Lauretta lunged at me; the tip of her rapier cut through the air towards my heart. I stepped off the line and rotated my wrist to fourth position, further pushing her blade away from my body. She withdrew, and we both reset. We both lunged forward again, this time we clipped each other.
“Double! Jack, two. Lauretta 3. The match is hers.” came Orsa’s loud but calm voice. Lauretta and I eased our stances as we both channeled our own recovery magics. Chiara was walking over to heal us both. I started to turn in her direction, but Lauretta captured me first. She pulled my head deep into her cleavage. Her smell: cloves, mint, lavendar, and her sweat mingled together and stirred my lower half—right up until she started berating me.
“Jack, you can’t keep going for doubles. I know you’re frustrated and you want to score on us, but you need to do it cleanly, like your first point of this match.”
“Yeah, well, all of you are so fucking skilled…”, I mumbled against her breasts.
“What was that?” she asked, loosening her grip.
I pulled my head back and looked up at her, my face flush from being crushed against her and the arousal that I was still fighting back. “I said, all of you are so much better than me that it feels frustrating to score so rarely, so I’m taking risks. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”
Lauretta frowned at me. I felt Chiara’s touch on my lower back and her mana soon followed, speeding up my recovery.
“It’s still developing bad habits, Jack. Habits that’ll ruin your chances of winning duels against someone that matches your skill level. We’re not saying don’t be aggressive, but you don’t need to sacrifice an arm to get the throat,” said Orsa from somewhere behind me.
“Let him go, Lauretta,” Orsa continued. “He’s got Ginevra next.”
Lauretta’s eyes flashed with possessiveness briefly before letting me go. However, I grabbed her hand as she was turning to walk away and squeezed. “I’ll take what you said to heart, Lauretta. Thank you,” I said and released her hand. I turned to walk back to my place, but I didn’t miss her cheeks reddening as she stared at me dumbly before clearing her throat and returning to outside the ring.
It was Ginevra’s turn now, and she stepped up to stand across me in the dueling ring. She had recovered wonderfully since her unfortunate bungle a couple weeks ago. She had almost disemboweled me by accident, and if it weren’t for Ippolita’s mana keeping my body in a sort of pseudo stasis, I probably would have died. Ginevra, for her part, was extremely apologetic and was practically worthless as a training partner until I pulled her aside in private.
“Hey,” I said. Ginevra looked at me, but still wouldn’t make eye contact. I sighed heavily.
“This isn’t going to work if this is how you’re going to act.”
“I’m sorry, Signor Wright. Her majesty will be able to find you a suitable replacement. I’ll go.”
“No, none of that.” I said, then looked at the other girls. “Orsa, I’m going on a walk with Ginevra. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Okay, cucciolo. Don’t be too long,” She said, giving me a knowing smirk. I rolled my eyes. It wouldn’t be that kind of walk.
I walked up to Ginevra, grabbed her hand, and then drug her off towards the gardens. We didn’t need to go far; I was just looking for a bench that was out of the way of foot traffic. “Sit,” I commanded and pointed at the bench. Ginevra sat down and looked at the ground between her feet.
“So. What’s the deal? Why are you acting like this?”
She looked up at me, eyes red from unshed tears and frustration. “I almost killed you! I—”
“But you didn’t.” I said, cutting her off.
“You could have died!”
“But I didn’t.”
“There was so much blood! Jack if I…” she stopped talking as I grabbed her chin with my right hand and held her gaze.
“I didn’t die,” I said and stared her down.
“If anything, the experience served as a reminder that this isn’t a game and the stakes are real.” I let go of her chin. She looked like she wanted to keep arguing, so I summoned a dagger from my storage ring, activated my strength and speed enhancement, and moved to slit my own throat.
Once the blade reached the apex of the movement and started to fall back the other way, Ginevra moved with a speed greater than anything she’d shown before. Her full cultivation level and her own strength and speed enhancement allowed her to arrest my arm’s movement before I had even clocked her standing up. I moved my gaze to look up at her. Fury was written on her face, though there was a trace of horror.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Signore?”
Signore now, is it?
“Proving a point,” I said and relaxed my body. I let her take the dagger from me.
