Hunger dragged Arawn back to the living world. He pulled the blanket over his head, hiding himself, but his stomach refused to let go. It was as empty as the abyss and demanded to be filled; otherwise, the suffering would continue.
With a groan, Arawn rolled out of bed. He winced, almost crying out in surprise. Every part of him hurt. He felt like the day before he had lied down in front of a stampeding cow herd and let it run all over him. What had he been thinking?
Dressing up took five times longer than usual, but Arawn finally got ready and went downstairs.
It was lunchtime, so the inn was bustling with activity. Upon noticing him, the innkeeper nodded at him, saying he'll get the food ready. Arawn thanked him and dropped into the chair of the first empty table he saw.
Corwal showed up before the food. He came from outside, clearly having woken up much earlier.
"Good morning, sleepy head," he said with a smile and sat down. "How are you feeling today?"
"Like I'd prefer to never train with you again."
The man chuckled while leaning back against his chair. "It wasn't that bad. I'm thinking we should have a session every evening."
"You're insane," Arawn told him in a low voice. He was still half asleep, but he raised his eyes to glower at his companion.
After the food came, they ate in silence. Once finished, they had nothing to do so Corwal decided to continue their lessons. He taught Arawn counting and writing for most of the day, while in the evening, he pulled him out to train his fighting skills.
Arawn resisted, but more because he could barely move from all the bruises than because he was not interested. It was something he needed, after all, to one day become independent.
This time, Corwal was a lot less maniacal. Since Arawn attacked him without any complaints, he began to actually teach instead of just giving him a good beating. Every time he got past Arawn's guard, he explained what could have been done to stop him. Some of it was unfamiliarity with a moving offensive, but it could be defended against if one had a good grasp of what was about to happen.
"It was smart to try to blind me, but think about your attacks. If I can't see, of course I'm going to defend my head, so aim for my legs or chest. Your ether blades are lethal no matter where you hit, so why do you keep focusing on my head and heart? It's not an arrow you're shooting! Besides, crippling an opponent is often even better than outright killing them."
"Faster! Be faster with your attacks! I could see them coming from a mile away!"
"Is that what you call mind games? Start actually using your brain! Did you really think I'd not see you holding your hand behind your back the whole time?"
"Come on, you're not limited by the amount of ether, so use it! Why are you acting like you're gonna run out?"
When Corwal called an end to the two hour long practice, Arawn dropped to the ground and refused to get up. His bruises had bruises. The day before, he had thought that he came close to defeating Corwal, but now he was almost sure he had imagined that part.
What defeating, he couldn't even touch the man. His ether was no better than a straw sword held up against a steel blade. Despite reality not being quite like that, Arawn was starting to believe Corwal had some exemption from how nature worked. Ether was supposed to be the most superior material!
Arawn's absolute affinity to it was what had kept him locked up. He was told over and over again that people could not resist it, which was why he needed to be contained.
And Corwal was silently proving them wrong with every strike. To him, Arawn was nothing more than a child playing with something he couldn't understand or control. It was simpler than simple to defeat him.
While lying on the ground and staring at the darkening sky, Arawn couldn't help the resentment building up in his heart. If he was so useless, why had he been locked up for so long? What monster and abomination? He was nothing more than a pitiful mistake on the world's part.
Yet one that had done an unimaginable crime. His hands were dirty enough that serial killers were innocent before him.
"Are you planning to sleep here?" Corwal asked with wind blowing his hair.
He was standing in the middle of the clearing, his sword already sheathed. There was a light smile on his face, but the setting sun shining straight at his face highlighted the shadows under his eyes. The dark blue bags were humongous, making it obvious that he hadn't slept in a while.
Arawn forced himself to get up while asking, "Is everything all right?"
"Yeah? Why do you ask?" Corwal looked at him with some surprise, then his smile grew wider. "Are you trying to weasel out of tomorrow's practice? No chance. With our bad luck, you need to learn to defend yourself. Now."
'Maybe I'm just seeing things…' Arawn wondered.
They returned to the inn and took a bath before going to sleep. The next day there was still no news from Rain, so they continued with the studies. In the afternoon, Val came to visit them, but they could offer him nothing, so he soon left.
