Chapter 20: Midnight Instruction
The training yard at midnight was empty the way graveyards were empty, technically vacant but haunted by everything that had happened there. Orin arrived first, which meant he got to spend quality time contemplating his mortality while the academy's stones judged him for agreeing to public execution disguised as a sanctioned duel.
Lyra appeared through the darkness like she'd been practicing dramatic entrances, which she probably had. Twelve years of aristocratic conditioning didn't just teach you ice cultivation. It taught you how to arrive like you owned the space and everyone in it was renting.
"You're early." She set down a bag that clinked with what sounded like training equipment or possibly medieval torture devices. Hard to tell with nobility.
"Couldn't sleep. Too busy imagining Garrett breaking my spine in front of everyone who's decided I represent hope."
"That's the spirit. Defeatism is so very attractive." She pulled out practice swords, wooden but weighted to approximate real blades. Tossed one to him. "Catch."
He caught it, felt the balance. Decent craftsmanship, the kind of practice equipment that cost more than his theoretical dignity. "What are we doing?"
"Teaching you to fight like someone who trained instead of someone who absorbed training." She took a stance, blade held in guard position that looked effortless. Twelve years of practice made everything look easy. "Your stolen techniques are solid foundation. But they're muscle memory without understanding. You can execute the moves, but you don't know why they work."
"Does the why matter if the what works?"
"It matters when your opponent understands the why and exploits gaps you don't know exist." She attacked, fast but controlled, blade cutting toward his shoulder. "Block."
Orin blocked, Richard's stolen technique activating through his muscles. The parry was textbook, exactly how a veteran would respond. Lyra's next strike came at his knee. He shifted, deflected, countered with thrust at her center mass.
She slapped it aside like she was bored. "See? You're executing perfectly but predictably. Those are standard responses from standard training. Garrett's seen them a thousand times. He'll read you three moves ahead."
"Then teach me unpredictable."
"I can't teach unpredictable. But I can teach you to recognize patterns and break them intentionally." She reset, attacked again. This time Orin tried varying his response, mixing Richard's technique with his own improvisation. It worked poorly. His blade ended up in wrong position, defense compromised, opening created.
Lyra's practice sword stopped an inch from his throat. "That's better. You failed, but you failed trying something new. Do that fifty more times and maybe you'll stumble into competence."
They drilled for an hour, Lyra systematically breaking down his techniques, showing him where they were strong and where they were predictable. She fought with precision that made violence look like a geometry problem, everything was calculated, nothing wasted.
"You've got a strength advantage," she said during a break, both of them breathing hard despite essence-enhanced stamina. "Sixty-four strength versus his depleted essence. Use that. Get close, overpower his technique with raw force."
"That's not dueling. That's brawling."
"Dueling's just formalized brawling with rules that favor people who can afford the training." She demonstrated a grapple, showing how to close distance and neutralize blade work. "You're not here to win elegantly. You're here to win visibly without draining him. Exploit every advantage, fuck the aesthetics."
"Inspiring coaching philosophy."
"I'm not inspiring you. I'm preventing you from dying stupidly." But she said it softer, some of the ice melting around the edges. "You've got people depending on your survival now. Maya and her gathering, the blackstones who think you prove climbing's possible. Me."
The last word hung between them, smaller than the others but carrying more weight. Orin lowered his practice sword, studied her in the moonlight. She looked tired, the kind of exhaustion that came from maintaining perfect performance while everything underneath was screaming.
"Why do you care if I survive?"
"Because you're interesting, and interesting people are rare." She said it quick, deflection wearing honesty's stolen clothing. "Also because watching you fight Garrett will determine whether anomalies can thrive or if they just get crushed more creatively. I've got personal interest in that outcome."
"Personal how?"
She was quiet, ice cultivation making the air cold around her, visible breath in the November darkness. When she spoke, her voice had lost its aristocratic polish.
"My family's technique requires eliminating everything inefficient, including emotions that might compromise circulation purity. I spent twelve years becoming perfect ice cultivator. Know what I learned? Perfection's just acceptable term for emotionally dead." She met his eyes. "Then you showed up, a blackstone who shouldn't exist, consuming people and carrying their ghosts, openly broken and somehow still climbing. That's more alive than anything I've managed."