“What point could you possibly be proving with such a stupid—”
“That you won’t let me die, Ginevra!” I yelled at her. “When it mattered, when you could have just watched, you immediately overpowered me and stopped it from happening.”
The echo of my voice lingered between us before I finished quietly, “Like I knew you would.” I let myself drift into pools of blood that all the dhampirs and Vampires had for eyes.
“I trust you with my life, the same way I trust the rest of them. You are going to have to try far harder to lose that trust, Ginevra.” The fury had eroded from her face into something much softer.
“Your trust is heavy, Signore,” she whispered.
“And your shoulders are broad, dama,” I whispered back. Then I leaned up on my toes to whisper in her ear, my hot breath making her shiver. “Besides, I don’t want to get used to someone new. I like the trainers I already have.”
I rocked back to my heels, turned, and walked away. “C’mon. It’s your turn,” I said without turning around and walked back towards the training yard where the others waited.
Things had been fine since that talk, although Ginevra did start giving me the same glances that Orsa and Fiametta gave me. Thinking about the two of them reminded me that I needed to sit down and talk to them. I wouldn’t be able to return their feelings. In the beginning, I entertained them and flirted back. It helped distract me from the hurt. Now, though, with the mental acuity enhancement forcefully speeding up my grieving process, I found myself harboring feelings for Lita. Ippolita. She had long since made her feelings clear to me, but I had only recently started to reciprocate them. We hadn’t acted on them yet, but I should still let the other girls know where they stood. It wasn’t kind to continue leading them on.
“Start!” Orsa called out.
I inched forward, moving my rapier to first position as I quickly lunged, seeking to go over her guard. Ginevra moved her guard to fourth position to parry and bat my blade away then quickly shifted to second position to cut at my chest. I leapt backwards and reoriented my blade in third position before lunging again. She swept back into third, and pushed my blade off line. We both took a step back to reset before she lunged at me. Our blades clanged back and forth a couple more times before she caught me on the far side of my waist while I was trying to disengage from an overextension.
“Point, Ginevra. 0-1.”
“You’re still dropping your back shoulder right before a lunge when you’re in third position. You’ve fixed it for second and first,” said Ginevra as she walked back to reset.
I nodded. She was right, after all. I felt myself doing it even though I had the conscious thought to not do it on loop in my head. I reset, and we clashed again.
“Point, Jack. 1-1.”
I had managed to score on her by catching her hand just as I was pushing her off line. A lucky strike, to be sure, but it also wasn’t the first time I’d scored such a hit. The damas were all used to fighting for real. Where lethality mattered. That’s not to say that cutting the tendons of your opponents wrist, or taking some of their fingers, weren’t worthwhile targets, but they weren’t trained for dueling. They were trained for killing. And that was an entirely different mindset, and perhaps one of the few reasons I was able to score at all on these masters of rapier.
We reset and went again. And again. And again. And again. And before long, “Point, Ginevra. 3-1,” came Orsa’s voice. I could feel the day’s fatigue finally catching up with me. It was late afternoon, and we only had a few more rounds left to go before I needed to meet with Ippolita for mana training.
“That was so good, Jack!” said Ginevra as she rushed me and pulled me into a hug. “You could have doubled earlier, but you held back! I’m so proud of you!” Ginevra squeezed me tighter and I let myself go in the warmth. I’d have to give them the bad news eventually, but moments like this made it hard for me to bring up. I’d do it before the ball. I didn’t want to get inside of their heads while training was happening, and Fiametta was still during her closed door training. All of this could wait.
Ginevra let me go and stepped away, heading back towards the outside of the circle. Chiara finished her healing as Simona stepped in. I did the best against Simona because she was closest to my height, which also matched the average height of the sons of nobles I’d be dueling against. I rolled my shoulders and shook off my previous loss. This was a new match, and I needed to treat it like it was the first of the day, regardless of whatever fatigue was knocking on my door. We both got in our stances, each holding the rapier in third position. Our legs were coiled springs ready to launch us forward at any moment.
“Start!”
