Hunter blocked Aera’s jab and pivoted to avoid her follow-up. He considered stepping back, but she wouldn’t want to allow him to create an opening, and true to his prediction, she pivoted to keep him in sight. The split second of a break in the fight’s rhythm gave him the time to find his stance and summon some willpower as a bulwark to the annoyance and exhaustion threatening to make him call the fight.

  She was still stronger than him. In a battle of endurance, he might match her, but in a battle of knowing how to use their bodies to their fullest, she was out of his league. He knew if she felt that the fight was dragging on, she would try to overpower him soon.

  He concentrated on her, anticipating her next move. Yet, he still missed the sweep that took his legs out from under him. Before he hit the ground, he was already assessing what he could have done differently.

  A bell rang, signalling that their session was over.

  “Good fight,” Aera said, helping him up, “you’ve gotten stronger. I wish you’d hit this growth spurt back at Barnum. Might have made things easier for us.”

  “Bme my genetics,” Hunter said.

  He’d needed to come up with an excuse to expin his sudden acceleration in strength, endurance, and AR. He also needed a good reason to justify his appetite, which had dissipated over the st few months. The solution he'd come up with was to call himself a te bloomer. People seemed willing to accept that.

  “Genetics,” Aera scoffed, “your AR has been rising faster than mine. I’m almost jealous.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, it’s pteaued.”

  “What’s it at now?” she asked.

  “48,” he said.

  Aera whistled.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “50, as of st week.”

  Disgusting, he thought.

  Sure, his AR was pretty close to hers, but his excuse was that he had a way to do what everyone else thought was impossible. Accelerating the growth of his AR was something that a corporation would kill to either gain for themselves or keep secret. But Aera didn’t have that. She was just a freak of nature. Sometimes he wondered if Trey had Aera altered when she was younger, or if they had their own proprietary way of accelerating the growth of AR. Aera was farther ahead than anyone. Her age had a right to be. Then again, everyone was probably thinking the same thing about him at this point.

  “I didn’t even see the sweep coming,” he said, shaking off the ache in his legs. “How are you so fast?”

  “Speed is one of a few factors. Another factor is awareness, knowing your opponent. So that, for example, when he becomes a bit too focused, I know when to take advantage of his tunnel vision,” she said, wiping away some sweat with a towel.

  Hunter tried to comprehend what she meant. It felt like something she’d pointed out before.

  “Don’t overthink it. Focus is good, but you need to remember to stay rexed. We’ve talked about this.”

  Although he wanted to challenge her diagnosis, she was correct. A small seasoning of shame blossomed within him. He’d spent much of his time at Barnum, mastering rexed focus as much as he could. Sometime over the st year, he must have forgotten how to do that. Under honest reflection, he could admit that he had tensed a bit too much when they sparred.

  “You’re trying too hard to think ahead, which isn’t your strength,” Aera said, “no offense.”

  “None taken,” Hunter said. “You’re saying my weakness is tunnel vision, being too focused on what I know, and what I’ve learned to expect. What about my strengths?”

  “Your strengths are brute force and impulsive creativity,” she said, without even so much as a second of hesitation.

  “Wow, you didn’t even have to think about it.”

  “I make it a habit to understand my assets,” Aera said.

  “Asset? Here I thought we were friends,” Hunter said, pouting.

  “You know what I mean,” Aera said, rolling her eyes.

  He figured he did. They spent a significant portion of their acquaintance in mutual scorn — so it wasn’t far-fetched to assume Aera viewed him as nothing more than another data point she needed to account for. And he can’t say that her ability to calcute the data she observed about people was inaccurate. She had a knack for it, and so it was probably in his best interest to consider her words as deeply as he could.

  The more he thought about her comment, the more he cross-referenced it with the fight. Not just today’s fight, but fights from the st year they’d been travelling together.

  His defence had tightened, his combat IQ was growing with experience, and he was predicting her choices with increased accuracy. He had felt that he’d been giving her more of a challenge. He might never reach her level of skill, and he’d be lying if he said she didn’t intimidate him still. However, one thing that stood out was that the fight was routine — it was like the one they’d had yesterday and the day before.

  That was it, wasn’t it? He ughed at himself when he realized it. This was a lesson as old as any she’d been teaching him: the looming threat of compcency requires constant attention. What was he taking for granted? That’s where he’d find another blind spot. This time, it was his arrogance in thinking that he’d be able to prove much of a challenge for her after just over a year when she’s been training for her whole life.