"That's pretty fucked up basis for caring about someone."
"All my bases are fucked up. At least this one's honest." She raised her sword again. "Now stop having feelings and learn how to not die tomorrow. We've got four more hours before dawn and you're still telegraphing every attack."
They trained until his muscles screamed and her breath came ragged despite perfect essence circulation. She taught him dirty tricks that formal dueling instructors would never mention. How to feint high and strike low. How to use footwork to control distance. How to make opponents react to threats that didn't exist, creating openings where there shouldn't be any.
"You're getting better," she said around three AM, both of them sitting against the yard's wall, exhaustion making conversation easier. "Still probably going to lose, but at least you'll lose interestingly."
"Your confidence in me is boundless."
"I'm realistic. Garrett's trained six years in formal dueling. You've trained six hours in improvised survival." She handed him water, their fingers brushing in the exchange. "But you've got one advantage he doesn't."
"What's that?"
"You've got nothing to lose. He's fighting to reclaim his status, prove his depletion was a temporary setback. You're fighting because refusing would confirm every terrible thing the hierarchy says about blackstones." She leaned her head back against stone. "Desperation makes people dangerous. You're weaponized desperation wearing flesh. Use that."
They sat in comfortable silence, the kind that only existed between people too tired for a performance. Above them, stars did their indifferent burning, same light that had witnessed everything and cared about none of it.
"Thank you," Orin said finally. "For this. For teaching me. For giving a fuck when most people would rather I disappeared quietly."
"You're welcome. Also you're buying me extremely expensive dinner if you survive tomorrow."
"I'm a blackstone. My funds are a bit on the low side." He smiled wryly.
"Then you'll owe me, which means I have financial interest in your continued existence. That's a sound investment strategy I think." But she was smiling, actual warmth breaking through her winter architecture. "Come on. Dawn's coming and you need rest before you get your spine broken for everyone's entertainment."
They walked back toward the dormitories, past buildings where students slept peacefully, unaware that tomorrow's spectacle would determine whether their comfortable hierarchies stayed comfortable or got complicated by variables that refused to stay crushed.
At the split where north wing and basement diverged, Lyra stopped him.
"Fox. Real advice, from someone who actually wants you alive." Her expression was serious, ice-blue eyes holding his. "If the fight goes badly, if you're losing definitively, don't drain him to survive. Let him win. Take the beating, accept the loss. You can recover from public defeat. You can't recover from confirming you're a monster in front of Crown investigators."
"So I should let him break me? In front of everyone who decided I proved resistance was possible?"
"I'm saying choose your deaths carefully. Losing a duel is temporary. Getting eliminated as a dangerous mutation is permanent." She squeezed his hand, brief contact. "Though between us? I think you'll win. You're too stubborn to lose."
She left him standing at the split, descended toward north wing luxury and her exemplary isolation. Orin continued down to the basement, to his cell and the few hours of sleep he might manage before dawn demanded he perform his scheduled destruction.
He lay on the cot, staring at ceiling stones that had witnessed previous failures, and ran through everything Lyra had taught him. The techniques, the dirty tricks, the understanding that dueling was just violence with agreed-upon aesthetics. His muscles remembered the training, added it to the collection of stolen knowledge that made him a composite person built from fragments.
*Sixty-four strength. Fifty-three durability. Fifty-seven dexterity. Forty-five speed. Attributes that should be enough.*
But should and would were different countries that didn't share borders. Garrett was trained, experienced, motivated by rage that probably enhanced focus. Orin was improvising, cobbling together stolen techniques and midnight lessons, powered by desperation wearing confidence's borrowed clothing.
The void stone pulsed against his palm, hungry as always. It could win this fight, could drain Garrett in front of everyone, consume what remained of his essence and prove definitively that Orin was predator instead of survivor.
*Don't. That's the easy answer that destroys everything.*
He closed his eyes, tried finding sleep, failed comprehensively. His mind kept cycling through scenarios, calculating odds, finding no math that felt comfortable.
