“Fate lays out many paths for us. Destiny often calls us to the hardest one.”

  -Unknown

  The following week was horrific. Each day, Ichiro woke them before dawn and made them run (or in Raziel’s case, sometimes jog and mostly stumble through) the entire course down into the valley and back up out. To make matters worse, they had to do the entire thing barefoot. They weren’t allowed to wear shoes or even sandals at any point in the day but the mornings when it was cold and mist filled the air were the worst. After the morning run they were given a breakfast that seemed like barely enough food for an hour, let alone a whole morning of constant motion. It was mostly fruits and nuts and it didn’t fill Raziel up so much as remind him of how empty his stomach felt.

  Every day was filled to bursting with exercise. Punishing, repetitive, constant exercise. There was hardly time to breathe, let alone think. It wasn’t even interesting exercise. Ichiro’s favorite was to have them stand in a deep squat until just staying upright made Raziel’s legs quiver. Lunch became Raziel’s first goal. Survive until lunch. It wasn’t a lot more food than their breakfast but then at least there was a period of stillness. It was never long enough but at least it was there.

  After that it was an endless series of punches, kicks, rolls, falls, throws and anything else that could happen in hand to hand combat. It wasn’t real fighting. They weren’t punching and kicking each other. They weren’t even using magic. No, they were just running through endless drills with Ichiro correcting their form over and over again. Raziel had thought that his kicks and punches were just fine but apparently they were ‘sloppy’ and ‘the kind of thing someone did to try to look cool’ rather that actually effective technique. But even when he was shown the proper way, his arms and legs trembled like he was wearing lead weights

  They ran through those drills until the sun was dipping below the horizon. After that was dinner, what seemed like the only real meal of the day, usually a thick stew that had bits of blessedly filling meat in it. And then finally they were allowed to do whatever they wanted. But the only thing that Raziel wanted by then was sleep. Which had the unfortunate effect of dragging the start of the next day forward so that it seemed the instant he got a moment’s reprieve, the entire thing started again.

  By the third day, Raziel was worried that he wasn’t going to have an opportunity to convince Hoeru to stay with them at the school. He could tell that the constant exercise (or more likely the relatively small amount of food) was beginning to wear on even him. By the fifth day, Raziel was worrying that he couldn’t come up with a reason that Hoeru should stay. As the sixth day was coming to an end and Raziel’s entire being was just a collection of sore, exhausted, throbbing body parts, he wasn’t even sure why he was there himself.

  He wasn’t getting stronger. He’d never felt weaker in his entire life. He’d tried every day to find his magic, hoping that he’d be able to use it to try and take some of the burden off of his body. He was stronger, faster, more resilient when the power of magic was flowing through him. But he couldn’t even reach it now. It was like there was a wall between him and his magic, unbreakable and insurmountable.

  He felt wrung dry. They were allowed to drink as much as they wanted but the pond’s water was always painfully cold and it seemed like he sweated out more than he could possibly drink. The days had been blazing, the sun pouring punishment down on them while the evenings were terribly cold, the vest and shorts not nearly enough to hold in what little heat he could still produce. Raziel knew his body, his mind, even his spirit, was at its limit.

  After a dinner that consisted of a bowl of rice with chunks of an unidentifiable meat covered in some sort of brown sauce that seemed more like lubrication than flavoring, Raziel lay in the grass beside the tree’s pond. His body was begging him for sleep but he just couldn’t stand the idea of it. After so many days of nothing but exercise he was desperate to talk to someone or do something that didn’t involve moving his body as fast and hard as possible. He was even considering asking Miles for a book to read.

  “Tomorrow is the last day of your preliminary training period,” Hiro said, coming out of the evening shadows that hid the master’s quarters. At least he hadn’t seemed to appear from nowhere. Raziel still had trouble finding the buildings times, but that was getting easier. It might have been the only thing getting easier in his life but one thing had to be.

  Raziel was surprised to see him. The master had barely put in an appearance during that week and even on those rare occasions he’d only had hushed, brief conversations with Ichiro before leaving. Then, usually, their training would get harder.

  “Our what?”

  “Tomorrow is the last day you can back out of the training.”

  “We can back out?” Raziel asked, surprised. He tried to ignore the desire to do so that swelled up in him like a wave capsizing a floundering ship.

  “What happens if we try to leave after tomorrow?” Hoeru asked, quietly.

  Hiro turned a level gaze on him.

  “You will be returned to the school by whatever means necessary. After tomorrow, until such time as I consider your training completed, you will be my student no matter what you attempt to choose.”