  He’d enjoyed the idea that he was finally her equal. It excited him to think that he was catching up with the great Aera Oberon.

  Aera had wanted him to feel like he was adapting to her, that their skill levels were evening out. She had set the whole pace of the fight, knowing that he would feel a sense of comfort in the routine nature of their spar because he needed to. She’d used his own ego against him.

  What a monster. He was gd that they were on the same team.

  As far as weaknesses go, this one wouldn’t disappear overnight. Hunter now understood that these things took time to work through. Changing a pattern starts with understanding. You couldn’t rush the process either, it seemed.

  He was still new to all of this. Granted, she was an excellent coach and Hunter was more lethal than he’d ever been in his life, but she was a pro. Her mind worked differently than his did. She was right — she liked to pn as many steps as possible. Hunter approached challenges by baring his horns and running through his obstacles head first, hoping that he would find the answers along the way.

  That was quite the disparity, and the advantage she would have in this kind of situation was obvious.

  It would take time for him to work past that, but she’d point out all the ways it limited him in the meantime. She didn’t even have to tell him how. All she had to do was what she was already doing. Taking advantage of all the ways his own mind weakened him without him realizing.

  It was the most effective way for him to learn. He was his own harshest judge, and Aera wasn’t responsible for changing that. But what was the most efficient way to work with a weakness?

  “What do you recommend?” Hunter said, “How can I use my impulsive creativity to my advantage?”

  Aera huffed something between a sigh and a ugh.

  “That’s not for me to say, Hunter. You need to figure that one out for yourself. My recommendation is that you slow down and don’t expect miracles. Try to be more observant and think outside of the box.”

  “What box?” Hunter asked.

  Aera shrugged.

  “You tell me. The only way you’re going to find your box is by looking for it, and the only way you can look for it is to experience more.”

  Hunter pursed his lips. She tapped his shoulder, giving him a smile.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I respect the devotion to improvement, but you need to celebrate your victories as well. When was the st time you took a break from your goals? From your research, from training, from everything?”

  He raised an eyebrow and stared her dead in the eyes. She had the decency to look abashed.

  “I’m the daughter of a Council Seat. I’m used to 15-hour days, 7 days a week. What about you?” Aera asked, intending for him to agree. But wasn’t what she was describing almost exactly how he’d lived his own life, before the competition, before Oberon and the exodus?

  “We never talked about my life before all of this, did we?” he asked. She seemed a bit surprised by his answer, frowning and shaking her head.

  “Now that I think about it, you’re right. I know some details, of course, but I’ve never heard it all from your point of view.”

  He thought of asking her why she thought that was, but he knew she didn’t really deserve that.

  Well, maybe she did. Just a little. Despite her actions, he chose to pardon her. He had seen her point of view, not that he liked it. But empathy was a bit of a bitch that way.

  Once you see someone else as just another human being, fws and all, you risk being mad at a mirror reflection. It seemed silly of him to hold on to that kind of resentment for too long. Ever since Barnum, she’d treated him like a human being — like he belonged.

  “Well, it’s enough to say that long hours aren’t new to me,” he said, defting the remnants of his wounded pride. She considered what he said for a moment and titled her head.

  “Tell you what,” Aera said, “let’s do a big old family dinner. You, me, and dad. I’ve been needing a break, and I’m sure he could as well. All of us have been working nonstop since we boarded this ship, and lord knows we’ve been burning the candle at both ends since — well, you know.”

  Hunter nodded. Ever since he became an Oberon, it had been one thing after another. School, their sessions, meditation, research, and personal projects.

  They hadn’t stopped. But that didn’t mean that they should stop now.

  “I don’t know,” he said, “tomorrow is going to be insane. I’ve still got a dozen things to do before we nd, and that’s just the appetizer. Trey wants me to get to know everyone on the research team, get up to date on what they’ve found, get up to date on the outposts, etheric networks, and all our pns for the expansion which aren’t even completed yet—”

  “—Hunter,” Aera said. Both of her hands were on his shoulders now. Her eyes were sparkling with amusement. “I know. It’s going to be crazy for everyone, and it’ll be no more or less crazy if we all take a few hours to rex. This is me talking.”

