Chapter Seven

“Honestly, O ‘Denrick,’ after all this time, do you crave death? Truly?”

As Shina and Mikele occupied themselves with their shift, one mopping the endless, labyrinthine palace halls while the other stirred the simmering soups and turned the spit over the fire, the remaining four gathered in an open, empty chamber. A circular, arena-like room with a sandy pit in the center, lined with several rows of curved, wooden benches that parted in the center around a grand center seat. Four deep, dark puddles circled around the edges of the ring, and several Slingpans hung from the walls by the doorways. The priestesses had found the space after wandering around the halls over the course of two weeks. None of them looked forward to finding out what God used this room for—old, crusted bloodstains covered all the closest benches—but in the meantime, it seemed like a good enough place to practice Slinging.

How useful that Art would prove against a being who could obliterate galaxies with a snap of its fingers remained to be seen. But given Leshin’s relative uselessness at cleaning, cooking, and homemaking… perhaps this would give her something to offer.

“Now,” she said, grabbing one of the Slingpans from the doors. She called forth an Arm from the water’s surface, extending it until the massive, rippling tip loomed over their heads, swaying back and forth. “How many of you have practiced Slinging before?”

Ilaki and Kilini raised their hands, but Nikime seemed a bit torn, raising hers halfway.

“Maybe?” Nikime muttered. “As much as anyone ‘practices’ when playing with a puddle.”

“Okay,” Leshin said. “How many of you can call more than one Arm?”

Only Kilini raised her arm this time, and for the first time in ages, something close to a smirk appeared on the woman’s face. Ever since that night all those days ago, she’d become so quiet. Gone was that bluster, that self-assuredness. Now, she flinched at the barest mention of God’s name, tossing and turning into the late hours of night, waking everyone up with her fitful nightmares. Her eyes looked so dark, but she cleared her throat and took a step forward.

“I can use four,” Kilini said, a tiny hint of pride peeking through her sullen eyes.

“Okay,” Leshin said. “Okay, that’s good. That’s great, actually.”

“It’s not easy…”

“Don’t doubt it for a second. It takes a long, long time to learn how to call even two Arms. If there is one thing I mean to drill into your heads, it is that Slinging—serious, life-or-death Slinging—is beyond difficult. One tiny mistake, one single tablespoon of water hits you, and you lose all your power. Yes, if you take the hit on bare skin, you can dry off quickly enough. But if it gets in your hair, you could be helpless for hours—and God help you if you fall in the water.”

Summoning two more Arms from the same pool, Leshin threw her Slingpan into the air and caught it on the tips of her three watery tentacles before lowering it close to the ground. She hopped up onto the brass plate and carried herself about ten feet over the three priestesses’ heads. “Slinging is a rather limited Art. Yeah, there’s a lot you can do with it—your Arms can throw water, lift a thousand stone with ease, and if you refine your technique enough, you can even cut iron. But in the end, you can only stretch your Arm so long—and if you stretch one as far as it can go, your other Arms will shrink to compensate. There’s only so much water you can move. And the bigger your body, the more you can work with. But, of course, your Arm can’t depart the water’s surface. If it lacks a larger body of water to extend from, it will just fall over. I’m sure you’ve noticed that, Nikime—you try to Sling more than half of a puddle, it just goes limp, yes?”

Nikime nodded, frowning. “So?”

“So, if you intend to ride a Slingpan from one body of water to another, how do you cross the gap?”

She pointed off to one of the pools on the opposite side of the arena, some thirty feet away. “Let’s pretend I’m like Kilini, and I can only use four Arms. But I really need to move over to that pool. And let’s say I’m small enough that I can’t move enough water to just extend my Arms over it. How do I cross the gap?”

 Ilaki puzzled for a bit, then raised her arm. “Call the extra Arm from the other pool to pick up one side of the pan, then switch your Arms out from there?”

With a soft smile, Leshin did just that, filling just one of the three divots from an Arm in the furthest pool. But she made a point to show that she couldn’t summon any more Arms, and that she couldn’t stretch her original two any further.

“If I try to switch Arms, I’ll only have two points of contact with the Slingpan for a moment. And that poses a problem because…?”

“You’ll fall off,” Ilaki said, frowning.

“Indeed,” Leshin said. “You always need three points of contact if you’re lifting yourself. Otherwise, you’ll take a tumble. Unless…”

Her two stretched-out Arms kicked up one end of the Slingpan, and she leaned forward to balance while the remaining one whipped her over to the pool before she could tip back the other way. Right before the pan could fall out from under her, Leshin caught the back two divots with brand-new Arms from the pool. “And this is what makes Slinging so difficult,” she said, lowering herself to the sandy ground. “Half of the skill lies in acrobatics, and the other half in spatial awareness. You have to know exactly where those divots are if you want to catch yourself. You have to balance well enough to keep yourself upright when you’re throwing yourself around, and you mostly need to do all that while dodging a shit-ton of water at the same time. That’s why, for this first session, I’m gonna start you all on flexibility training.”

Ilaki shot her a look. “You’ll have us kill God with gymnastics? Shouldn’t we start by learning how to call more Arms?”

“Ah, but I’m afraid that won’t work, my dear,” Leshin said, booping the tip of Ilaki’s nose with the thin tip of one of her Arms. “Because we call them Arms for a reason. If you can’t control your real arms, you can’t control your Sling-Arms. You don’t need strength to be a good Slinger. You don’t even need to have a dozen Arms—no, you just need control. Perfect control. Over your body, over your mind, over everything. Got it, cupcake?”

For a second, Ilaki flushed, but she stood up straight and sighed. “Got it.”

“Alrighty, then! We’ll begin with lunges!”

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