Page 19 of Wandering Witch

Good. I thought as I raised my weapon against him. That will stop him from getting cocky.

I only gave him a brief moment to recover from my deflection of his careless blows before I charged him, my mock club at the ready. There was never the intention to cause him harm, but I had noticed that the longer we sparred and the more I focused and willed my blows to affect him, his body took damage.

That fact that he had to expand more of his willpower to keep his stick in the air as he tried to block me wasn’t shocking. But that I could hurt his form was a surprise. Then again, maybe not. I mused. After all, I was able to drag him most of the way to the mountains by my force of will alone. And he must have been at least open to the possibility. Just like he was open to being able to physically interact with Fare and me.

The powers of the ghost intrigued me far more than it probably should have, but maybe what I should have been more interested in was the source of his strange abilities.

Could it be the darkness within him that called to the shadow in me?

Farren

The rest of the night passed in silence. Locke ended up staying on watch all night, but after getting to rest the nights before, I don’t think it bothered him. Roan slept like the dead until dawn.

I was concerned when I woke up and saw him in the same position he had been in when I fell asleep. It took Locke coming in and shaking him into wakefulness for me to breathe easier once more. When the guys left the tent, I stole a moment to shake the nerves.

What was I so worried about with Roan? He’s a ghost. Nothing could hurt him.

I shook my head to clear the thoughts before I packed everything back up. We should arrive at our next destination sometime today and I had to be ready to face whatever was waiting for me there.

The trip went by without a hitch, but I had no clue what to look for when we got there. I had spent a long time studying the map to see what could be hidden out here, but there was nothing. No town, no historical landmark, nothing.

When I sighed for what felt like the hundredth time, Roan rubbed his ghostly hand along my back.

“Hey, it’s okay. Wouldn’t it have been too suspicious if whoever we were looking for made it super easy? Let’s calm down, set up camp, and come up with ideas on how to look for whatever it is we need here.”

Locke must have agreed with him as he lowered us down into a small clearing without a word. We did as Roan suggested and got camp ready, all the while we were on edge with uncertainty.

“Come on, boy, let’s spar,” Locke called out as he held out a branch that looked similar to the one Roan had used the night before.

“Again?” came the whined complaint from behind me.

“Yes, again. The only way you’ll get stronger is if you train. Last night it took you close to ten minutes before you were able to just successfully pick up a stick. Another five plus to get confident enough to wield it. Consider this my newest requirement for staying with us,” Locke explained, and I was shocked at his words.

Did he really place requirements on Roan travelling with us? What right did he have to do something like that?

“I don’t think I like you very much anymore,” Roan groaned as he made his way over to Locke. I watched as he did indeed struggle to take the stick from my bear’s outstretched hand.

I leaned back on my log seat and simply observed the training session. Not that there was much to see at first.

Roan took a long time before he was able to grab and lift the stick from Locke. Most of the time his hand would either pass through it right away or he would only manage to barely lift it before it fell through his grasp.

“Can either one of you explain to me what exactly I’m staring at here?” I called, hoping that it wouldn’t distract either of them too much.

“Roan here proved to me last night that if he focused enough of his will into doing something, he could do it,” Locke answered, never taking his eyes off his impromptu student. “So what I’m hoping is that with enough practice, his source of will will be strong enough eventually that he will be able to simply reach out and grab onto anything as easily as you and me.”

“I get that, I think. But then, why spar afterward?”

I had to swallow hard as Locke finally turned to look at me with a devastating smile on his face.

“For starters, it’s fun. But it also causes him to push even more will into being able to hand the objects to maintain control of them.” Locke dropped his smile as he looked back at Roan. “And also because his skills with a weapon are terrible.”

“No need to rub it in,” Roan grumbled under his breath as he finally took the stick from Locke. “Not all of us had elite berserker training, either.”

Locke just threw his head back and roared with laughter.

“I never received any kind of training either. And as far as I’m aware neither of my parents’ people hailed from the Norse folk anyway.”

My heart swelled as I watched my boys joke around as Locke commented on Roan’s form. It was so amazing to see how far he had come in such a short time, now that I was actually looking at him.

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