  Hunter shook his head as if he was just waking up from a trance.

  “Did you hit your head this morning? Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Right? This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. You, me, and Dad, we could all stand to benefit from a momentary respite. Consider it an official recommendation from your coach. If we were back on Sanctuary, we would take 3 or 4 days on a beachside somewhere warm and tropical, but instead of that, a nice dinner will have to suffice.”

  Hunter saluted.

  “Loud and clear, coach.”

  “I’ll expect you around 7. Wear something nice-ish,” she said, giving him a final tap on the shoulder.

  “Dinner,” Hunter muttered to himself after she’d left. He hadn’t eaten a dinner over the st few days, skipping it for an extra 30 or 40 minutes of meditation, research, or study.

  He guessed that illustrated Aera’s exact point. It had been a while since they’d all sat around the same table and talked.

  Maybe a dinner with the Oberons would be nice.

  Trey was red in the face, spping his knee and ughing like he’d been holding it in for years.

  “... And then your father,” he said between heaving breaths, “he looks at me, and I’m so proud of this little badge — he looks at me and says ‘that’s not the right badge!’”

  Aera inhaled.

  “No!” she said, “after all that?”

  “I don’t get it,” Hunter said. “Where’d the badge go then? Wait, you don’t mean—”

  “—It was the strippers!” he said, turning to Aera, “You should have seen the look on your mom’s face when she picked us up at the port. That officer had given me his badge as a symbol of great honour, and I showed it off like it was a gift from the heavens. Then your mother takes one look at it and says, ‘Who the hell is Mistress Ambrosia?!’”

  Hunter’s face flushed in second-hand embarrassment.

  “I had never thought that my dad was so… adventurous,” Hunter said. He’d been reluctant to talk about his father at first. But as the dinner had continued, it had been fun listening to Trey recount his time with Gideon Koar with such fondness.

  Trey took a deep breath and sighed out the remnants of his ughter. He took a sip of wine and pced it down with practiced grace.

  “He wasn’t at first. It took some time to get him open to the idea of travelling the world. He could be a lot like you when you get all focused on your work. I had to watch him like a fox as soon as he would leave his workshop and say he was done with whatever project he had going on. That was my queue to sweep him away to somepce new!”

  Hunter cloned Trey’s swig of wine. It was his first time trying it, and maybe it was the alcohol talking, but he’d never had more fun sitting down with Trey and Aera before.

  He cut into another piece of chicken. The roast was part of Trey’s personal stash, cooked to perfection. Juicy, tender, not too salty, served with a creamy gravy and mashed potatoes. The warmth from the wine, the ughter from Trey and Aera, it all came together in a wholesome moment.

  Being here with them, he wasn’t worried about anything. Everything was okay. He was right where he needed to be, and he didn’t want to be anywhere else.

  He wondered when he’d felt like that before, and he couldn’t remember a time in recent history. Not since before his father died, and way before then.

  “I wish he could be here with us,” Trey said. “It was always a regret of mine that I’d never roped him into the corporation for long. I must confess that I would feel a lot more secure about the months and years ahead if we had a mind like his to lean on.”

  Hunter pursed his lips. A sudden tension, like a build-up of energy threatening to explode, filled his throat.

  I should tell them, he thought. Share everything. Or, if not everything, why not share just enough? Things were different now. They weren’t on Sanctuary, so he didn’t need to worry about being used and abandoned once his value had been exhausted.

  “Maybe I can help you with that—”

  He stopped talking and shot out of his seat.

  As he was speaking, the pressure continued to build, and he realized that what he was feeling wasn’t coming from inside of him. It was all around him.

  “What’s gotten into you, Hunter?” Trey asked, ughing. “Believe me, you’ve helped enough. You’ve given so much of yourself…”

  Hunter tuned him out, all of his attention on what he was feeling.

  This was a movement of Ethereum. It was moving in a single direction, in rge enough quantity for his sensitivity to pick up on. It took a certain charge of Ethereum to activate his sixth sense, but since they’d been away from Sanctuary, and subject to the strange phenomena in the space between worlds, he felt things he’d never felt before. This sensation was something he’d felt only twice, and each time was like the entire world was taking a giant breath.

  That could only mean one thing. An ether storm was about to erupt.

  “Be right back,” he said, and then ran out of Trey’s personal suite.