Chapter 29 – Training

The next few days passed quietly, even if they weren't really pleasant. After Maryse was sure that I was fine after my collapse in the training hall, we were finally able to start training. It had been an explicit request from the Inquisitor, which I didn't really like to comply with. I didn't want to show them my skills and talents. More than once I'd thought about fighting worse on purpose, thus hiding my skill from their greedy eyes. But that wasn't my style. A Morgenstern shouldn't degrade herself like that.

It turned out that Kadir Safar was our coach. He was the capricious of the two Safar brothers. Just the idea of being in the same room with him had made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up before the first training session. Not because I was afraid of him, but because I always expected a knife in my back. We had rubbed up the wrong way more than once in our last encounters and he had made it clear to me what he thought of me.

But it turned out I needn't have worried. Surprisingly, Kadir turned out to be a very patient man who didn't show any kind of emotion – negative or positive. Even if I was a bit suspicious at first, he must have received orders from above to treat me properly. And he did. Unlike the last time we met, he didn't utter a spiteful remark. In fact, he rarely spoke.

The first week of training had consisted of undergoing various tests. Sword fighting, knife throwing, even foreign languages. Kadir had wanted an overview of my abilities versus Jace and Adam to work with. It hadn't been as bad as I had imagined.

What had been awkward instead was the situation between me and Adam. After our argument we hadn't exchanged a word with each other. Our first encounter had been in the training room. However, we didn't have time to talk. But even if we had been alone, I would have made no move to make peace with him again. The anger in my stomach hadn't subsided after my mother's funeral. Every time I looked at him, I saw his beseeching dishonorable eyes in my head, and I felt sick.

My relationship with Jace hadn't improved either. The short ride from the Cemetery of the Disgraced back to the Lightwoods' home had been enough to freeze his features – and probably any emotions – back to ice. He had dismounted and given me his cold, impassive look, as if he had sat there in the snow for half an hour waiting for salvation.

I didn't know what was on today's training schedule when I entered the hall. Adam and Jace were already there. They sat next to each other on one of the exercise mats, but didn't speak. I rarely saw them communicate with each other. Actually, I would have expected that the two would get along better, considering that they had lived together at the Institute for some time. They greeted each other, but otherwise only spoke when something important needed to be discussed. Our little trip to my father's secret death cave had probably not welded them together. I couldn't blame them.

I nodded silently to both of them and sat a few feet away next to Jace as Malik trotted through the door. I rarely saw him slow down. He jogged or walked around most of the time. Almost simultaneously we saluted Malik. He stopped a few meters in front of us and the bright expression in his eyes told us that we were going to do something different today.

"Good morning, before we specialize in a combat area today, I will briefly share my summary of the last few days. It's not test results or anything, after all you didn't fight each other." It was true. The last few days had seemed like one big test. Either he had squeezed my knowledge out of me with the help of confused questions or I had had to fight him. Malik must have developed an initial assessment based on our strength in the training sessions.

"Clarissa was by far the best in all areas of training except close combat. Jace is her equal here," Malik said calmly while looking at us.

"What kind of close combat?" I asked before I could bite my tongue. It couldn't be that he was my equal. I had had much better training than him. However, his fighting style had already caught my eye at the Institute.

"Sword and knife fight," Malik specified and smiled slightly at the dissatisfied tone in my voice.

I glanced at Adam. His name hadn't been mentioned before and I could see from his face that he didn't like it. His lips grimaced in dissatisfaction for a moment, but he relaxed immediately. Whatever emotion he was feeling right now ... it didn't suit him. I had hardly seen him make a sullen face before. Malik's words must have actually hit his ego.

"We will use the next stages of training to dig deeper into your talents and examine them in more detail. Today we start with the sword fight and this time you will compete against each other", Malik explained his further procedure.

Knowing my powers already, he wanted to focus on Jace today. His outstanding skills in close combat were his first starting point to get to the bottom of it. So far no one had been able to say whether he even had abilities like mine or how they would manifest themselves.

