The Curse of Arcadia

The tower didn't get any less brutal the third day. Or the fourth.

"One lap," Yami said, same as always, and Kaelid went, legs still carrying yesterday's ache into today's run like a debt that never quite cleared.

The pattern held for most of the week — a lap around the wall to start, four thousand swings, hours of sparring that left him face-down in the snow more often than not. Some mornings Yami said nothing at all beyond the number. Others he added a correction mid-swing that Kaelid wouldn't fully understand until his body caught up to it two or three strikes later.

Getting better. Slowly. Still slowly. But slowly's better than not at all.

On the fifth day, Yami looked at him for a long moment before giving the order.

"Two laps."

Kaelid didn't argue. Arguing had never once worked, and some stubborn part of him wanted to see if he could actually survive it before he found out whether he couldn't.

He could, barely — twelve miles instead of six, the second lap slower and uglier than the first, legs shaking through the swings that followed. Yami didn't comment on it either way, which had started to feel like its own kind of answer.

The sixth day brought five thousand swings instead of four — the extra thousand split evenly across the diagonals, a new motion entirely that opened old bruises in new places before his body figured out the angle. Sparring that evening lasted longer than it ever had, the two of them trading blows well past dark, Yami's blade finding him less often than it used to but still often enough to remind him exactly how far he had left to go.

He's not going easy on me. He's just watching to see when I'll actually break.

He didn't break. He came close, more than once, but he didn't break, and by the seventh day — one lap again, the swings back down to four thousand, like Yami had decided the point had been made — something in his body had actually changed. The run didn't wreck him the way it had a week ago. The swings still hurt, but they hurt like exertion instead of punishment.

"Better," Yami said at the end of it, which was still the whole of his praise, and still somehow enough to carry Kaelid home smiling despite everything that ached.

He hadn't taken a single job all week. Aria had checked in twice — once at the guild, once outside his inn, both times with the same faint concern about whether he'd forgotten how to eat or sleep like a normal person — and both times he'd told her the same thing.

"Training first. Jobs when there's time for them."

"There's never time for them if it's always training first."

"There will be. Just — not yet."

She hadn't pushed it past that, which he appreciated more than he said out loud.

***

By the eighth morning, his coin pouch had gone from thin to nearly empty, rent eating into what little the wolf job had left him, and it was the thought of finally having his new sword that got him moving toward Ring 2 instead of the tower for once.

John said a few days. It's been more than a few days now.

The bell over the door announced him the same way it had the first time, bright and cheerful against the hammering coming from the back.

"One minute!"

True to word. John emerged wiping soot-streaked hands on his apron, and broke into an actual grin the second he recognized him.

"There he is. Was starting to wonder if you'd forgotten where my shop was."

"Been a little busy." Kaelid rubbed the back of his neck. "Training's eaten most of my week."

"Good. Means you're taking this seriously." John disappeared into the back and returned a moment later carrying something wrapped in cloth, setting it down on the counter with more ceremony than the moment probably warranted. "Go on, then."

Kaelid unwrapped it.

The sword inside was a Jian — straight, double-edged, the blade a deep, near-obsidian black that seemed to swallow the shop's lamplight rather than throw it back. The crossguard curved simple and clean, the grip wrapped tight in what looked like the crabta's own hide, dark and textured under his palm.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

A brand new sword. And it's all mine.

"Her name's Mercy," John said, watching his face with obvious satisfaction. "Seemed right, given where she came from. First thing that nearly killed you, turned into the thing that's going to keep you alive from here on out." He tapped the flat of the blade once with a thick finger. "One enchant on her — [Density]. Lets you shift her weight at will. Heavy as a boulder when you need the extra force behind a swing, light as a feather when you need the speed instead. Took some doing to get that stable in a blade this size, so don't go wasting it."

Kaelid turned her over once, testing the balance, and found nothing to complain about even if he'd known enough yet to look for it.

"She's perfect."

"She's a start," John corrected, not unkindly. "Perfect's a few years and a lot more fighting away yet. But she'll get you there." He nodded past Kaelid toward the door. "Your archer friend inside yet, or is she planning on standing out there all day?"

Kaelid turned to find Aria already halfway through the door, bow slung over one shoulder, wolf cores in a small pouch at her hip.

