Zap Stormspike's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

Morning came gray over the yard. The teacher led Zap past the copper rod to a fresh corner of the property. A yellow sign was staked in the dirt: CAUTION LIGHTNING PRACTICE. Behind it stood three straw-backed targets on wooden legs, painted with bright red and blue rings. The paint looked wet. Not a scorch mark on any of them. "A beginner's range," the teacher said. "You will mark one of these today. That is the only goal." Zap walked the line and touched the center target. The straw smelled clean. Past the fence, the rusted electrical tower hummed with the power Zap could not reach. Zap pulled the headphones down around their neck this time. "I want to hear it work," they said. The teacher nodded and stepped back. Zap raised a hand. A thin spark hissed out and died in the air a foot from the target. Again. The second one tapped the straw and left nothing. Twelve more tries. Twelve more failures. Zap's hair crackled, weak and tired. "It's the same as yesterday," Zap said. The teacher walked to a wooden easel set apart from the rest. On it sat a single pristine board, rings crisp from center to edge. "Try this one," the teacher said. "It is closer. Aim small." Zap stepped up. The red dot at the center was the size of a coin. Zap thought of the fish cart, the broken door, the hound that ate a house. Their hand shook. Then they remembered what the teacher had said. Control is not size. Zap stopped reaching for the tower in the distance. They reached for the coin instead. The spark left their finger slow. It crossed the air in a clean line and struck the red dot. A small black mark bloomed on the wood. Zap stared. The teacher walked over and pressed a thumb to the burn. It smudged. "You scorched it," the teacher said. "Small. Aimed. Yours." Zap laughed once, surprised, then went quiet. The mark was barely the size of a fingernail. But it was a mark. The progress rod by the fence ticked up another notch on its own, the orange climbing one bar higher. The teacher's face changed then. Not pleased. Careful. "That is the line," they said. "You can damage a target now. That means you can damage a person." They pointed past the yard, toward a heavy gray building Zap had not noticed before, squat and windowless, with thick orange doors. "Live drills happen there. The Sparkbound Hall. Students go in able to spark. They come out able to fight, or they do not come out the same." Zap looked at the burn on the board, then at the doors. The weapon was no longer impossible. It was waiting on the other side of a wall.