Fivefold Gravity
When the Bellac of the Purple Forest had been House Rubuaene’s trouble alone, the rest of the world had stood by with their hands clasped behind their backs. Now Bellac were appearing even in the Imperial Capital.
Among the people of the capital, kept safe behind the Great Barrier, there would surely be those who had never once laid eyes on a Bellac. Even so, the creatures could not have broken the barrier and walked in. This appearance, whatever else it was, had been made by human hands.
The cult, then.
There was only one place worth suspecting. And in a moment like this, rebuilding the Black Knights in earnest could only profit the ducal house. It was difficult to imagine how it might do them harm.
The Temple will have its hands full.
He held the note to the lamp until it caught, then looked down at the chessboard. He lifted the queen, advanced her a single square, took in the whole of the board, and closed his eyes.
Just before the eastern sky began to pale, Jin came out onto the training ground and stretched long and hard. Nina strode out, bright as the morning itself, and called a greeting.
“Hey. Good morning.”
“Yeah. Good morning.”
Hope plain in his voice, Jin asked,
“So what are we training today?”
“Fundamentals.”
“Huh?”
“Fundamentals. Whatever you mean to do, the base has to be sound first. The answer is your legs and your core.”
“Fundamentals…”
“You make a face like that, and then you wonder why you never get any better.”
“Wow. You really will just say anything.”
“Want to test it, then? If you so much as graze me once, I’ll move you up to the next stage.”
“Spirits aside?”
At Jin’s question, Nina nodded.
“Spirits aside.”
“Good.”
His voice was all confidence. Nina held out a wooden practice sword.
“And you?”
“Bare hands are plenty for me.”
“…I’m not going easy.”
“You’d better not, Vice-Captain. Have a look and see just how far your captain’s skill goes.”
If he saw it for himself, he would have no complaint later when she worked him to the bone. Nina grinned.
Jin faced her and raised the wooden sword. Taking that for the signal, the two of them crashed together. At the first pass, try as he might, there was no real strength in his blade. Then Nina slipped the sword and drove a fist into his solar plexus, and the match changed character.
“Hey—cough—are you serious?”
“I held back.”
“If I hadn’t, you’d be flat on the ground right now.”
Nina shook her head, and at last weight settled into Jin’s sword. Even so, he could not so much as catch a strand of her swaying hair. She wasted nothing on needless evasion. By the thickness of a sheet of paper she let his blade go past, and her fists found him again and again—the ribs, the back, the neck, the base of the skull.
For Jin, it was enough to make him want to leap out of his skin. To hit him with a fist she had to come in that close, and yet the wooden sword would not touch her at all. Little by little he began to mean it. By the end he was pouring killing intent into every strike, and still not one of them landed. A kick caught him instead, and Jin went tumbling until he slammed to a stop.
“Ah—sorry. I kicked that one for real. You all right?”
Startled by a kick she herself had thrown, Nina hurried over. Jin stayed curled around his stomach, groaning, then lifted a face bright with unshed tears.
“Fundamentals… I’ll do them.”
“There you go.”
Smiling, Nina hauled him upright.
“All right. First—”
She drew a deep breath and spoke the incantation.
“O Sun, great star.”
“Grant unto us, too, the bending of space and time, and let the force that draws all things grow stronger.”
⟨ The Sun ⟩
“Agh—?!”
All at once Jin felt his whole body pressed down, and he caught himself against the ground. Nina sounded delighted.
“Whoa. It actually works. Five times gravity!”
Cold sweat was already sliding down her temple.
“But the drain on my spirit is brutal.”
This was not a single casting and done. She had to keep drawing on the spirit’s power without pause, and she did not think she could hold it for long.
Even so, I ought to see it through today. If I spend spirit and stamina together, I need to know how far that takes me.
Knowing one’s own limit mattered.
“Let us begin today’s fundamental training.”