  Hoeru’s thin, wolffish face held a look that almost dared the master to try to force him into anything. But Raziel still remembered being thrown off the skydock and caught at the bottom. He had little doubt that Hiro could prevent them from leaving. He just wondered why Hiro hadn’t told them that they’d have a chance to reconsider training before now.

  “Is the training always going to be like this?” Raziel asked, his mouth speaking before checking in with his brain. He knew it sounded like he wasn’t sure he could keep up but it was too late now.

  “No. In many ways it will only get harder from here.”

  Raziel had been afraid to hear that but luckily he was just too tired to even grimace about it.

  “I’m giving you tomorrow off from training,” Hiro continued when Raziel didn’t say any more. “You’re welcome to do whatever you like. If you want to visit with anyone who’s still here, this will be a good time for that. Unless they are staying in the Daishinrin, you aren’t likely to see them again for some time.”

  Raziel thought of his grandfather. He missed the old man terribly. They’d talked less and less as Raziel had gotten older but Duriel had always been a presence in his life, a rock to stand on. Steady footing. He always knew that if he fell, his grandfather would be there to help him back to his feet. And Hiro was right. That footing would be gone soon if Raziel stayed.

  “You’ll have until tomorrow evening to make your decision. You don’t have to tell me if you decide this isn’t for you. And that decision isn’t a sign of weakness. This isn’t for everyone. This isn’t for most people.”

  Raziel heard the words. They sunk deep into his mind like arrows. He heard them for what they were. Hiro trying to make it easy for them to leave. Had Hiro decided that he didn’t have any potential as a student after all?

  “Anyway, do as you like. I’ll be waiting for your answers there,” Hiro said, pointing at the tree in the middle of the pond. “If you don’t want to tell me you don’t have to. You can just go. I’ll understand.”

  The master waited an awkward second after that, rubbing at his oft-broken nose as if he’d expected some answer. Was he hoping they’d want to leave immediately? When no answer came, he just nodded and walked away back the direction he’d come, disappearing into one of the ever vanishing and reapearing buildings around the school.

  Raziel slowly worked his way up into a sitting position, wincing as every muscle involved in the process complained separately. He looked to Miles and Hoeru first. They sat near the small cookfire that Ichiro used each night to make their dinners. Ichiro still sat close by as well, staring into the flames, his immense presence like a heavy bolder. It reminded Raziel for a moment of Roland.

  “He wants you all to quit,” Ichiro said, suddenly.

  “I know that,” Raziel said, almost spitting the words. “I’m not exactly impressed with myself after this week either.”

  “No, you don’t understand. He wants you to quit so that he doesn’t have to teach you. The problem isn’t you. The problem is him.”

  “What do you mean?” Miles asked, sitting forward. His normally thin face was every bit as haggard as Raziel’s own. Raziel knew from the way his hand trembled just from holding the spoon he used to eat that Miles had to be at least as tired as he was. Ichiro didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be considering what exactly he wanted to tell them.

  “I don’t know what it is. But he is reluctant to teach anyone. He tries to act as though he’s just lazy but no one becomes that strong by being lazy. There is something else to it. He’s trying to get you to quit.”

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  “So he was lying about the training getting harder?” Raziel asked.

  “No. He’s still an elf. Elves do not lie. And all training that is worth doing is hard.”

  “Then what are you trying to tell us? Do you want us to quit too?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “So you think we can do it?” Miles put in. There was something fragile in the words. He looked especially hollow in that moment. As exhausted as Raziel and just as ready to give up. “Do you think we’re good enough?”

  Ichiro didn’t answer right away. He looked to the tree in the center of the pond, watched as its orange and pink leaves blended with the colors of the sky as the sun set.

  “I won’t pretend that any of you would have been my first choice for students. But I believe that Master Hiro picked all of you for reasons. He would not be trying to force you to quit if he didn’t believe you capable of learning. And this school has made many who were weaker than any of you into warriors much stronger than I. I will not tell you what to do. But I do want all of you to stay.”

  “Why?” Hoeru asked like he didn’t see the point. The changeling had flopped to the ground and was laying close to the edge of the pond, one arm draped over his eyes, his wild silver hair turning to gold in the setting sun’s light. Raziel was surprised he’d spoken at all. He hadn’t thought the changeling was paying attention to any of this.

  Ichiro kept his eyes on the tree in the center of the pond as he answered. It almost seemed as he was questioning himself as much as them.

  “What is a school without students?”

  Knowing the next day wouldn’t be filled with exhausting exercise, Raziel went to bed not long after dinner. And yet, despite his deep weariness he struggled to find sleep. Whatever Ichiro said, the only thing that was obviously true was that Hiro didn’t want them to be there. It was surprising how much that hurt. Raziel couldn’t help pondering the possibility that he was simply broken. Irreparable.