I yawned and stretched as I entered the gardens. I had made short work of my dinner earlier, but I found myself still a little hungry. I wondered if that was because all of this training was pushing me closer to breaking through, but I dismissed the thought. It was far too soon for something like that. I had only just broken through to Yellow, or E note, just a few weeks ago. It would probably be another couple of years before I was knocking on the door of Green.
I stepped into our usual clearing, and Ippolita was already there waiting for me. Just like she always was. She was wearing a deep blue dress reminiscent of lapis lazuli that I would later learn was called Ultramarine. The dress had white lacey trim along the bodice, sleeves, and other places of the dress I was sure my eyes would eventually discover, but what drew my attention was the deep V shaped cut of the dress that exposed a scandalous amount of flesh. Well, scandalous to my sensibilities, but as I was learning, this was simply a summer evening gown here on the surface.
I’d been here for… my mind shook violently as it tried to reconcile the amount of time I felt I had experienced versus the amount of time I had physically experienced. My steps faltered and I gripped my temples. A headache unlike I’ve ever felt descended upon me in all its fury. I inhaled sharply as I circulated mana through my regeneration tattoo, but Ippolita’s mana immediately broke down the spell and stopped it from actualizing. Before I could take another breath her arms were around me and my head was cushioned on her chest.
“Carissimo, what’s wrong?” she asked as her mana filled my every pore and flushed out my own channels. I offered no resistance to her efforts, such was the trust and faith I had placed in her subconsciously in my debilitated state.
“Lita,” I gasped, “how long have I been down here?” I clawed at her dress, seeking refuge from the storm of pain that had come over me.
“Shhh, shhh. I have you,” she consoled.
“It’s been exactly seven weeks, 3 days, 22 hours, and… 11 minutes,” she said soothingly. She ran her fingers through my hair as my breaths evened out. The knowledge of the exact amount of time helped my mind reconcile my experiences. I knew I had been running the Mental Acuity Enhancement for a long time, and moments like this, while not common, weren’t unheard of in the research I’d done.
I took a few more deep calming breaths as my mind made peace with the fact that its almost one full year of thoughts and experiences had been crammed into just a few weeks. Of those seven weeks, I had probably spent about five of them in a state of accelerated thought, and therefore accelerated time. My only reprieve from that acceleration were these moments with Lita. Ippolita. I pushed myself away slightly and shook my head.
“I’m okay, now. I think. Thank you, your majesty.”
She narrowed her eyes briefly, “Of course, tesoro mio,” she said softly as she cupped my cheek and traced a circle with her thumb. “What had you in such a fit?”
“Nothing. I just thought about how long…” I trailed off, desperately avoiding where my thoughts needed to go in order to finish what I was saying.
“Shhh, It’s okay. You won’t need to do this much longer. The Fertility Ball is in just a little over a week, and then you can slow down. You won’t need to keep running the mental magic. Speaking of, you forgot to drop the spell again.”
The fingernails of the hand not cupping my face did devilish work on my scalp, “Lita,” I let out a mewling groan; her fingers tempted me with the promise of deep restful sleep, but I pulled back further and heeded her words about my active spells. The first rule of training with Ippolita was no Mental Acuity Enhancement. She had said that it interfered with training my mana manipulation abilities, but I had a sneaking suspicion it was because she wanted our time together to be more real, have more weight. I didn’t blame her. I wanted that, too.
The weight of a thing, whether a person, an item, or a moment, was something I was slowly coming to understand during our lessons. Weight in this context had to do with its significance or its impact on reality. The more mana rich or mana dense a thing was, the more weight it had. The more attention a thing received, the more significance it had. This was something that extended even to the gods and goddesses—or just goddesses if you asked Lita. Ippolita.
“Better?” she asked. Her question banished my idle musings, and everything came crashing back: my spoken usages of the nickname I only used in my head, my deathgrip on her dress, the closeness of our bodies. Heat rushed to my face as I stepped back from her. More and more moments like this were happening. Her affection has been gradually wearing my guard down, and now I found myself too open, too free, with my expressions and emotions in front of her. I also found myself feeling… I didn’t know what.
Yes, you do. You know exactly what you’re feeling. Tell her.
