THE APPLE OF SNAKES

xlvii. shaking

"Your arms are shaking," Aristide observed. "Are you tired?"

"Yes!" Nerluce snarled.

He'd been tired for the past quarter candlemark but no one had bothered to relieve him. Aristide's question wasn't meant to relieve him, just to mock. He was sitting nearby, leaned casually against a wall as he thumbed through the pages of a book that looked older than Ethera. Nerluce ground his teeth together and blinked - hard - several times, trying to keep the beads of sweat rolling down his face from pooling in his eye socket.

"You're almost at a half candlemark," Aristide said, glancing off somewhere. "Did you know that if you made it a full candlemark you would beat the recorded time of one of Ethera's greatest Seraphs?"

"Yes!" Nerluce said again.

Aristide had been reminding him of this fact since he first started. Not just today, but since his first year at Ethera. He'd been hearing it for two and a half years now so yes, he knew.

Humming, Aristide considered the act of Nerluce knowing very gravely for someone who knew that Nerluce knew. "If you beat it, they'd probably make you a Seraph right then. Your name would go down in history."

"Screw-"

Nerluce lost his balance and came tumbling out of his handstand. He let out a frustrated groan as Aristide snickered.

"I am going to throttle you," Nerluce threatened.

"You seem a bit tired to be doing that right now, don't you?" Aristide asked, tipping his head in that obnoxiously adorable way of his.

Nerluce let out another frustrated cry.

"What's gotten into you this time?" Taayir asked, eyes alight with a suspicious glare as she approached them. "You're supposed to be training, not messing around. Aristide, do you have nothing better to do than bother Nerluce?"

"I am helping him," Aristide said. "The job of a Seraph will always be one of... distractions. He ought to remain focused."

"How considerate of you," Taayir said. "Go help the girl over there with her water magick."

"As you wish, Elder Priestess Taayir," Aristide said with a dramatic sigh.

As he left, Nerluce let out another huff. His arms ached, sore from holding the weight of his body for such a long period of time. He rolled his shoulder and looked up at Taayir, whose gaze was still fixed on him. "What?" he asked.

"Aristide is right, you know," she said.

"Yeah, I know," Nerluce said, waving her off. "He always is."

Taayir smiled and sat down next to him on the cold stone. For their physical magick classes, they usually took them outdoors. However, it being the dead of winter in Ethera, there was a bit too much snow out today and they were inside one of the classrooms that had been gutted of all desks and traditional learning equipment.

Taayir was much more fond of having them do handstands until they couldn't take notes the next day.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

"Still not able to make fire with a snap of my fingers," Nerluce said. "Which, should I mention, is a required ability to become a Seraph."

"You'll get it," Taayir said, brushing him off. "This is about making your body and your magick stronger. You still have plenty of time. Besides, learning to change magick midway through is an extremely difficult skill to master. It is also something that cannot be taught. You will just sort of... do it one day and know how to. Like whistling."