Nina took up an iron practice sword. If she meant to keep her body at its peak, she would have to forge it without rest. Seeing her raise the blade, Jin barely managed to stand and lifted an iron sword of his own.
By the time morning training ended, Jin was as limp and ragged as wet tissue. Nina was soaked through with sweat as well. He set his jaw. She had trained at twice his speed.
Ha… but I can’t. Not another step.
Will had nothing left to do with it. His body was already crying its limit, and there was nowhere on him that did not hurt.
Nina released the gravity and drew a long breath.
“Honestly. There isn’t a single easy thing about this.”
It had not been easy for her, either. Even so, she had not ended up sprawled so thoroughly that she could not twitch a finger, the way Jin had.
“Jin, rest a little, then go in and wash.”
He could not manage an answer. He only groaned. Nina rinsed herself off roughly at the well and ate her breakfast, and once she had cleared something like eight plates of potatoes roasted to a deep gold, she made for Kirill’s greenhouse.
Inside, every sort of medicinal herb and grass was growing. Following the name tags, Nina found the bed where the plants she had brought were set.
“O golden Sun—warm and merciful light.”
“Gentleness that conceives life and bids it grow, the light that gives plants their joy—pour that light here as well.”
⟨ The Sun ⟩
Golden light glittered and began to scatter across the soil.
“Huh? Oh—it’s taking!”
It’s taking. It’s taking!
The plants surged up at once. Buds knit, and a flower began to open—
What?
In that instant her spirit ran utterly dry, and the world before her eyes went black.
When she came to, she was on a bed in the apothecary.
“Huh…”
“Huh, nothing. Don’t make that empty-headed noise.”
Kirill’s bark turned Nina’s head. Those deep blue eyes were fixed on her, brimful of irritation.
“And where exactly does one find an idiot who burns a spirit’s power until she faints? Ah. Right here.”
Kirill smacked her across the forehead with the muddler in her hand.
“Ow!”
Tears sprang to Nina’s eyes, and she shot Kirill a look full of protest, but there was no strength in her body. She could not so much as crook a finger. It was nothing like hunger, and nothing like sore muscle.
So this is what it feels like when your spirit is dragged out of you.
Something was hollow, and the strength was gone, and she could not have named it more exactly than that. Her whole body was cold, as if the heat had leaked away.
“I don’t… have any strength.”
Nina let out a heavy sigh, and Kirill clicked her tongue.
“Do you have any idea how badly you frightened everyone, collapsed in the greenhouse like that?”
Kirill remembered the moment she had stepped inside. Adrian was already there. He had been looking down at Nina where she lay at his feet, standing rigid as a carving, as if he could not even bring himself to see whether she was hurt. It was Kirill who had run to her in alarm. Only when she said the girl was merely asleep did Adrian seem to draw breath again. She had already given him a thorough scolding, so now it was Nina’s turn.
She spooned in a medicine bitter enough to take the tongue off and poured the lecture over her until Nina’s mind was mush—and that was when Adrian came in. Kirill rose.
“She’s taken the medicine. All that remains is for her to rest and recover her spirit.”
Adrian inclined his head a fraction, and Kirill withdrew without another word.
He came close to the bedside and looked down at her. Nina let out a miserable little groan.
“Just now I had to swallow medicine so bitter I’d rather have died, and then listen to Kirill scold me. Please go a little easy.”
Adrian frowned. Then he shifted her aside and climbed onto the bed.
It was a narrow bed. If the two of them were to lie there, they would have to press close. Adrian drew her in until she could rest against his shoulder, and the plump pillow at her back did the work of a backrest. Vile as Kirill’s medicine tasted, its effect was excellent. Warmth returned to the ends of Nina’s fingers and toes, and a little strength with it.
“Nina La Del.”
“Yes.”
“What was so urgent?”
At that she lifted her head to look at him, then sank back against his shoulder and sighed.
“We already threw two whole years away.”
The weak words slipped out before she knew it.