My heart burned to lay myself bare before her. She had been right. My grief was expedited, and now, from the ashes of my love for Stephanie, were embers that burned for Ippolita. I wanted, needed, to tell her, but I couldn’t. Something metaphysical, outside of myself, cautioned me; it told me the timing was wrong—that I needed to wait. So, I would wait, and I would have to satisfy myself with the smaller victories over her.
“Much,” I answered. “Can we walk for a bit before we start tonight?” I asked.
“Of course, carissimo.”
Carrisimo. Tesoro mio. The names she called me echoed in my mind. I had looked this up in the library during lunch the other day, week, month… who knew anymore. Dearest and my treasure were the things she called me. If her body language and her actions hadn’t made her feelings clear, then her words did. The burning question was whether or not all of this was to court me as a breeding stud for her Royal Guards or because she actually wanted me. All it would take was me asking to find out, but isn’t that how it always goes with these sorts of things? It’s always just a question away. A single precipice that we have to take a leap of faith to step across.
“Something is on your mind, Jack mio. I can see the wheels turning.”
“It’s nothing that can’t wait Ip—your majesty. Instead, I had some ideas I’d like to run by you,” I said and gestured towards our usual tree that we practiced under.
“Of course, carissimo. What’s on your mind?” she asked, letting go of my hand and sitting down. I sat across from her, a full foot shorter than her when seated, and looked up at her. Those same pools of blood that had become familiar to me gazed back, but hers were different. There was an intimate warmth there, one I wanted to wrap myself in as if it were a blanket. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply before opening them again, sitting down, and speaking.
“With everything we’ve been practicing, particularly with the mental defense enhancement spell, do you think it’s possible for me to fully mask my mana signature from other mages?”
Lita thought for a moment, tapping her lip, before she shrugged and said “I think so. It might be difficult for you to learn to do it smoothly, but it is possible. The way you interact with the world’s mana is different, even for those like me who can manipulate mana in a freeform manner.”
“So what do I need to do?”
“Well, you already have that call and response trick that we’ve been working on. If you can visualize your own mana signature, you can pulse out its opposite and the world will respond with your signature. This should provide a very thorough and undetectable mask. The only part someone might detect is your initial pulse before you settle into a rhythm.”
It felt like someone slotted an integral piece into a visual puzzle. Suddenly a lot of things started clicking together for me.
“Oh my gods—”
“Goddesses.”
“Whatever, this makes so much… Ipp—your majesty, I could not only mask my own mana with this, but I could create illusions. No, not illusions, but worse. Or better. The impression of illusions.”
Lita cocked her head at me. “Why is that… Oh.” She cut herself off as she reached the inevitable conclusion that I did. If the illusions weren’t visible but were instead something a person felt from their mana sense, they’d focus on mental attacks that weren’t actually there. Combining that with the masking I would be doing, their eyes would be telling them one thing while their mana senses told them something completely different. It would be like getting motion sick in the middle of a fight.
“So it’s going to work how I think?” I asked, confident of the answer.
“Yes. Better than, perhaps, but you’re forbidden from using it during the ball’s duels.”
“What?” I furrowed my brow. This was the whole point of me asking about this! Even with the mental magic, I didn’t have anywhere near as much time as these noble scions did with their training. I needed every edge I could get, and if I found a spell that was undetectable, then why not use it?
“In the first place, you will only be challenged to duels under the Gentlewoman rules, which may not ban the use of mana, but it does discourage it. The exception would be if you were challenged to a warrior's duel, which won't happen. Not in my palace. In the second place...” she trailed off as she gathered her thoughts and continued stroking my cheek. “You haven’t noticed it, but your trainers have needed to rely on their higher cultivation to continue beating you. You have outdone both their and my expectations of you. It is cause for a reward.”
My heart quickened at words. “If it’s all the same to you, your majesty, I’ll ask for my reward after our training. I need time to consider my options.”
“Of course, carissimo.” She sat back and let her hand fall from my cheek. “Now come, let us paint our music upon each other.”
‘Upon Each Other’... that’s new.
And so we painted our song. It was not the first time we joined in melody and counter melody. It would not be the last time. We painted of our day away from each other, of our excitement at our reunion, of our dreams of a future together—or perhaps that was just me. Our song faltered at my hesitation.
