"En garde, Sienna."

I brought the sabre into position and bent my knees, breathing heavily, watching Asher's weapon in front of me.

"Up a little more," he said, “and don’t stare at my weapon. Look into my eyes. They are the window to the soul. You’ll be able to tell what I’m going to do through your peripheral vision.”

I sighed, raised my arm a few inches, and looked into Asher’s dark brown eyes. I noticed with some annoyance that he wasn't even breathing hard.

"That's better. I know you prefer to come in low-line but that leaves you more vulnerable from the chest up and since most everybody else has their weapon up here, yours needs to be up here as well to defend. Right?"

I nodded, watching him closely. Asher had been known to sneak an attack in while he was talking to me and I wanted to be prepared should he try such a thing again.

Asher drew circles mid-air with the tip of his sabre, taunting me, playing. Suddenly he brought his blade down vertically, attempting to beat mine out of the way. I dodged his downward strike and brought my tip around to score but he was already there, parrying and riposting. I parried as well and stepped back out of range of his next attack.

"Stop," he said. He took off his mask and held it under his left arm.

"What...?" I replied, puzzled, lowering my weapon and straightening up.

"What did you do wrong?" Asher asked, his brown eyes regarding me.

I paused, unsure, catching my breath. "Um, I didn't riposte after parrying..."

"That's one."

I flashed him an annoyed look.

He smiled back. "What else?"

"My footwork was good," I said in my defense.

"Yes, it was. I'll grant you that. What else?"

I frowned and shrugged. "I don't know."

"All right," Asher said. He put his mask on the ground and approached me with his sabre extended. "Put your weapon out here with mine."

I did, remembering to keep my arm raised.

Asher beat his sword against mine lightly, playing with it. "Feel that?" he asked. "Feel that resistance?"

I nodded.

"That's your reference point, Sienna. Eventually you'll get to the point where you'll be able to tell what your opponent is about to do from the feel of his sword against yours. But you won't know that if your not in contact with his sword. Don't be afraid of it. If you're touching it you know where it is, right?"

He drew his weapon away from mine and danced in front of me, rocking back and forth, feinting in and out. "Now you don't know what's coming. It could be anything, from any direction..." He did a quick beat, feint, feint, and thrust. It caught me square on my sword arm.

"The trick is to establish your reference point and then use it to your advantage," he continued. "It's a dance, Sienna. You give away your energy in the form of an attack. Then he takes it and gives that energy back to you and you take it and give it back to him and so forth. Back and forth. All the time looking for an opening. All through the reference point. Got it?"

I nodded, soaking up the concepts, adding them to the already too long list of things I was suppose to remember when fencing.

Asher stopped and gazed at me. "I know that look," he said wryly. "You're trying to memorize it."

“Well, damn it, how am I suppose to keep all of this stuff in mind, anyway?" I complained, petulant. "You tell me to remember my footwork, so I concentrate on that and I forget to keep my arm raised. You tell me to bring my hand back to the en garde position after I attack instead of leaving it extended for you to tag, so I concentrate on that and forget the last parry you showed me. How do you do all of this, Asher?"

He smiled.

"I know what you're going to say," I retorted. "Practice, right?"

"Practice...you're right, little bird. The trick is to get your body to think for you so you don't have to bother with it. Only by repetition can you train your body to respond to a situation faster than you can actually think about it."

I gazed at him, daunted. "I'm never going to get this. I’ll just stick to heating up his sword so that it's too hot for him to hold, or flaming his clothes, or—"

Asher shifted his position and raised a finger. "Sienna. Might I remind you that your tricks won't work everywhere throughout shadow. You may be caught in a situation where you're forced to fight mundanely. It's important to learn these skills. They will save your life one day, I guarantee it."

I frowned, thinking about that.

"C'mon," Asher said clapping me on the shoulder and smiling. "Let's call it quits." He walked over to the waterjug as I stripped off my mask.

"You reminded me of your mother, today, Sienna," he said, pouring himself a drink.

"How's that?" I asked, interested. I started to pick up the loose equipment.

"Ah, well, she'd give me the same arguments when I was training her...about using her tricks to defend herself instead of learning to use a weapon." He took a long drink.

I plopped the equipment down in front of him. "I didn't know you trained my mother..."

"Didn't Bleys ever tell you?"

I shook my head. "He doesn't like talking about her."

"Ah, well, I suppose I can understand that."

"What was she like, Asher?"

He paused and regarded me, thinking. Then he smiled. "She was a lot like you. Brown hair—although hers was much longer—blue eyes, impatient..."

"C'mon! I'm serious! Dad won't tell me."

He displayed mock affront. "I am serious, little bird. She was very impatient. Wanted to know how to do everything and wanted to do it now, not later." He chuckled.

"What else can you tell me about her? Do you know how she and Dad met? Were they ever married? How...um...exactly did she die? I know it involved delivering me, but I don't even know the details."

Asher poured another cup of water and handed it to me. I took it. "Well, Sienna, I don't know if I should talk about this if your father hasn't. It's really his place to tell you."

"Oh, Asher," I said, rolling my eyes. "How else am I going to find out? He doesn't even want me to mention her. Don't you think I deserve to know?"

