Vesper Rayne's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The rune came off in the mirror. Vesper worked a wet cloth over his chest and scrubbed until the glowing lines faded, then died. His skin looked bare and dull without them. For weeks that rune had pulled every eye straight to his muscles. Now nothing did. He stood back and studied his reflection. The judges would look at him and their gaze would wander. He had a body and no way to steer their eyes to it. He put on the leather strap and nothing else. The polished leather sat clean against his hip. He opened the rulebook to the diagrams of legal poses and set it on the floor where he could see it. Then he began. He raised both arms and flexed. He held the pose and watched himself in the mirror, trying to see what a judge would see. His eyes slid everywhere. Face, then shoulder, then the strap, then the window. Nothing held them. The rune had done that work for him, and he had leaned on it too long. He dropped his arms, frustrated. He tried again, faster, jerking through the poses in the book. Each one looked stiff. He was just a man tensing in an empty room. He stopped and made himself think. The rune worked because it moved. It drew a line the eye had to follow. He could not glow. But he could move. He lifted one arm slow, then turned his chest into the light. The shadow shifted across his stomach. His own eye followed it. He held there, then rolled his shoulder, and the light rolled with it. He did it again. This time he did not rush. He led with one hand, opened his chest, and let the muscle catch the light as it turned. His gaze locked on the motion and stayed. It worked. Not with a rune. With timing. He was making the light do what the tattoo used to do. He drilled it for hours. He matched each pose in the book to a turn or a lift that pulled the eye. He learned where to slow down. He learned when to hold still so the crowd's attention could land and settle. Sweat ran down his back. The strap held. By dark he could run all three passes without breaking the thread that carried a viewer's eyes across his body. He wiped his face and looked at the mirror one last time. The rune was gone for good. He did not need it. He had traded a trick painted on his skin for a skill inside his own muscles. But he had built this alone, in a quiet room, in front of no one. A mirror never looked away. A mirror never judged. He had four weeks and a routine that worked on glass. Now he had to test it on people who could turn their backs.