(Ereshgal POV)
Night had already fallen, though it was still early. Hadan left to arrange the meetings for the next day, and there was nothing else I could do for now. I made my way back to the workshop with the sound dome active, keeping my distance from the patrols as usual.
Kisaya was training when I arrived.
"How's the training going?" I called out.
She lowered her spear and walked over. "Good. How did things go for you?"
I nodded. "Only two more. Then we'll have enough."
"I'm glad." A genuinely happy smile spread across her face.
My eyes dropped to the spear resting against her shoulder. I might as well take advantage of the opportunity.
"Want to train?"
Kisaya froze for a second, surprise crossing her face before her eyes lit up.
"Really?"
She did a terrible job of hiding how excited she was.
"Sure. Just give me a moment to get some weapons from the storehouse."
I headed inside and came back with two short swords.
This was exactly what I needed to keep refining Liraya's fighting style. But since Kisaya couldn't use spiritual energy here, I would have to keep both my strength and speed within human limits. Otherwise, this wouldn't be much of a training session.
Kisaya raised an eyebrow when she saw the swords in my hands.
"Two swords? Since when do you fight like that?"
"Since I got a hundred and forty years of practice."
Her smile faded just a little. She was probably thinking about what we had talked about earlier that day.
I walked until there were five or six steps between us and tightened my grip on both swords. Kisaya lowered the tip of her spear toward me.
"Ready?"
I brought one sword forward while keeping the other close to my ribs.
"Whenever you are."
Kisaya attacked the moment I finished speaking, closing part of the distance with a quick step as the tip of her spear shot toward my face. It came so fast that I only had time to tilt my head aside. The metal passed close enough for me to feel the air move against my cheek.
I stepped forward immediately, trying to get inside the spear's reach before she could recover, but Kisaya pulled the weapon back before I could close the gap. Instead of retreating, she reversed the motion and swung the opposite end toward my ribs.
I brought one sword down to intercept it.
The spear struck my sword with enough force to knock my arm slightly outward, and Kisaya used that opening to bring the spearhead around from the other side.
I slipped beneath it and answered with a cut toward her forward hand.
She released the shaft with her forward hand before my blade reached her fingers, letting the weapon pivot around the hand that still held it. The spear slid through her palm as she shifted her grip farther back, giving herself enough distance to thrust again almost immediately.
A heartbeat later, it shot straight toward my chest.
This time, I crossed both swords in front of me. The point struck between the blades, and I twisted my wrists in opposite directions, trapping the spearhead between them.
For a fraction of a second, I had it.
Kisaya did not try to pull free.
She kicked at my knee instead.
I had to step back to avoid it, and the change in angle was enough for her to rip the spear from between my swords before I could twist it out of her hands.
She recovered her stance just as quickly, the spear settling between us again.
A smile appeared on her face.
"You're good."
I adjusted my grip on the swords.
"So are you."
Kisaya came at me again, but this time I did not rush to close the distance. Instinct warned me that trying to force my way straight through her reach would be a mistake.
Range was the most obvious advantage of a spear, but it was not the real problem. In skilled hands, that range was constantly changing. Every shift of the grip could turn a long thrust into a close attack, forcing the opponent to judge the distance all over again.
Kisaya proved it almost immediately.
She thrust high, forcing me to knock the point aside with my right sword. Instead of pulling the spear back, she let the shaft slide between her hands, shortening her grip as the point circled toward my shoulder. My second blade caught it before it reached me, and I stepped forward at the same time.
One sword pressed against the shaft while the other cut toward her stomach.
Kisaya twisted her hips out of the way, braced the middle of the spear against my chest, and used it to push herself back a step.
The spear swept low toward my legs, and I jumped over it, but by the time my feet touched the ground, the point was already coming back toward my stomach.
I turned sideways and let it pass beneath my arm, then brought my left sword down over the shaft while the right came up from below. Once again, I had the spear trapped between both blades.
Liraya would not have wasted time fighting for control of the weapon.
She would have gone for the hands holding it.