  Worthless.

  Sleep did come for him eventually. When he woke, Miles was still asleep a few feet away. They’d been given little more than a mat and a thin blanket to sleep with but Raziel had been too tired each night for that to bother him much. Hoeru’s mat was empty though. Raziel couldn’t even tell if he’d slept in it at all last night.

  Raziel had to hold in a groan as he sat up. It seemed like every muscle in his body had turned into a hardened knot. But eventually he was able to get up and get moving. He found the bathroom, no mean feat when he had to sleepily find a building that could turn invisible at any moment. Then he went to the area by the tree in the pond. He was hungry, ravenous.

  As promised, Hiro sat beneath the tree. Except for his elegant robes, the master seemed to fit there strangely well. He leaned against the tree, as comfortably as if it were a soft couch, his thick, scarred hands folded over his chest. He seemed to be asleep at first but when Raziel approached Hiro gestured towards the area near the fire pit where their morning meal had been put out every morning.

  As was usual it was mostly fruits and nuts. Raziel knew Hoeru hated what he called ‘rabbit food’ but all the same he’d never failed to eat his portion. And yet all three bowls were still full. So he likely hadn’t been there last night. The list of places he could have gone wasn’t long. Raziel was planning to visit Basil’s ship too.

  He ate mechanically, barely tasting the fruit and Hiro closed his eyes once again. That was fine. Raziel didn’t want to talk. Despite wanting to see his grandfather he couldn’t help dreading the conversation. It would be the last time he would see the old man for a very long time after all. Either that or…

  Raziel quickly finished the last few bites of an apple to avoid finishing that thought. He was not going to quit. It just wasn’t going to happen. No matter how much he wanted to.

  After a quick round of stretches (one of the few useful things he’d learned so far) to loosen his aching body, he set off. Hiro didn’t try to stop him. Raziel didn’t think he’d need directions but, despite the fact that the Skyport tree was unbelievably tall, they were far enough away with enough other huge trees in the way, that he found himself just wandering in what he remembered as the right direction and hoping. But in the end he did have to ask for directions more than once from passersby. The tangle of giant roots and small footpaths were easy to confuse but the elves were friendly folk.

  The ride up the tree wasn’t as fun as previous rides had been. It was hard to enjoy the view going up a tree you’d been thrown out of.

  Raziel didn’t go straight through the gate when he arrived. Instead he found himself standing outside for a long time before he was able to make himself go through. He didn’t know what he was going to say to his grandfather. He’d come to say goodbye but he was afraid he’d ask Duriel to help him run away.

  When he finally climbed the gangplank, Basil was sitting on a chair on the deck of his ship, his heavy black boots propped up on a second chair. He was reading and did not look up from the book when Raziel stepped onto the deck. And yet, Raziel still had the sense that he was being watched. He firmly ignored it. He’d made it into Hiro’s school. He wasn’t leaving. There was nothing left to prove now.

  Raziel made it three steps down into the ship before he realized that he didn’t actually know if Duriel was on the ship or not. He paused in between steps for a minute before deciding that there was no way he was going to ask Basil. It wouldn’t take very long to find someone else in the ship.

  He was right. Hoeru sat with Sumi in what amounted to the dining room. It was a central part of the ship, one that afforded the most open space and so, during Raziel’s time there, it had been the de facto place for eating. The only other option was his bedroom and eating in a hammock was just asking for disaster.

  Sumi smiled when she saw Raziel. Hoeru was scowling and it wasn’t hard to see why. Sumi’s cheeks had sunken in, growing noticeably hollow again. Raziel knew in that moment, as certain as he knew the difference between down and up, that there was no way he’d be able to get Hoeru to leave Sumi again. A million uncertainties crashed over him in that instant but he held them back.

  “Is Duriel here?” he asked. Hoeru’s scowl faded and he gave Raziel a nod. He’d probably been expecting Raziel to ask him if he was coming back to the school.

  “In his room I think,” Hoeru answered. Raziel nodded, gave Sumi a quick pat on the shoulder in greeting, and went on his way. He could feel her eyes on his back as he left. Her concern stung like a sunburn.

  It was the oddest sensation leaving that room. He’d gone in uncertain. Now he knew that his best friend would be leaving him behind or he’d be giving up a part of himself to join Hoeru in leaving the school himself. Everything in his life it seemed had turned to glass and was collapsing, shattering. The ships halls seemed terribly dark on his way to his grandfather’s room.