Malik's plan was to use the mundies' technology: he had brought a small device that recorded Jace's pulse and heart rate. To do this, Malik wired him up with several electrodes on his chest and back. You could tell Jace wasn't thrilled about having to play the lab rat.

In the first round I had to compete against Adam. We lined up on opposite sides of the ring. The ring resembled an ordinary boxing ring: a raised, square-shaped stand, but with no ropes to keep you from falling out. I studied Adam and his distance from me. It would take me about five long steps to reach him. Adam's eyes sparkled in displeasure as he read my thoughts on my face.

Should I say something? Maybe calm him down? Adam didn't seem happy to be fighting me so soon after our argument. He had to know that I wouldn't hurt him. Or did he want to hear an apology? There was no way he would get that from me. I gritted my teeth and thought hard about what to say. Or how I could make him understand that our argument would be forgotten for the next few minutes. Emotions have no place in a fight, my father's cold voice whispered in my ear.

I jumped and heard another loud hiss as Malik threw us both a random sword. I had less than ten seconds to get used to the oddly ordinary grip before he signaled the start. My chance to share something with Adam was gone.

In one quick movement, I lifted my head and looked Adam in the eye. For a split second he looked back. Then, imperceptibly, he shook his head and charged. My body reacted faster than my mind. I jumped towards him and parried his punch effortlessly. The force with which his blade slammed into mine was solid, but his stance was his weakness.

In a flash, I ducked under his sword and dived through to emerge from behind his back. Adam turned, stunned for a moment by my probably unusual parry. My sword swooped down on him, which he caught without hesitation.

We danced around each other for a few minutes, me more gracefully than he. The strength was on his side, but as a woman I was used to that. For the first part of the fight, we fought for the upper hand. Although Adam was easy to see through, the unbridled violence in each of his blows caused me problems. It was difficult to return the fire of his thrusts with the same intensity. Eventually, I managed to throw him off course with several long jumps, so that I was able to corner him.

In the second part of the fight, I had to defend the supremacy I had earned. Once Adam was pushed into a defensive posture, it was a whole lot easier to keep him there. There were holes in his defense which I used to push him closer to the edge of the ring. With a final smack towards his right thigh, which he had been barely covering for the past few minutes, I broke through his defense one last time. Adam stumbled backwards off the ring but didn't fall.

That was the end of the fight, but I didn't boast about my victory. On the contrary. A hot flicker of fear flared in my stomach as I left the stands to make way for the two boys. I had become weaker. Now that the lap was over and I was reflecting on the last few moments, I realized my own mistakes. The lack of training since my leaving made itself felt.

I sat down on one of the mats and watched the start of their fight with limited attention. Adam attacked first again. He was so transparent. Jace, thanks to his brawn, had no trouble putting him in his place. Their fight would end sooner than ours.

As my heart began to pound faster, I mentally counted down the days since leaving our estate in Idris. It hadn't been three weeks. Within three weeks my accuracy had already declined. I really hoped that this daily workout would help me get back to my old level. It was possible that my current situation had something to do with my declining strength. Too much had happened. A hot tingle ran down my hand as my mother's green eyes appeared in my mind.

I tried to shake off my thoughts and focus on the fight in front of me. Adam lost. A quick glance in their direction was enough to make that assessment. Jace's blows thundered down on him with such precision that I wondered how much longer he would be able to stay on his feet. My eyes wandered to Malik. He stood two meters to the right of the ring, silently watching the two Shadowhunters. His face was stripped of all emotion, as so often. But you could see from the rapid movement of his pupils that he was following their every move closely.

The fight ended when Jace's punches finally brought Adam to his knees. Jace's features were intensely focused and his posture, towering over Adam with a straight back and broad shoulders, reminded me of a soldier.

Malik nodded briefly and then waved me back to the ring. I got up and put myself in position Adam had started in the last two times. Jace and I eyed each other longer. Neither of us wanted to start the fight. We had seen each other's strengths and didn't quite know how to use them.