I followed that instinct, sliding one sword along the shaft as I moved closer. Kisaya tried to pull away, but before I even thought about it, my grip on the left sword changed. I turned it the way Namur would have held a dagger and drove the pommel toward her wrist.
She released the spear before the pommel could reach her wrist, letting it fall as she stepped inside and drove her shoulder into me instead.
That, I had not expected.
Our bodies collided, but the result was probably not what she had imagined. Kisaya bounced backward from the impact while I barely moved.
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
It was the first genuine one I had let out since living through Namur's memories.
Kisaya stared at me in disbelief, then looked down at my feet as if she needed to make sure they were still touching the ground.
"That was your idea," I reminded her.
"You didn't even move."
"I'm bigger than you."
Her eyes narrowed.
"No, you're not."
"Then I'm stronger."
"That's exactly the problem."
Before I could answer, she planted both hands against my chest and pushed as hard as she could. This time, I did nothing to resist her. I simply stood there and let her try. After a few seconds, Kisaya stopped pushing. She looked down at her hands, then slowly raised her head to glare at me.
"You're doing that on purpose."
"I'm just standing here."
"You know what I mean."
I couldn't help laughing again. Kisaya shook her head, picked up the spear from the ground, and pointed it at me once more.
"Normal strength."
"What?"
"I want you to use normal strength for everything, not just when you attack or block."
I raised both swords again.
"Fine."
The smile returned to her face as she settled back into her stance.
"Good."
This time, instead of attacking right away, we began circling each other. I stopped focusing so much on the spearhead and watched Kisaya's feet instead, looking for the small changes in her stance that might give away her next move.
She was too good.
If this were purely a contest of skill, I honestly did not think I could beat her. I feinted toward her left, but she did not react. I tried the same thing toward the right, and the spear barely moved.
Interesting.
Simple feints were not going to move her, so I let my shoulders loosen and allowed the sword in my right hand to drift a little too far from my ribs. Namur had always looked least dangerous just before he attacked, and he had never minded taking a hit if it allowed him to end the fight first.
Kisaya noticed the opening almost immediately. The point shot toward my chest. I knocked it aside with my left sword and kept moving forward, forcing Kisaya to give ground before she could recover the distance she wanted.
The spear came back in a horizontal swing. I ducked beneath it, but instead of straightening again, I pushed off from that position and covered the last step between us before she could finish the turn.
Kisaya tried to shorten her grip, but I was already too close.
One sword knocked the shaft upward while the other came in close against her side. At the last moment, my wrist turned the cut into a short thrust beneath her ribs, the same compact movement Namur had used against me. Kisaya twisted away, just not quickly enough.
The point was about to touch her tunic, but I was already slowing it down.
"Got y-"
Her knee drove into my stomach.
The impact bent me forward slightly, and before I could recover, Kisaya swept the shaft behind my ankle and pulled hard.
I could have stayed on my feet without any effort.
This time, I did not.
My leg was swept out from under me, and I hit the ground on my back. Kisaya followed immediately, planting one foot beside my hip and lowering the spear until the point stopped only a few inches from my throat.
She was breathing hard, with several strands of hair hanging across her face, but the smile she wore made it obvious how pleased she was with herself.
"Got you."
Kisaya laughed.
I raised one sword and gently pushed the spearhead aside. She let me sit up, still watching me with that same triumphant expression.
"You fight completely differently now."
"I know. That was mostly Liraya, with a little Namur mixed in."
Her smile faltered for just a moment.
I regretted the words almost immediately and looked down at the sword in my left hand.
"I meant their techniques" I clarified. "Not..."
"I know."
Kisaya rested the spear across her shoulder.
For a few seconds, neither of us said anything. Then she pointed at my swords with the tip of her weapon.
"Again."
I looked at her.
"You're tired."
Her eyes narrowed.
"Then use human endurance too."
I laughed.
"That's not how it works."
"Then stop complaining."
She lowered the spear again as I got back to my feet.
"Ready?"