He frowned, pursing his lips. "Hmmm...Well, you're right about one thing. Alyssa died in childbirth delivering you," he conceded.

"How?" I asked, incredulous. "She was a great healer, wasn't she? Wasn't that how she and Dad met?"

"It sounds like you already know the story. Why then are you asking me?"

I frowned back at him. "I only know bits and pieces. Please tell me?"

Asher sat down on the floor and I followed suit. I took a drink from the cup of water he'd given me.

"All right," he said, "as you know your mother's name was Alyssa. Alyssa Elaine Sienna Montgomery."

My eyes grew wide. "Is that where I got my name...?"

Asher shrugged. "I wasn't privy to Bleys' thinking on the subject but it seems like a good bet. Anyway, your mother came from a place where people with her talents were looked upon as evil and were outcast."

"Really? Here?"

"No, not here. This was a different world, far away."

I nodded. "I didn't know that. So you said she was outcast?"

Asher nodded.

"But I thought she was also a healer. Why would anyone outcast a healer?" I asked, curious.

"It wasn't because of what she did with her talents, Sienna. She never harmed anyone to the best of my knowledge. It was because of what she was potentially capable of doing. That's why they were afraid of her. And the others like her. She had the talent to heal...which meant she also had the talent to unheal. You understand?"

I nodded slowly, thinking about the implications.

"I remember that night," Asher continued, looking past my shoulder and out the large windows. I followed his gaze. It was almost sunset and already lights were blazing and blinking in the city below. "Bleys had been wounded in an assassination attempt. He and I were running blindly through shadow—"

"An assassination attempt?" I cut in abruptly. "Who was trying to assassinate him?"

"Ah, well, now that's another story. One I know your father prefers to keep to himself," Asher explained.

"You mean you won't tell me?"

"That's right," Asher replied, looking at me levelly. I pulled a face but decided not to push him any more. "Besides," he continued, "we were talking about Alyssa. As I said, Bleys was wounded badly—he'd taken a knife to his left kidney—and I was supporting him while he shifted wildly around us." Asher paused and shook his head. "That was one trip I'd never care to repeat. The things I saw..." He sighed. "Anyway, we eventually got to the point where he could travel no longer and I was forced to carry him, looking for help."

"Why didn't you just trump someone?" I asked.

"Good question. Bleys had no trumps on him. He was on the grounds of his estate at the time and didn't feel the need to carry them. He was trusting the guards to provide the appropriate security. I'm still not exactly sure what happened. I wasn't his second-in-command at the time." Asher shrugged. "I did get promoted to his Second after the incident...but I never did hear what happened to the other one."

He shifted his position, musing. "Regardless, there we were in an unknown shadow, Bleys bleeding profusely and going into shock, it was night and raining...I didn't see much hope for either of us. I carried him perhaps half a mile or so down a wooded road before I came upon a house." Asher stopped and smiled. "I can imagine what the people thought when they opened the door to us. We were very lucky that they didn't throw us back out into the night, I suppose. But maybe, seeing we had weapons, they figured it was best to just go along with whatever we wanted...I don't know. It was an older couple. I dumped Bleys on a cot in the back and examined him. He was unconscious and it looked pretty bad, but I'm no doctor. I wasn't sure what to do for him and the couple there didn't understand me when I talked. But they saw the blood and the man took his coat and disappeared out the door. I washed and bound the wound, not knowing what else to do. The woman helped me, smiling nervously. About then the man returned with a young woman—your mother. She placed a hand on his wound and healed it right up before my eyes. The most amazing thing..."

Asher sighed, bringing himself back to the present. "Well, that was how your mother and father met, little bird."

"Did they ever marry?" I asked.

He shook his head in the fading light. "No. No, they never did. Although they were together for...well, let's see...three years about before you were born."

"Ah," I said, nodding. "And she died giving birth to me."

"Mostly," he replied.

I narrowed my eyes. "What do you mean?"

"It wasn't directly related to your delivery. As I understand it, she died of a stroke brought on by the rigors of the delivery. But the stroke could have happened just as easily before or after the delivery as during it."

"Or not at all,"I ventured, expressing a guilt I'd felt for years. "If she hadn't delivered me maybe she'd still be alive."

"Well, no, as I understand it it would have happened regardless. Some of the others of her kind said that sort of thing happened on occassion with those that were gifted in the way that she was."

"Why didn't they just heal her up? Surely other healers were there during the delivery."

"Think about it, Sienna. In the midst of her labor she suddenly cried out and fell unconscious. What would you have thought caused it? They assumed it was related to the delivery...by the time they cut through her mental shielding and discovered the real cause it was too late and the damage was too severe. And by then they only had enough time to seperate you from Alyssa before it was too late for you as well."

I stared at Asher, not knowing what to say.

"Ah, well," he said, looking away. "Enough stories for tonight. Camella should have dinner ready by now. Turn the lights on, would you?" Asher stood up.

I reached out and found the switch with my mind and pushed it distractedly. The lights came on around us.

"Thanks," Asher said, gathering up equipment.

Lost in thought, I said nothing else on the way down to dinner.

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