“Carissimo?” Ippolita asked, patience lined her face.
I closed my eyes and brought my gaze down from the sky to look at the same vibrant red eyes that threatened to drown me in blood.
“Lita…” the words left my mouth in a whisper. I could feel it in my gut. It was time to put up or shut up. I reached out for her face and lunged forward. My hand gripped the back of her head, and pulled her closer as my body’s momentum covered the rest of the distance and I brought our lips together. I could feel her surprise, but then she quickly melted into the kiss. Our bodies became one in perfect harmony, very briefly, before her hunger took over.
One of her hands cupped the back of my head as the other gripped my back, nails digging into my skin. I tried to activate my regeneration tattoo in preparation for what was to come, but she knocked away the spell in a casual display of mana dominance. Blood oozed… gently… from where her nails dug into my back. She turned the kiss away from a mutual display of affection into something else. Something more. She devoured me. Her tongue pushed past my lips and invaded my mouth. My own tried to battle with her, but she subdued it with ease, flicking it around to her whims.
She pulled me closer so that I was seated in her lap, then ended the kiss. She nuzzled against my cheek and whispered into my ear, her hot breath sending currents of electricity through my body. “Oh, tesoro mio, you’ve finally learned where your home is.”
“Ippolita. Your majesty. If we both want this, why am I jumping through the hoops for these nobles?”
“Because it’s funny.”
I pulled away and gave her an incredulous look. “Funny? I’m busting my ass, getting battered and bruised, and you—” I was cut off as Ippolita booped my nose.
“It’s funny because you’re going to beat them anyway, and then in front of all of them, I’ll mark you. And even if you lose, I’ll mark you. No matter what happens, tesoro mio, you are mine. And nothing will take you from me.”
Her ending words felt like an aphrodisiac. I felt myself harden while I sat in her lap, as emasculating as that position was, not that I cared at this point.
“Lita,” I said, my voice trailing off as I was preparing to go into a rant.
She pushed her forehead against mine and spoke softly into the expanding silence between us, “Shh, things are happening as they should. When they should. I know you feel it, too, tesoro mio.”
“I do,” I said, my voice barely audible. Talk of fate terrified me in ways I couldn’t articulate. I’d felt my instincts guiding me before, sure, but what she spoke of was something I dared not fully imagine, so I merely agreed with whatever she had to say.
“You do, but you don’t understand it,” she said, calling my bluff in the most Ippolita way possible.
“As you say, your majesty,” I said, defaulting to deference and shrugging.
Lita clicked her tongue. “You can challenge me, you know.”
I looked up at her with my eyebrows furrowed, then snorted. “Of course, your majesty. I’ll be sure to challenge you over what’s for breakfast in the mornings.” I couldn’t help but smirk as I finished speaking. Meanwhile, Lita squinted at me like she was deciding between scolding me and kissing me again. It felt… good… to have this dynamic with someone again.
“No, none of this ‘your majesty’. Call me Lita again,” she said with a slight pout.
“Lita?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Good boy, tesoro mio,” she purred and crashed her lips into mine again. There was no mutual kiss this time. I was a rabbit before a wolf, but rather than fight her for control, or to even hold my own, I surrendered and let her guide the kiss where she wanted. I let her play the solo with her tongue, and her mana, and roused my own mana to play the accompaniment. If she was going to claim my mouth here in her gardens, then the entire estate would know what was happening.
I pushed my mana further, letting it sing loudly of my connection, of my joy, and I felt hers rise in concert.
This… this is what I missed.
Tears welled at the edges of my eyes and a few fell down the cliffs of my face. Through my turmoil, Lita was a rock, a bastion of safety and comfort that I desperately clung to. I pulled her closer to me and broke away from the kiss.
“Lita,” I whispered. “Don’t let me lose again. I can’t…” my voice broke. “I won’t,” I said more harshly, fingers gripping her dress tightly and eyes staring into her endless pools of blood.
“There is not a force in this world that will keep me from you, tesoro mio. My Jack.”
Lauretta
"Lita" Ippolita waiting for Jack.