“The ground is uneven, full of twigs and leaves, and we’re still a good hour before the crickets really get to singing. I may not be good at stealth, but I assure you, Cyrus, my ears work damn well. Reach me, and you finally get your dinner. Whether it’s warm or cold depends on you.”

It couldn’t be that hard, could it? Cyrus didn’t think so, but with how hard everything else had been that day, he feared otherwise. He counted out the thirty paces, weaving through the dogwoods, and then turned around. Her back was to him, and she gave no signal to start. Shrugging, he began to tiptoe forward. He made it only two steps before Stasia waved over her head and laughed.

“You want to be a mouse at night, not an elephant. Try again.”

Cyrus didn’t know what an “elephant” was, but he presumed the comparison was not a compliment. Biting his tongue, he returned to his starting spot. He breathed in and out, centering himself. He could do this. Traversing a forest in silence couldn’t possibly be that difficult.

A leaf crunched beneath his foot on his fourth step.

“Try again.”

Back to roughly same position. He took it slower, fully convinced a careful approach would be enough. On his ninth step, she called out, the rustle of grass somehow discernible to her sharp ears.

“Heard that. Try again.”

“Gods damn it,” he muttered.

“Heard that, too.”

Another try, slower still. Failed. The next was ruined by a sneeze, so he mentally argued that didn’t count. The one after, where he kicked a leaf with the front of his boot, most certainly did.

“Check your footing,” she said. “You want a light step, toes first, not heel.”

“Your advice isn’t all that helpful.”

She exaggerated her shrug so he would see it from afar.

“I told you I wasn’t good at this. Don’t worry. You’ve hundreds of nights to practice ahead of you. It’s inevitable you get better at this. Hopefully.”

“Your faith in me is so great, it may move mountains,” he grumbled as he retreated those thirty paces back among the dogwood trees.

“Wait until your first fight with a paragon. It’s going to feel like you’re trying to move mountains, too.”

Two more attempts, one halfway there, one a third, both ended with lazy callouts of “Try again.” The dim light was on purpose, he was quickly realizing. It made it hard for him to pick out potential obstacles and instead focus on the shift of his weight amid his movements. This knowledge did not, however, make it easier when yet another “Try again” sent him back to the start.

The tediousness was getting to Stasia, too, though in a very different way. She slid deeper into the chair, and she cocked her elbow and rested her head on her fist.

“Falling asleep on me?” Cyrus called out.