The Endless Solvent

Nilda careened to the side, flinging her arms to her right and a wall of stone arched from the ground over her as Vartu lunged at her from the cliff above.

“What are you doing, giving me a nice platform to land on?” Vartu said as he landed neatly on the arch she formed above her. Nilda clenched her fingers together and spikes formed under his feet. They were small and formed slow enough for him to dodge.

He landed on the ground next to her, shook his head, then easily scaled the sheer cliff again to reset. This time Nilda watched him jump down towards her and timed a stone spike to form where he would land. Vartu reached out to adjust his fall trajectory by pushing off the cliff face and lunged towards Nilda, who raised a stone covered arm in time for his sword to glance off of.

“How’s that?” she panted.

“Maybe, but you had to watch me to time that counter,” Vartu said thoughtfully. “And I still had an opening.”

They were trying to find ways to counter an attack from above, just like how that assailant had surprised Nilda the day before by jumping down from the roof. As always, Vartu was right - the only way she could counter was if she could foresee the attack. As always, success hinged on how quickly she could form weapons from rocks, but usually the faster she needed to do it, the duller the edge or point was.

“At least I deflected you,” she grumbled.

“But you didn’t stop me.”

They spent the next few minutes practicing alternative attacks from above - a new exercise Nilda didn’t think she ever needed in the past.

“If they are flying towards you from the air, they have zero stability,” Vartu noted from the cliff as he reset again to jump down on her. “So it’ll be a good opportunity to knock them towards a direction beneficial to you, then take the chance to take them out.”

She thought about Stickman. “Isn’t it good enough to keep defenses up?” she asked.

“They’ll keep coming back. The most complete way of stopping someone is killing them, kid.”

Nilda tried to find a fatal opening, straining to angle the duel master’s glancing blows away from the cliff face so he couldn’t pounce off of the surface for a second or third attack. She practiced until her arms were straining and chafed from the protective stone coating around them. Not once did she find the right chance.

“As always, it comes down to your base strength,” Vartu said, watching Nilda catch her breath after the tenth or eleventh round. She threw him a dirty look and he laughed. He enjoyed poking fun at her weakness. “What, are you going to hide behind your mistress’s skirts again?”

“I don’t hide,” Nilda said, straightening and crossing her arms haughtily. She hadn’t ever since that day she returned to Vartu and asked him to train her. It didn’t matter if Vartu thought her a coward but it was a matter of principle.

Vartu studied her, amusement in his eyes. Then his expression sobered and he jerked his head to the rocks on the ground. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

Nilda stifled an internal groan and did the exercise she hated the most - running with rocks on her back. They did it so often Vartu no longer needed to tell her how much stone to put on her body; she knew how much was needed to give her a workout. Stone crept up her leather trousers usually worn by teenage boys but adjusted to fit her properly, past the cloth belt used to stash coins, notes or to hold a sword in its scabbard. Stone lay in a pattern on her back and around her waist, trickling down the sides of her legs as if it was imitating curling roots of a tree.

Now she could run five laps before exhaustion overtakes her. While it was an improvement, it never seemed enough when it came to applying the stamina and strength to sparring. Of course, Vartu had mastery over his Manus abilities and so would always be faster and stronger than her and most other people. In the beginning, she was convinced the duel master was holding some secret to maintain some advantage over her. Now she knew it was simply because she was lacking in skill and experience. While it killed her to admit it, she still had to listen to the duel master.

Vartu often says things to sound like an asshole, but not once has his advice failed her. The hardest lesson she’d learned over the two years with him was that the most important lessons were often from people you dislike the most. Nilda concentrated on jogging as she studied Vartu out of the corner of her eye. Would she say that she respected the man now? Maybe. She certainly still didn’t like him.

“Leton doesn’t pay me for people to like me,” he once said. Nilda had forgotten the context, but she remembered he said it as if he was enjoying the fact. Perhaps he thought when people disliked him, he would seem more powerful by disregarding them. People always wanted more power, that was the common thread for everyone she’s met; the type of power they wanted varied.

Nilda shifted up the load of rocks on her back to ease the growing ache in her knees. For now she wanted the power to keep Taurin safe. Beating Vartu at sparring can come later.

“Do you think your little mistress will still go to that stupid party tonight?” Vartu called out as she ran past him.

“She didn’t say anything about not going,” Nilda huffed.

“Parts-damn it, even after what happened at the college?”

“Taurin does what Taurin wants,” Nilda shrugged, or did as much as a shrug as she could with rocks weighing down her body. She then flashed him a smile. “It’s not her fault your men are useless.”

Instead of his usual quips back at her, Vartu fell silent, a troubled look occupying his face.

“If you’re so worried about it… maybe you should come to the party with us… with the security detail,” Nilda said as she passed him again. She caught his startled look as she ran past.

“Oh, is my cocky apprentice not confident she can fend off assassins anymore?” he retorted.

“Your apprentice? I’m Taurin’s handmaid,” Nilda snorted.

“Sure and I’m the Gaian Emperor’s left nut.”

Nilda finished her lap and slowed in front of Vartu. “Why do you think they were after her?” she asked him.

“Lord Leton has many enemies now that he’s made his ambitions to be senator public,” Vartu said. It was strange how distracted he was. He didn’t even reprimand her for stalling her run. “It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.”

“Your men were almost an embarrassment,” Nilda snorted. “Luckily Taurin seems to have some secret admirer willing to be her protection.”

Vartu stared at her, then abruptly got up and headed back to the house. Nilda called out after him - he never left in the middle of training. He left her behind, standing stupidly in the middle of the beach. She decided to finish her laps anyway.

That night, Nilda and her mistress went to the ‘stupid party’ with six new guards, but Vartu was not one of them.