Page 59 of Enchanted Heir
But it was a new routine, and it made me feel productive. Plus, if I was going to have to train and deal with screaming muscles, at least I could do it in my favorite place. The forest.
As for self-defense, we’d spent an entire week on how to stand and how to keep on my toes. We’d barely made it past stance and keeping on the balls of my feet and moved into a punching technique.
“No,” Owen snapped. “Keep your thumb tucked in or you will hurt it. Likely hurt yourself more than the other guy. If you are going to deck someone, throw some weight into it and do some damage.”
“I’d like to deck you,” I barked.
“Okay.” He gestured me closer with one hand and held up the other. “Let’s see it. Punch my hand.”
“Your hand?” I squinted. There were numerous places I would like to deck Owen. His hand was not one of them.
He nodded. “Yes. Like you mean it.”
So I did, before I thought he was set and ready for it, hoping to take him by surprise.
But he wasn’t fazed. “Again. This time use your whole body. It’s not just your hand you are bringing forward. When we use magic, it’s like an extension of our body. Of our senses and emotions even. Hand-to-hand combat is like that too.” He twisted at his waist. “Use your core. Use your shoulders. Don’t just throw a hand, drive into it with your weight, use your entire body.”
I nodded and tried again despite the move feeling entirely foreign to me. I could not fight. I could bake with the best of them, but I was no fighter.
“Better,” Owen smirked. “Now let’s do three in a row.”
And so it continued. Owen as my trainer, and my sluggish improvements.
“Now. We are going to wrap things up a little differently today,” Owen said after we stretched for five or so minutes.
“Okay,” I offered. “In a good way or a bad way? Tell me it’s not more running.”
He grinned. “It’s not running.”
I squinted. He was entirely too excited about whatever it was.
“I’m going to put some magic up. I want you to stay on the balls of your feet and avoid it,” he explained.
“What?”
But while I asked, he flicked his wrist outward and what looked like a thousand small orbs of magic took to the skies. Like little green snowballs, all around me. Surrounding me in every direction.
“You are immune to magic, obviously,” he told me. “So if you touch one, they’ll all fall.”
“So you don’t want me to touch them?”
He gave me a nod and gestured with his head in the direction of the meadow. “You have three minutes to make it across.”
“And if I do?” I called after him, already moving.
Owen shrugged. “I don’t honestly know.”
My stomach grumbled as I thought of what I wanted to eat. I usually had just a muffin or some granola before training, not wanting to lose my breakfast while we ran. “Bacon, Owen. I want some bacon.”
He shrugged. “That doesn’t sound half bad. Clock starts now. Move your ass.”
I was off, dodging this way and that. The orbs of magic were at all levels, so I couldn’t just duck or crawl and then run. I had to move left and then right. Up and then down. Jump over one, but not too high or I’d hit another.
But I was focused in, dodging and weaving the magic as I went. Soon I was more than halfway across the meadow. But there seemed to be more on the second half, and I couldn’t afford to touch a single one. If I touched even one, they’d vanish.
I slowed down only slightly and concentrated, spinning to my right and trying not to wonder if that had been the correct path or not.
“Bacon, Jorah. Hustle,” Owen barked.