  Duriel’s door was open and soft, warm light poured out the door. Even before Raziel came through the door he could smell the tea that Duriel preferred and the scent of old books.

  Duriel sat at a desk at the back of the small room, going over old papers, what looked like letters. He had on the reading spectacles that he despised but had finally come to accept as a necessity a few years ago and his bald head reflected the light from a lamp on the wall. His room was larger than most on the ship, the walls covered in shelves filled with books. Raziel didn’t know how they all stayed in place when the ship was in flight, presumably some kind of magic prevented the shelving or the books from falling.

  The room wasn’t shaped anything like his grandfather’s room had back in Dominic’s school in Peritura and none of the furniture was the same. But it still felt like home. And of all the pains Raziel felt coming through that door, that was the worst.

  Duriel looked up from what he was doing, saw it was Raziel, and lifted a single finger to let Raziel know he’d be done in just a moment. Raziel found a chair and eased into it. Just sitting after that much walking was a relief.

  “I was hoping you would come today,” Duriel said after a moment, still scratching at a piece of paper with his pen.

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  “Well, I have a question for you.”

  Duriel set down his pen and took off his glasses. He rubbed at his eyes and finally took a real look at Raziel. He’d opened his mouth to say something but stopped.

  “Are you okay, son?” he asked, stroking his neatly trimmed white beard.

  So it was that obvious.

  “It’s been a hard week.”

  Duriel looked at him for a long moment. The old man’s lips disappeared into his beard as he frowned. Raziel didn’t say anything. It didn’t seem there was anything he could say.

  “Well, would you rather tell me about your week first or hear my question first?”

  “Let’s go with the question,” Raziel said. Duriel watched him though Raziel couldn’t tell what his grandfather was looking for. But eventually the old man nodded and sat back in his chair.

  “It’s about your father.”

  Raziel sat forward just as much as Duriel had sat back. In the near decade since Duriel took Raziel in they had only had a handful of conversations about Raziel’s parents. All of those conversations had been short, Duriel trying to get away from the subject as quickly as possible. Raziel knew that Duriel, like almost everyone, did not see eye to eye with his father about his work. As closed off as Duriel had been, the mild disdain that he had for the subject of the flying city that Azariel had been researching for most of his adult life had come through. Even when Raziel had told him about what he had seen blotting out the stars the night that his parents and their house had disappeared.

  “Alright,” was all Raziel could say. Questions he’d always wanted to ask and had long since given up were dusting themselves off inside his head but there were simply too many for him to pick just one. Duriel seemed just as unsure of how to start.

  “You know that your father and I didn’t see eye to eye. I wanted him to follow me in a military career. He wanted to do… what I saw as frivolous adventuring. I told him that if he continued on that path he’d do it without my support. And he did. And that was essentially the last time that he and I spoke to one another.”

  The old man ran a hand over his bald head. Raziel didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. The echoes of very old, very deep pains were too loud in the room.

  “Anyway, that was a long time ago. When Az and your mother disappeared I assumed he’d found some relic from a bygone age on one of his trips and it had turned on and destroyed the house. I thought he’d done something that I had warned him about and it had come back to bite him. I never wanted to talk to you about it because I knew he told you about what he was looking for and I didn’t want you to follow in what I saw as his foolishness. And I never wanted to hear anything else because I didn’t want to be wrong on top of losing my son. But I was wrong on both accounts. I know you still have that old journal of his. And I know how much it means to you.”

  Raziel’s mouth felt dry. Every word felt like Duriel picking at an old, scabbed over wound. And yet Raziel couldn’t help but want to hear more.

  “So why are you telling me?” he asked. Duriel looked down at his hands. They were leathery, scarred, and thick.

  “Because I was wrong,” he said at last. “I was wrong to treat him that way. It’s why I’ve let you come here, when I don’t know that this is the best path for you. I can’t treat you the way I treated him. Can’t risk losing you too.”

  There was a tremor in Duriel’s voice there at the end. Raziel started to get up, to go to him, but the old man raised one of those worn hands and Raziel eased back into his chair.

  “While you still asleep after everything that happened in Peritura I looked through Azariel’s journal and were still recovering I went to the fort you found out there. There wasn’t a lot left. But there was enough to confirm some of what he wrote. So I spoke with Basil about it. And now, here, I’ve spoken with some of my old contacts from my time in the military. And that has all brought me to you.”

  Duriel paused, seemed to consider what he was about to ask very carefully before taking the plunge.

  “I would like to begin investigating your father’s research on this flying city. The one I believe you saw the night they disappeared. I’d like you to come with me.”