The knight statues' engravings filled with white fire, the flames coursing through their carvings like veins awakening after centuries of stillness.
One by one, they moved.
Each statue grabbed its shield with both hands, raising it before its chest towards them. Then, in perfect synchrony, they began marching between the other statues, shifting positions, weaving through the training grounds, their movements deliberate yet fluid.
Selis, watching them without expression, plucked another handful of wooden arrows from the stand and handed them to Kazimir.
"Now," she said, her voice calm but commanding, "hit the moving targets. Aim for their shields."
Kazimir hesitated, gripping the arrows but not yet reaching for his bow.
"Aren't these statues part of the castle?" he asked, his voice uncertain.
"Won't it get mad if I hit them?"
Selis turned to him, her silver eyes sharp.
"These statues are designed for training," she stated plainly. "Striking them will not provoke the castle. And besides," she gestured at the wooden arrows, "you are using weak training arrows. They won't harm anything."
If these were weak, Kazimir thought, then what did strong arrows look like?
Still, he swallowed his doubts, pulled back his bowstring, and fired.
The arrow hissed through the air.
And struck the stone wall behind the statues with a sharp, echoing crack.
Kazimir sighed in frustration.
Hitting a moving target at this distance was impossible. His arrows couldn't keep up.
Without a word, Selis closed her eyes.
She raised her hand, summoning another white flame into her palm. Slowly, she stretched it, shaping it into an arrow before pulling one arm back.
She let it fly.
This time, the arrow did not split. Instead, it struck a single statue carrying a shield.
The moment it landed, the statue halted, as if frozen in time. Then, as if following an unseen command, it turned and marched back to its original position. The light in its engravings dimmed, and the statue returned to stillness.
Selis opened her eyes.
"You are thinking like an ordinary archer," she said. "Relying only on sight. That is why you failed."
Kazimir frowned. "Then how am I supposed to hit them?"
Selis regarded him for a moment before speaking.
"Sense them. Sense their movements, their patterns, their future actions."
She gestured toward the still-glowing statues.
"I can sense the flames within them. The way light bends around their forms. That is how I anticipate their movements before they even happen."
She turned to him.
"You do not need light. You have shadows."
Kazimir stiffened.
"Close your eyes," Selis instructed. "Forget your sight. Sense their shadows instead."
Kazimir hesitated, then obeyed.
He shut out the light. The room disappeared into darkness.
Slowly, he reached out, not with his hands, but with his mind, feeling for the shadows cast around him. He let his senses stretch beyond his own body, mapping the room through shadows alone.
And then,
He could see them.
Not with his eyes, but with his awareness. The flickering candlelight cast their silhouettes upon the ground, stretching them like ink across the stone floor. The statues moved, their shadows shifting, twisting in perfect synchronization.
He could feel every step they would take before they took it.
A slow smile formed on Kazimir's lips.
Keeping his eyes closed, he nocked an arrow.
He aimed.
He exhaled.
And fired.
The arrow sliced through the air, but this time, there was no loud crack against the wall.
Instead, he heard the solid ring of metal.
Kazimir's eyes snapped open.
A statue's shield had taken the hit, its white flames fading, dimming until they vanished completely.
He had struck it.
Selis observed him in silence before finally speaking.
"Well done."
Then, without warning another fire arrow ignited in her grasp, but this time, when she loosed it,
It did not aim for the statues.
The arrow split into dozens of smaller flames, soaring past the knight statues,
And instead, struck the gargoyles lining the walls above.
Kazimir's breath caught.
The stone gargoyles, perched high above the training grounds, bore engravings much like the knights below. Their silent, unmoving faces remained fixed in the same eerie expressions, until, one by one, the white flames spread through their engravings.
Their engravings filled with white flames.
And then, they moved.
One by one, the gargoyles pulled shields from the walls, gripping them in clawed hands.
Then, without hesitation,
They took flight.
The air rushed past as they ascended, circling high above the training grounds, their shields raised in defensive stances towards them.
Selis, standing beside Kazimir, crossed her arms.
"Now," she said, her voice still perfectly measured, "let's see how you handle flying targets."