On the third day, a messenger from Rain finally arrived. She asked them to meet her in a few hours at her tavern.
The place was almost deserted when they came there. Most of the tavern's patrons were the mercenaries, and they were back in the woods. This left the large building silent and eerie.
Rain was in her room on the first floor. They heard her voice the moment they entered the tavern, and it was soon followed by Betty's.
"You can't trust them! Can't you see this? They might turn on you the moment you're alone."
"And they might not. I'm willing to take the risk," Rain answered in a raised voice, but it wasn't frantic like Betty's. She seemed calm.
Her companion, however, was not. "Who cares about that name! We can just take up a new one! It's not like—"
"Enough, Betty. I value your council, but my decision has been made. Broken Talon was the name my father chose, and I'll do whatever I can to keep it."
Arawn and Corwal exchanged a look before making their way up the stairs. It seemed that they had come a bit too early, or just on time if it was a play arranged for their entertainment. One could never know with such things.
"Are we interrupting something?" Corwal asked while stopping at the door to the room.
The two women turned to them. Betty glared at them like they had eaten the last cookie while Rain motioned for them to come inside. "No, sit down. You won't like what I'm going to tell you."
"Even more than last time when you told me nothing? I doubt that."
Arawn also sat down. He didn't know his role in their negotiations, but he felt like he should have one. Lately, he was coming to realize that as unstoppable as Corwal was in battle, he wasn't that good at interacting with humans. He could be charming when he wanted, but he rarely put that skill to use.
"I'll get straight to the point then. Claus is a real piece of work. He not only never brought records of his latest assignments, he even ran away with the few ether artefacts we possessed. He also took away the only man who knew how to use them."
"Sounds like you're gonna have some trouble ahead of you, but how does that concern me?" Corwal asked when Rain took a breath.
She picked a scroll from her couch and passed it over the table. Corwal unrolled it, and Arawn leaned over to take a look. Inside, he saw a drawing of a shimmering cloak. Below it were two smaller drawings. One detailed a normal human figure while the other only had the head.
A thousand questions rose in Arawn's head while Corwal's face filled with surprise. He snapped his head up and took in Rain's figure as if seeing her anew. "Where did you get your hands on a Glimmer Cloak? Even I haven't got one."
"What's a Glimmer Cloak?" Arawn asked. He had never even heard the name.
"Invisibility. They're notoriously hard to make, which is why there's so few of them around," Corwal said, and his eyes returned to the drawings. His finger traced the contours of the cloak lovingly. "Ether is trapped in the outer layer of the cloak, and it plays with people's perception once activated. Anyone who puts on this cloak can walk through any guards without raising a single alarm.
"It's like cheating, if you ask me, but who wouldn't want one? I once fought a person using it, and I can tell you, it was hell. My ears would tell me that he was right before me, but I could see nothing."
"Liar," Betty sneered. "If you had won, you would have the cloak now. Stop pretending to be more than you are."
Corwal didn't even glance her way. "I did win, but… the cloak went to my sire. He took it from my hands and told me to scram. Now that he had a Glimmer Cloak, I was no longer necessary."
Arawn instantly knew who the sire he mentioned was—the king of all of Ayersbert. This suggested a story, but Corwal didn't seem in the mood to share. He gave the cloak a last admiring look and put the scroll on the table, where it swiftly rolled back up.
"So you're saying that's how they kidnapped the princess?"
"I'm telling you that they have it in their arsenal. Claus could be sitting in this very room, and we wouldn't be able to know."
That was an unnerving thought, but Corwal shook his head straight away. "There are ways to see them. Glimmer Cloaks are ingenious, but they're not omnipotent. The person will make noise, and… Well, suffice it to say my sire explored the cloak's strengths and weaknesses. It has some."
"Good then, because we'll be going after one. I don't know the exact location, but men talk. Before leaving, some of Claus' people had let it slip that their next job was larger than anything they've done before. They were going to join a conspiracy in which even Ayersbert's hounds were involved.
"My plan then is to go to Ayersbert and find one of those elusive glorified butchers. With your knowledge and my strength, it shouldn't..." Noticing something wrong, Rain narrowed her eyes. "What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?"