Frustrating

Two more weeks flew past in a brutal, exhausting blur.

Cain works me like a damn dog, dragging me out of bed at the crack of dawn to train until my body feels like it might break. He calls his fighting style the Aether Flow a technique built on speed, precision, and adaptability. It's shapeless, fluid, impossible to predict. Like water, but faster. Like the wind, like him. 

If I'm not training my body, I'm buried in books. Apparently, my ability to read and write along with my general knowledge of life was just not up to Cain's standards.

Cain pinches the bridge of his nose, exhaling slowly like he's physically restraining himself from throttling me.

"You're joking," he says flatly. "You're telling me you don't know the names of the six ruling Dukes? The overseers of their respective countries? The ones who all report directly to Imperial King Malik?"

I shift uncomfortably. "I mean does anyone really need to know that?"

Cain stares at me like I've admitted to jumping off buildings headfirst for fun. "Yes, Ayato. Literally everyone with half a functioning brain knows the answer to that."

I scoff in anger. "Alright, well, it's not like I ever needed to ..."

He cuts me off with a raised hand. "Shut up. What's seventeen times thirty-two? Quickly now!"

I stutter trying to do the math in my head. "Ummm"

Cain's eye twitches. "Sweet gods above, you're actually helpless." He shakes his head in pure disbelief before standing abruptly. "No. Absolutely not. I refuse to let this stand. I'm going to fix this nonsense immediately."

Cain doesn't even hesitate. He just stands up from his desk walks over and unlatches the window behind him. A rush of cold air sweeps into the study as he steps onto the sill like it's a perfectly normal thing to do, then without another word he jumps. A sharp gust of wind kicks back against me as he disappears into the sky, his figure shrinking against the clouds.

I just sit there, utterly baffled. "What the hell did I do wrong?"

He actually looked disgusted, like genuinely offended, by how little I knew. But really, what does that blonde hair bastard expect? I stopped going to school the day my parents were hanged eight years ago. The Inquisitors weren't exactly hunting for a nobody orphan, but that didn't mean I was about to stick around to find out. With my home, parents and life as I had knew it gone, I did the only thing I could: survive.

Eventually, I ended up in the Outskirts a place where the city had all but rotted away, abandoned by the not only the country as a whole, but Lont the same city it existed in how sad is that. It was a constant battle just to stay alive. When people have nothing, they show you just how desperate and cruel they can be. You learn quick, or you die. 

The Outskirts were less a place and more a slow death sentence. If the lack of shelter and food didn't kill you, the people would. That's why I stole from the richer districts, but for years it was only for food. But recently I had gotten greedy and started targeting houses. 

You could get jumped for something as small as a piece of stale bread. I saw it happen plenty of times some poor bastard clutching whatever scraps they managed to scavenge, only for a group to corner them in the alleys, beat them raw, and leave them half-dead for the crows and rats. Sometimes, they didn't even bother leaving them alive. Food wasn't the only thing worth fighting over either. Some fights broke out over a scrap of cloth, a stolen object, or just because someone looked at the wrong person the wrong way.

And then there were the other things. The things I don't like to think about. The kind of things that happened in dark corners, in abandoned buildings, to girls too weak to fight back. I learned fast to keep my head down and my knife ready. 

But one of the worst problems was Shine. It slipped into the Outskirts through smugglers and desperate traders, a shimmering powder that made people feel warm and safe—like everything was alright for the first time in their sad miserable lives. That's what they all said, anyway. But the warmth never lasted. It left them colder than before, shivering, desperate for the next dose just to feel normal.

People sold everything for Shine. Stole for it. Killed for it. Died for it. Once they were hooked, they were done. They'd rot away, lying in the gutters, bodies trembling from the cold that never went away.

It was just another sickness in a place already riddled with them.

The only time the Inquisitors even bothered stepping foot in the Outskirts was when they suspected some criminal group was gaining too much power. Smuggling weapons or other outlawed items. A big culprit was Low-tier projectile guns, crude, laughably functional, barely holding together and more likely to misfire than hit their target. Not even worth comparing to what once existed, but still they are capable of killing regular people. The only good thing was that they were rare. The materials required to craft them were all scarce, gunpower being the main issue because what little remained was hoarded and heavily regulated by the Imperial family, funneled almost exclusively into their siege machines. But how the Inquisitors always knew where to strike to stamp out any growing syndicate before it could ever really flourish, I have no idea. They probably have spies in every fucking corner of this Empire.

So now, when I'm not getting my ass kicked, I sit through lectures with some new servant named Carla. An old hag easily in her 70s, hunched back, brown eyes, and a tongue that rivals my own. Apparently she was a teacher for one of the schools in the upper districts of Lont. She drills me on history, mathematics, reading writing and even goes into politics describing some of the Imperial Court that takes place in the capital of Avrael, Lusa the home of the Imperial family. She treats me with an air of respect, something I'm not used to, but when I decide I would rather sleep or daydream, she does not hesitate to slam a ruler across my knuckles. Hag I tell you.

And then, when all of that is done, when my body is sore and my mind is almost to tired to function, I sit alone in my room and try to meditate. Try to find the trigger for my powers.

I have tried everything. Pain. Counting. Ridiculous movements. I even tried Cain's trigger a circling motion of his right hand at his side, as if he were gathering the wind itself up into his body. Obviously, that did nothing. I just looked like an damned idiot.

I grit my teeth, frustration and anger simmering. How can I have these powers and not even know how to use them?