Azure Mist's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

Morning light slid through the window curtains. Azure woke first, tangled in the narrow bed. Jade lay against her, warm, both of them in thin sleep clothes that hid nothing. Azure watched her teacher breathe. Six styles left now. They had trained hard for a week, and still the tournament clock pressed on her mind. Jade stirred. Her eyes opened, green and sharp even half-asleep. She looked at Azure and something in her face softened. "You're awake," she said. "I couldn't sleep past dawn." Azure pushed a strand of black hair off Jade's cheek. "I kept counting the days." Jade leaned in and kissed her. Slow, unhurried, no lesson in it. Azure kissed back and let her hand rest on Jade's bare shoulder. For a moment the tournament fell away. They held each other in the small warm bed, and Azure felt her chest loosen the way it only did here. Then Jade pulled back. She studied Azure's face too long. "You learn fast," she said. "Faster than anyone I've trained. Four styles in a week." She sat up. The blanket slid off her. "That worries me." Azure sat up too. "Why would that worry you?" "Because you don't need me much longer." Jade reached for her green swords, leaning by the door, and set them across her lap. She ran a thumb along one flat edge. "Six styles left. At this pace, three weeks. Then you fight." Azure watched her hands on the blades. "Then we keep training." "We do." Jade's voice slowed, the way it did when a thing mattered to her. "But when you win, you leave. That's the shape of this." She met Azure's eyes. "I've had things taken from me. I don't hold what I can't keep." Azure understood then. The training and the bed had become one thing to her, and Jade was pulling them apart on purpose. Protecting herself before the ending came. "I entered this tournament to prove something," Azure said. "That a small girl can beat any seasoned fighter. I still want that." She took Jade's wrist, the way Jade had taken hers the night before. "Wanting it doesn't mean I stop wanting this." Jade held still. She did not pull away. "You can't have both after the ring," she said. "Win, and you're gone from these woods." "Then I'll come back." Jade almost smiled. She set the swords aside and stood. "Get dressed. We start the fifth style now. No mercy today." She pulled on her leathers, fast and sure, the tender morning gone from her hands. Azure rose and reached for her clothes. She had learned the styles quickly and grown close to Jade at the same time. Now she saw the cost of both. Jade would push her toward a finish line that ended them. Azure would have to win the tournament and find a way back to this cabin. She fastened her belt and followed Jade out into the cold morning, ready to fight.