A Dagger of the Mind (The Imperial Metals) Read Online Free Page B

was too heavy for her to hold upright. The boys laughed, making jokes about erectile dysfunction that three of the five of them would eventually suffer.
    Nuria really did look lost. Her towering opponent was about to impale her on his “spear.” But that’s when everyone realized that she wasn’t trying to hold hers upright. She was trying to find the right place to plant it in the ground. She lodged the end under a rock and launched herself up with the bristles of the broom, arcing over the expected point of impact like the tip of a metronome.
    And she pulled the “shield” up with her. In the middle of her vault, she planted her feet on the crate top, tucked her foot into the “handle” and slammed it right into the boy’s face.
    That was how Nuria operated when she was nine. After four years of practicing, she was starting to amaze Vye. She was never a match for pure power, speed, or endurance. But her mind was working on a whole other level.
    So on that day, the same morning in which the Baron Dubon von Wrims unveiled the Statue in Anuen, Vye came into the sparring room in Hartstone to a truly mind-bending sight. Nuria was perched, as she often was, high above the floor. But she hadn’t climb ed there. She was suspended in midair . Her eyes were closed, concentrating.
    And on the ground was a suit of armor. With a sword and shield. And even though there was nobody inside the armor, it was stomping around the room, swinging its blade and taking stances.
    “What are you doing?” Vye demanded.
    “They said I could borrow the armor,” Nuria defended. “Do you want to spar? En garde!”
    The scale mail turned, shield forward, sword back, ready to strike. A duelist’s pose.
    “Can you get down here?” Vye demanded.
    “Don’t think you can take me?” The empty armor swung its sword around, as though trying to intimidate Vye.
    “I can strangle you with your own ponytail.”
    “I’m coming down,” Nuria said, her eyes snapping open. The armor collapsed in a clash of metal. Nuria grabbed the cushion, floating gently to the floor.
    “How am I supposed to teach you lessons,” Vye asked, “When you’ve worn yourself down like this?”
    “I’m not tired.”
    “I hope when you’re my age, there’s a young girl taunting you with her relentless energy.”
    “Am I going to have to live that long?”
    “Seriously, I can kill you in, like, seventy-three different ways.”
    “But really, I’m not that tired. I’m ready for our lesson.”
    “How can you not be exhausted after moving that armor around? You had to concentrate on all those joints, the sword, the weight...”
    “I didn’t do it that way.”
    “Sorry?”
    “I didn’t think about the different parts of the armor,” Nuria explained. She was trying to be helpful. She wasn’t trying to sound condescending. But she was a 13-year-old girl explaining to a 31-year-old woman how to do this trick. “I just wore the armor. I mean, I projected myself into the armor. So to move the leg, I just thought about moving my leg. It’s like the Far Sight you taught me. I just couldn’t go that far.”
    “That’s very...resourceful of you.”
    So they started their lesson. But Vye didn’t know what she could teach the girl. Nuria was younger, but she was also smarter. It was becoming clearer and clearer as Nuria got older that Vye was just a glorified sparring partner. It wasn’t until they finished, and they were heading for supper, that Vye felt useful. It was because of a question that Nuria asked, “Is Duncan...with any of the women in court?”
    Vye immediately saw t he whole picture. Duncan. The 20-year-old, handsome, charming, funny man in court. Vye remembered every time Nuria had volunteered to help him out with anything and everything. Of course she was infatuated. And of course it would never work. And of course there would be no convincing her of this.
    “I don’t think so,” Vye answered. “I’m not sure.”
    “Do you think I’m