Morning came without pomp, that type which sneaked through it all, and swamped the world up whether people were willing or not. Still before the light had penetrated through the broken window, Ethan James was awake, and alert already, the tension of his body. Nor this time there was any acute panic, no elemental fear lurking in his heart. Rather, there was perception--weighed, consistent and unquestionably existent. Today was not the same one, not because it was the promise of a victory, but the promise of truth. All that he had grown to whatever he had become during these days of suffering, of repression, of re-education would be put to the test.
He got into a sitting position gradually, so that his body could feel the action. The old pains had not disappeared, and were still to be felt knotting between muscle and bone, but no longer taking center stage. Pain had lost its authority. It talked but it no longer ordered about. Ethan got up and only stableized himself a moment, and breathed out, flexing his shoulders, and rolling his fingers. The warmth within him was aroused in response, weak but submissive, a silent companion that had at last learnt his tempo.
Black Stone City was already up outside. Voices heard in the narrow streets, merchants pitching their tents, guards going round. Marcus Reed was somewhere among them, and people were waiting to see what happened next somewhere among them. Ethan did not rush. He bath, packed up his wounds, and dressed himself with slow deliberation. He was not out of the shack when Lily James was already standing there, a few paces away, not knowing whether to speak or to stare.
You do not need to go, she thought after a minute, and though there was anxiousness in her features, her voice held. "People are talking. Today might not end quietly."
Ethan looked up at her and nodded his head, not outright, not melodramatic, not disdainful. Quiet endings, are not always sincere, he said. "But thank you. For everything."
There was more she would have said, he could read it, but she shrank aside, and left him to pass. That was enough. Words were not always necessary to create trust.
The stroll in the city seemed to be longer than normal. Not that his body could not, but that the very air felt to be so sick with anticipation. Now some would be openly watching, others murmuring behind him and still some people would not even seem to be noticing at all. Ethan ignored them all. He began to look only at the road he was going on, at the steady beat of his footsteps, at the measured swell and fall of his breath. Marcus Reed was already on the open training ground when he got to the outer end of the academy.
He was not alone. There was a little crowd of spectators standing a bit away, feigning accident, and Marcus was leaning idly against a stone pillar with crossed arms and with the confidence that is armor-tired. As he straightened and turned round his smile was slow and calculated, the kind that is intended to provoke.
So, said Marcus, whose voice could be readily heard in the distance,--the rumours were not so wild after all. You have indeed learnt to stand.
Ethan drew a halt a few feet off and looked his gaze full upon him. He made no bow, provoked no, did not immediately speak. There was a pause, and Marcus smiled a little to himself, which was the first time of such a lapse in his smile.
I did not come here to impress you, said Ethan, his voice cool and slow. I came because concealing oneself does no good.
Marcus gave a low chuckle, and, popping his knuckles, took a step forward. "Good. Then we agree on something. This ends today."
It was an attack in the first attack, quick, savage and usual, which was to subdue rather than to experiment. Ethan did not run, but walked, and in the right manner. He leaned into the blow, not opposing it, but taking it in, and keeping the shock that his momentum produced going through him instead of crashing on him. His body resisted pain, sharp, instant, but painful. That was the only thing which altered the fight rhythm.
Marcus scowled and pushed even harder, blows being delivered rapidly, each blow was one of assertion. Ethan would retreat when he had to, and he would save on energy and would be conscious of the awareness. He did not refute at once. He stood and waited, and followed patterns, and listened to his body and made changes with each breath. It was not the thoughtless confidence of his old life. This was moderation that was made by survival.
When Ethan eventually retaliated, he did not do it forcefully, but timely. His fist struck squarely and sent the air out of the lungs of Marcus and sent him a step backward. The onlookers gasped softly. The expression of Marcus changed, and vexation bled almost to a sharperness.
You believe that this makes you equal? Marcus snarled and recharged.
No, Ethan answered to himself as he stiffened himself. "I think it makes me present."
The fight became more vile, and the dirt kicked at the ground, and the sweat burnt Ethan's eyes, and he felt himself growing weaker. His flesh cried out to rest, to be released but he resisted. Every action was calculated, every rest was counted. Ethan took advantage when Marcus lost his head because of overextension. He did not aim to destroy. He aimed to end it.
The shock struck Marcus sprawling and he was knocked out of breath as he struck the ground. An immense silence settled down over the training ground, and was heavy and doubtful. Ethan leaned over him, with a heaving chest, and a blurred vision, but erect. Still standing.
For a long moment, no one moved. Marcus moaned then with a weak laugh, which was bitter and strained. "So that's it," he muttered. "You didn't beat me with power. You just... didn't fall."
Ethan moved aside, and made him room. That, said he, not in triumph, but in finality. "I'm done proving anything."
He had turned his back before Marcus could have reasoned, before the crowd could have determined what to do. Whispers as he walked, now unlike, doubtful, wary. The city had seen enough. Labels would shift. Stories would change. That was out of his control.
Ethan was shakering with exhaustion by the time he went back into the shack. Lily waited, and as she beheld him she was relieved. She made no comment when she assisted him to come indoors, and bade to his injuries. Ethan relaxed at the moment it was done, and closed his eyes, letting it rest.
He did not feel victorious. He felt complete.
The night, when Black Stone City slept uneasily, Ethan was lying awake and thinking about what was left. He had not yet restored his lost influence. He had not erased the past. But he had made with what remained something new. Something honest. Something earned.
Pain would return. Struggle would continue. The way before was still long and unamenable. But he no longer feared it. He had learned to survive, to adapt, and to stand (at the time when it was the most difficult decision to make).
And Ethan James had to believe, never before in destiny, or in revenge, but in the silent power of what he had made himself to be.
Ethan did not fall asleep at once. His body needed rest, and his mind hung in that weird twisting state between fatigue and clearness, in which ideas rose without effort. The battle was played back again, in pieces, not the strokes, not the hurt, but the intervals between, the decisions which he had made not to retreat, but to advance, not to fall, but to stand. At that time he understood that the greatest victory was never made in the presence of witnesses. It had occurred very quietly, within him, way back before Marcus Reed could fall on the ground.
Somewhere about sunrise he went out again. The city was more silent, now, washed by a pale light, and the angles were smoothed out by distance and weariness. Black Stone City remained as it ever had, with its crumbling walls and crooked streets, people running their lives on without pomp, but Ethan perceived it in a different light. It was no more a cage or a danger. It was merely a location that he could either stay or go away when the right time arrives. More than any reputation, that decision was important.
Breathing in, he felt the warmness, which had been so feeble and so edible, within him, grow stronger, more lasting. It was not yet large, by no means up to what he formerly used to wield, but it was steady. Honest. Built to last. And now he knew that he had lost everything he could lose once by the too easy acquisition of power. This once whatever he got would enter his body gradually and permanently, by labour and self-denial.
As Lily came out with him they stood together and looked on the city that was now awakening to a second dawn. There was no necessity to discuss the future in details. It would come regardless of their naming it. Training would continue. Healing would take time. And the academy and the city and the world beyond would put him again, as he was not yet able to see.
Ethan embraced that fact with no trepidation.
Since he was no longer running away to be hurt, no longer to run after the ghost of what he was. He was dragging on as himself--marred, rooted, and conscious. Whatever awaited him, it would be received by a man who had learned how to tumble, how to stand up and most importantly how to stay up when everything was against him.
And that, he was sure with silent certitude, was but the commencement.