But I had observed his attitude a little during the last fight. In a moment when his eyes darted briefly to Malik, I took a step forward and began my attack. Jace reacted immediately. Our blades smashed together, and I had to plant my feet against the ground with all my might to keep from being knocked over by the power of his parry. He was a lot stronger than Adam, even stronger than Jonathan. It amazed me.

Jace saw the surprise in my eyes as a confident grin crept onto his face. I clenched my teeth almost angrily and leaned toward his sword. Then I took a step back, avoiding his tumbling body. Jace hadn't expected me to give up my attack so completely, and now I stumbled a step forward, back to where my body had been a second ago.

I took the time and jumped to my feet behind his exposed back, just like I had Adam. Jace spun around and attacked me without waiting for my reaction. The impact of his seraph blade on mine made my finger bones vibrate. If Adam was a fire, then Jace was an inferno.

His posture was flawless, there were no gaps in his fluid movements for me to take advantage of. His fighting style was so elegant that a stranger might have mistaken him for a dancer if he wasn't holding a sword. His fingers gripped the shaft of his blade so tightly his knuckles turned white. His breathing was perfectly even, as if nothing could throw him out of shape. Jace moved so lightly I barely heard his footsteps.

It seemed to me that the intensity of his punches increased with each offensive. With each of his punches I had to retreat a little further to the edge. Jace urges me into a defensive stance that I had to break out of as quickly as possible. I parried another of his blows, my knees already shaking under the weight of his sword. I inhaled sharply, looking straight into Jace's eyes for a split second, and gathering the energy in my arms.

I gritted my teeth as I faced him. In a move so quick that I only noticed it because I wielded the seraph blade myself, I tried a different tactic. I swung my sword as hard as I could at his left flank. Jace parried immediately, but I expected that. But instead of standing up to his blade, I let go of him immediately. This time I attacked his right side. Jace parried again. In a flash, I fixed his left side again.

My sword swooped down on Jace from all sides, but never long enough for him to parry his strength and push me back. A rapid exchange of blows ensued, with each blow lasting only a second. Now he couldn't develop his power, he had to focus on wielding.

I swung my sword from left to right so quickly that I felt dizzy. Each time I met resistance from his blade, I would retreat and attack from the other side. Left to right. From right to left. I managed to push him back, at least a few steps. My distance from the sideline increased again.

Our fight lasted a lot longer than the two sessions before. The big gold clock on the wall alone told the time. Half an hour passed before, in an almost random movement, I managed to knock the sword out of Jace's hand. I was aiming for his shoulder, but as my blade flew, I finally noticed the hole in Jace's defense that I had been trying to find since the start of the fight. I altered the course of my seraph blade in the middle of an attack, which he was unprepared for.

Our swords touched, but the sound was different than the many times before. Jace jerked his head up to meet my face as he realized his mistake. His sword swept across the room and hit the floor with a clatter a few meters away from Malik.

Every fiber of my body was tense. My muscles burned. This felt like a real fight. I whipped up my sword and aimed it squarely at Jace, just as I had learned. It took my mind a few seconds to process what had happened and to remind myself that this was not real. I blinked several times to clear a haze of unpleasant memories. I slowly took a step back and lowered the blade.

"Very good," I heard someone say from afar.

Almost automatically, I snapped my head around to look at the person. What face did I expect to see? My father's face? It wasn't my father, it was Malik who gave us a nod of approval and then turned to say something to Adam. I couldn't understand his words. The disappointment of standing here in the training room and looking at Malik's face caught me completely unprepared.

I put the sword to the edge of the ring and then turned on my heel. That's when I met Jace's eyes. Malik and Adam were deep in their conversation, but he seemed to sense that something was wrong with me. The look in his eyes briefly reminded me of the moment he found me in the snow after my mother's funeral. There was an uneasiness in his eyes that made my knees tremble more. But just like last time, the expression disappeared as quickly as it came.

Still, he surprised me with an appreciative nod before exiting the ring. Unlike Adam, he probably wasn't a bad loser.

-

Here we are again. What do you think? I'd be happy if you give me a heart for the chapter! :)

See you,

Skyllen :)