…
By the time the sky began to brighten, the style no longer felt like something I was borrowing. Its foundation belonged to Liraya, while a few of its shorter, crueler movements came from Namur, but the way they fit together was becoming mine.
I raised one of the short swords and shifted it into a reverse grip. Even that no longer felt borrowed.
Kisaya finally went to sleep when the sun came up.
She refused to admit she was exhausted, even though she had been slowing down for a while and her eyes kept drifting shut whenever we stopped fighting. Normally, with spiritual energy, she could have kept going, but the detector made that impossible. When she insisted anyway, I took the spear out of her hands and led her toward the bedroom myself.
She complained the entire way.
The moment she reached the bed, the complaints stopped.
Lureh woke not long afterward.
I found her in the kitchen, sitting in front of a bowl of stew left over from the night before. Zabar appeared a few minutes later. Ever since I had ordered him to eat, he seemed determined to keep doing it until I told him otherwise. He did not seem to enjoy the food, but he did not seem bothered by it either. He simply sat down, filled another bowl, and began eating with his eyes lowered.
Lureh glanced toward the courtyard.
"Where's Kisaya?"
"Sleeping."
"Still?"
"We trained all night."
Her spoon stopped halfway to her mouth as her gaze shifted from me toward the bedroom, a faint blush slowly spreading across her cheeks.
She had clearly understood something very different.
Two days remained before the coronation.
If everything went according to plan, Belari would be next. Convincing her would bring us to six votes, but the seventh was still a problem.
The sound of several people approaching the workshop pulled me from my thoughts. From the weight and rhythm of them, several belonged to soldiers.
"Hadan" I said.
Lureh looked up from her food. Zabar kept eating.
I went to meet them before they reached the door.
Hadan was waiting outside with four soldiers. He was not wearing full armor, only a reinforced leather cuirass with a short sword at his side, and judging by the dark circles beneath his eyes, he had somehow managed to sleep even less than Kisaya.
"Belari agreed to meet with us," he said without bothering with a greeting.
I glanced back toward the workshop. Kisaya was still asleep, so I went inside long enough to tell Lureh I was leaving in case she woke before I returned.
Something suddenly came to mind.
Kisaya had never once insisted on coming with me, despite knowing I had been leaving the workshop repeatedly and putting myself in danger.
That felt strange considering her edict. My guess was that her desire to protect the plan outweighed her urge to follow me. Perhaps staying behind was simply another way of acting on the same concern.
At least for now.
If I ever came back injured, though, I doubted that would last. Not that I expected that to happen.
I pulled my hood over my face and stepped outside to join Hadan.
…
Belari did not receive us at her home.
Instead, we were taken to a brick office beside one of the main canals. Water flowed past an open section of the wall, its constant rush mixing with the scratching of styluses against clay. Six scribes worked in the outer room, recording grain deliveries, water levels, and the shifts assigned to each of the canal gates.
Being two days away from crowning a new king was not enough for the woman responsible for Uruk's public granaries and canals to abandon her work.
Belari was waiting deeper inside, seated behind a low table with three tablets arranged neatly in front of her. She had a narrow face and gray hair tied back behind her head, with no jewelry apart from a small copper seal hanging from her neck. Its design showed a sealed jar between two streams of water.
The conversation went almost exactly as we had expected. Belari listened carefully, asked questions when something did not make sense, and gave away very little while we explained what we knew.
The moment Hadan told her that Mekar had agreed to vote for suspending the coronation, her heart suddenly kicked harder.
"Mmm..."
She took her time answering, staring down at the tablets as though she still had something difficult to consider.
She wanted to say yes. That seemed like considerably more than Mekar's she might listen to me.
Was there something going on between those two?
I really should start paying more attention to people's heartbeats during conversations. Changes like that could tell me more than their faces did. With enough practice, they might even help me notice when someone was lying.
"Very well" Belari finally said. "I'll vote to suspend the coronation and reopen your father's case."
By the time Hadan and I left the building, neither of us spoke until we had put several streets between ourselves and Belari's guards.
"That makes six" he said.
"One more."