketlan sent wisps of smoke back and forth, pressed together and lost in each other. The rest of us stood as focal points for a mess of light and color and heat winding across the loose circle we had formed. I watched as Merana's gaze flicked to me and strengthened the flow of energy she was sending my way, she must've known I was tired. Selgin and Reila argued over some point of the history of archery, buffering each other with stinging threads that resembled tiny lightnings. Through it all, steady streams left us all and channelled east, all of us were keeping our thoughts on Noah.
"But they won't let anyone take mythical status if they can't see energies"
My eyes popped open at the mention of my rare skill.
"And that only happens a few times in a generation, hence the fact that only two of the myths are taken"
We were all silent for a moment as we thought about our most powerful teachers. Both of them were masters of movement and energy manipulation. A look from the Unicorn and you couldn't speak, a touch on the shoulder from the Dragon and you would fall asleep. They inspired fear and love everywhere they went and were the most beautiful creatures you would ever see. I wanted to be like them.
Talk drifted away from the topic of Seeing and I settled into my own world again, safe in the knowledge that no-one else had figured out my secret. The sleepy swirling lanterns danced in front of me and joined the light beginning to break through the windows as I let my energy drain out.
I woke up to the same soft lights I'd slept to. Soft breathing echoed by luminous mist drifting through the air. I pulled myself free from Merana and Jelan, settling the blankets lightly back on top of them. The air was cold and still as I padded down the empty hall and out into the dull morning light. No one would rise today until late after sending our spirits with Noah for the hardest, darkest part of his journey. I set out some fruit and started a fire in case any little ones woke up early. Shadows and fog still covered my favorite perch, a giant boulder set high up the hill behind the compound. The climb up the side of it took skill and focus, but I had been doing it since I was four. There was a dip in the top just perfect so that when I sat down in it, you couldn't see me from below. Every inch up the rock I shed worry over Noah, by the time I got to the top, I was as light as if Noah were here and safe with me.
My relaxation was cut short as I lifted myself over the lip of the rock. A figure crouched at the edge , poised to fall off the world. I was on my feet in a fighting stance before they could turn. Laughing gold eyes scrolled my tense body and I relaxed, sinking into a folded seat on the smooth stone. I turned my eyes away from Owl and onto the horizon.
"Morning Aria"
I could see all the way across the channel from up here
"They'll be heading back by now"
I matched my heartbeat to the rush of the waves. He looked at me, waiting for a response. His hands traveled reflexively to the crystal resting at his sternum and his eyes flicked to my bare neck.
"You know it's funny," he continued, ignoring my silence, "everyone has been worried since Noah went up, but you…"
My entire world narrowed down to the swell of the ocean and the breeze on my skin. Owl wasn't next to be anymore, a different man was disturbing my peace.
"Aria please" he begged. His voice was so hoarse and small I could barely hear him. "Please Aria"
I looked away from him, but I couldn't escape the fact that he was standing right there.
"Aria"
"Aria"
I wiped the tears from my eyes. The sky was blue not black and the hand on my shoulder was a deep ebony, not his olive.
"Why are you here?" I brushed his hand off, "How did you find this place?"
"Those are two very different questions," his usual joking and flirting had no place in the tone he was using on me.
"Do you remember when we were children?" He'd turned fully towards me now, as if we were having a normal, two-sided conversation. "The games we used to play, rolling down the hill?" Owl is only two or three years older than me, close enough that we used to spend time together as children.
"And remember how Wildcat taught us to pull all of our limbs into our bodies as we spun and to draw the nausea out and put it in the stones?"
I do remember. It was a child's trick really, fitting for some of our first lessons in body and energy control, but it was so much fun. We'd all run up to the top, the older ones drawing the breezes to help their sprints, and would take turns shooting down the hill and, if we were brave enough, into the water below. The technique of cutting out the sickness of spinning that fast was simple. All you had to do was feel the connection between the rotation in your body and the feeling it caused, then take the energy pulling at your body and put it into the stones. I made the mistake of picking up one of the pretty glowing stones once and my five year old body nearly collapsed from the rush of sickness that flowed into me. As I was vomiting over the cliffs I told my friends over and over not to touch the light-filled stones. At the time, I didn't realize that the reason everyone looked at me funny was because I was the only one who saw the lights.
"I always imagined that was what it was like to see energy," he said, startling me and setting my guard back up. "all the colors blending together and spiraling every which way."
There was no way he knew about my Sight, but I still felt like this was something more than idle talk. I tried to look him in the eyes, but he seemed lost in the memories too. I turned back to the cliffs and waited, but it seemed he was done. At some point he slipped away, but I stayed there, the answers to my questions lost somewhere in the fog and sea foam.