"Wasn't planning on interrupting a moment," she said, mildly amused. "But since we're both here—"

"Perfect timing, actually." John waved her up to the counter. "Let's see what you've got."

She laid out the three wolf cores from the second job — the ones she'd kept back just over a week ago for exactly this — and John turned each one over with the same careful attention he'd given Kaelid's haul.

"Whelp-class, Ordinary, all three. Not the flashiest material in the world, but consistent. That's worth something on its own." He glanced up. "What are we building?"

"A bow that doesn't hold me back," Aria said. "Draw strength's always been the weak point on what I've got now. I want something that actually keeps up."

John considered that, weighing the cores together in his palm the way he had with Kaelid's. "Three cores gets you something solid. I can work three enchants into her — [Silent], so she won't give away your position on the draw. [Freeze], chills and slows whatever your arrows actually land on. And [Absolute Zero] — once a day, she'll pull in the surrounding cold and pack it into a single arrow dense enough to do real damage. Trump card, not something you lean on every fight."

Aria stared at him a beat too long, like she was waiting for the catch. "That's — three cores gets me all of that?" A grin broke loose before she could stop it. "That's all I'm asking for. That's more than I was asking for."

"Give me a few days. Longer than the daggers, since I'm starting from nothing rather than reshaping something." He glanced toward the back of the shop, then back at them both. "Speaking of — the daggers are close. Couple more days, maybe three. Come back for those first."

Kaelid felt something small and warm settle in his chest at that, already half-thinking ahead to what came after, though he didn't say any of it out loud yet.

"We'll be back," he said instead.

***

The next two days went the way most of his days in Avalon had started to — up the tower before the sun was fully over the wall, home again well after dark, body running on the same stubborn fuel that had carried him this far already. Aria took a light job of her own in the meantime, something quick and solo that didn't need him, and didn't ask him to come along. He didn't offer.

Training first, he reminded himself, more than once, mostly on the days it would have been easier not to. Jobs when there's time for them.

On the tenth day since he'd first climbed that tower, Yami surprised him.

"No run today."

Kaelid blinked. "...What?"

"Sparring only. Full contact." A flicker of something that might, on a more expressive man, have been the beginning of a smile. "You've earned that much, at least."

It didn't feel like a reward in the moment — Yami came at him harder than he ever had, faster, no restrictions this time on what Kaelid could or couldn't do back — but by the end of it, bruised in three new places and grinning despite the pain in a way that would've embarrassed him a week ago, it felt like exactly what it was.

Progress. Real progress. Finally.

***

He and Aria went back to John's together two days after that, both of them checking the calendar of their own restraint more than once on the walk over.

The bell rang the same cheerful note. John met them at the counter already holding two matching sheaths, twin daggers nestled inside, blades a dark, mottled grey that seemed to drink the shop's light the same way Mercy's had caught it.

"Death and Taxes," John said, setting them down with the air of a man who'd been waiting all week to say it out loud. "Seemed fitting. Nothing in this world's more certain than either one." He picked one up, turning the mottled grey blade so it caught the light. "One enchant, shared between the pair — [Rot]. Whatever was still rotting in those wolf cores when I worked them didn't want to let go, so I built around it instead of burning it out. Blades carry a faint aura of it now — anything they wound keeps rotting after the fact, not just bleeding. Nasty, but effective. Wash your hands after you clean them."

Kaelid picked one up, turning it over — lighter than Mercy by a wide margin, built for speed rather than reach, the grip wrapped in the same wolf hide the blades had come from.

Death and Taxes. Guess that's officially their names now, whether I picked them or not.

He didn't say anything about the name landing before he'd had a real chance to think one up himself. It felt right regardless, the kind of thing that would've sounded worse if he'd tried too hard to invent it.

"They're good," he said instead, which felt inadequate and true at the same time.

"They're better than good, but I'll take the modesty." John waved off the coin Kaelid started counting out. "Already settled from last time. These were part of the same job."

Kaelid thanked him properly and stepped back outside with Aria, both daggers now wrapped and stowed in his pack alongside Mercy — three pieces of gear that had all, in one way or another, come from things that had very nearly killed him.

Guess that's one way to build a collection.