Dawn arrived like a verdict, light the color of bad decisions coming home to roost. Orin dressed in training clothes, skipped breakfast because his stomach had voted against solid food, and made his way toward the training grounds where noon would bring either vindication or very public failure.
Students were already gathering, word having spread through the academy like disease through populations without immunity. Green-stones clustered in excited groups, discussing betting pools and probable outcomes. Blue-stones watched with careful neutrality, not wanting to commit before seeing which direction the violence leaned. Blackstones huddled together, maybe fifteen of them from different years, all wearing expressions that said they'd invested too much hope in this symbolic bullshit to walk away.
Maya found him in the gathering crowd. "You look like death."
"Didn't sleep."
"Yeah, I can tell. Your face is doing that thing where it forgets how to pretend everything's fine." She lowered her voice. "There are thirty blackstones and blue-stones here who skipped classes to watch this. They're treating it like a religious experience. You're their proof that the system cracks."
"No pressure then."
"So much pressure. All the fucking pressure." She grabbed his shoulders, forced him to meet her eyes. "Listen. Whatever happens, you already proved blackstones can climb. You passed trials, survived investigations, organized resistance. Winning this fight's just decoration. You've already done the important part."
"Tell that to the thirty people who want me to win."
"I'm telling you that losing to a trained duelist doesn't erase what you've accomplished. It just means you're human instead of invincible." She released him. "Though for what it's worth, I think you'll destroy him. You're too much of a pain in the ass to die here."
She rejoined the blackstone cluster, leaving Orin standing alone in the crowd that was definitely not making him feel like sacrificial offering. He found a wall, leaned against it, watched the training grounds fill with students and instructors who'd decided public dueling was educational.
Lyra appeared beside him like she'd teleported, which given her ice cultivation maybe she had. "Ready?"
"Absolutely not."
"Good. Overconfidence gets you killed. Appropriate terror keeps you sharp." She handed him a practice sword, better quality than last night's training equipment. "Garrett's over there warming up. He's favoring his right side, probably compensating for essence depletion affecting his balance. Target that."
Orin looked across the grounds. Garrett was indeed warming up, running through forms that looked smooth but were missing the essence-enhanced fluidity he'd once possessed. His birthstone was a very dull green, depletion evident. But he moved with confidence born from years of training, the body knowing what to do even without enhancement.
"He's good."
"He's well trained. There's a difference. You've got attributes he doesn't." Lyra's hand found his arm, brief contact. "Remember what I taught you. Close distance, use strength advantage, don't let him control range. And if it goes wrong..."
"Don't drain him. I know."
"I was going to say don't die, but not draining him is good advice too." She squeezed his arm. "Go prove that anomalies are harder to kill than everyone assumes."
Noon arrived with all the drama of institutional scheduling, which was to say punctually and without mercy. Instructor Varen stepped to the center of the training grounds, his presence immediately organizing chaos into supervised violence.
"Sanctioned duel between Garrett Vance and Orin Fox. Standard academy rules apply: first blood, submission, or unconsciousness ends the match. Lethal force prohibited, permanent maiming discouraged." His eyes found Orin's. "No essence draining, Fox. You do that, this ends immediately and we have very different conversation."
So they knew. Of course they knew. Probably had guards ready to intervene if he started consuming Garrett's remaining cultivation.
"Understood."
"Good." Varen gestured them to opposite sides of the circle that had been marked in white paint. "Combatants, take positions. On my mark, you begin."
Orin stepped into the circle, felt the weight of thirty blackstones and five hundred spectators settling on his shoulders. Across from him, Garrett settled into formal dueling stance, blade held in guard position that suggested competence earned through repetition.
The void stone pulsed against his palm. Sixty-four strength coiled in muscles that had been rewritten by consumed cultivation. Midnight training echoing through nervous system alongside stolen techniques from people he'd drained.
*Don't think. Just move. Trust the training and the theft and the desperation that's kept you alive this long.*
"Begin!"
Garrett attacked immediately, no hesitation, blade cutting toward Orin's shoulder in opening that was probably textbook. Orin blocked, Richard's technique activating, steel meeting steel with sound that made the crowd lean forward.
The dance of trying to survive had started, and the music was sharp enough to draw blood.