Vane showed up with his hands wrapped in white medical tape.
He had raided the infirmary supplies before coming out to the sector. His palms were raw from the rust on the iron bar yesterday but the pain was distant. It was just information.
Senna was waiting. She had the broom.
"You wrapped them," she said. She did not look impressed but she did not look disappointed either. "Good. If you bleed on the handle it gets slippery. And if it gets slippery you lose a toe."
She tossed him the broom.
It felt incredibly light after the iron bar. It felt like a toy.
"Do not get cocky," Senna snapped, reading his expression. "The iron bar was to teach your muscles the path. The broom is to teach you the speed. If you try to muscle the broom like you did the iron you will snap the wood."
She pointed to the open flagstones.
"Yesterday we did transitions. Today we do the cycle. The Second Form of the Argent Horizon. Lunar Deflection."
"Deflection?" Vane asked. "A parry?"
"Not a parry. A parry is a reaction. A parry waits for the enemy to attack. We do not wait."
She made a circling motion with her finger.
"You are going to spin that broom in a figure-eight pattern in front of your body. Vertical loops. Left side. Right side. Crossing the centerline."
"That's it?" Vane asked. "That sounds like a baton twirling trick."
"Do it," Senna said. "And keep your feet moving. If you stop stepping I throw a rock at you."
Vane took a breath. He stepped onto the stones.
He began to spin the broom.
Swish. Swish. Swish.
It was easy at first. The wood was light. He moved it from left to right, letting the shaft slide through his taped palms just like he practiced with the bar. He kept his feet moving, shuffling in a circle.
"Faster," Senna commanded.
Vane sped up.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
"Faster."
Vane put more hip into it. The broom blurred slightly.
"Faster!"
"If I go faster I'll lose control!" Vane grunted.
"Then lose control!" Senna yelled. "Push it until it breaks! You are treating it like a delicate flower! It is a engine! Rev it!"
Vane gritted his teeth. He stopped thinking about form. He stopped thinking about looking cool. He just poured his physical stats into the rotation.
He snapped his hips. He threw his shoulders into the turn.
The broom whistled. The sound changed from a soft whoosh to a sharper, biting hiss.
Hiss-hiss-hiss-hiss.
"Keep it there!" Senna shouted over the noise. "Do not let the pitch drop! That sound is your life! If the sound stops you are dead!"
Vane's arms started to burn. Not the heavy ache of lifting weights but the sharp, lactic fire of sprinting. His lungs heaved. The centrifugal force pulled at his joints, trying to rip the broom away from him.
"My family's art has one rule!" Senna's voice cut through the air. "A spear that stops is a dead spear!"
Vane stumbled. The rhythm broke. The broom clattered against his shin.
"Again!" Senna barked. "Pick it up! Do not rest! The enemy does not let you rest!"
Vane picked it up. He started again.
He spun until the sweat soaked through his uniform. He spun until the tape on his hands started to fray. He spun until the world narrowed down to the grey blur of the wood and the grey fog of the garden.
He was not a wall. He was not a fortress.
He was a rotor.
"Don't plant your feet!" Senna screamed. "You are a shark! If you stop swimming you drown! Move! Pivot! The spear pulls you, you don't pull the spear!"
Vane closed his eyes. He let the momentum take over.
He stopped trying to "swing" the broom and let the broom drag him. He followed the weight. When the broom went left, he stepped left. When it swung right, he pivoted right.
He became a slave to the velocity.
And then, it happened.
The hiss deepened. It began to vibrate in his chest. A low, resonant thrum started to emanate from the wood.
Vvvvvmmmmmm.
The air around the broom head started to distort. The fog pulled toward him, sucked into the vacuum created by the speed.
Vane opened his eyes. He wasn't tired anymore. He was terrified. The broom felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, not because of mass, but because of the sheer kinetic energy stored in the rotation. If he hit something now, it wouldn't just bruise. It would explode.
"Hold it!" Senna whispered. She was leaning forward, her eyes wide. "That's the Hum. That is the edge of the Horizon. Don't you dare lose it."
Vane held it for ten seconds. The vibration rattled his teeth. The sheer focus required to keep the wood from flying off into the stratosphere was blinding.
Then his concentration slipped.
The tip of the broom clipped the ground.
CRACK.
The broom head shattered. The handle flew out of his grip, spinning wildly into the air before clattering over the edge of the balcony and falling into the clouds.
Vane stood there, chest heaving, his hands trembling violently.
Silence rushed back into the garden.
Senna looked at the spot where the broom had vanished. Then she looked at Vane.
"You owe me a broom," she said.
But the corners of her mouth were twitching.
"That was terrible," she lied. "Your footwork was sloppy. Your posture was atrocious. You looked like a drunk windmill."
She turned her wheelchair around.
"But for about five seconds... you weren't static."
She rolled toward the door of the dark building.
"Come back tomorrow. We need to talk about the Hydra. If you are going to learn the Silver Fang, you need to know why I use it."
Vane stared at his hands. They were shaking. But for the first time since he arrived at Zenith, he didn't feel like a fraud.
He felt fast.