Nahiri - Body is a projection

Early in their association, before she understood what he was, and what she had now become, he had asked her if she wanted to learn to fight like him. She'd said yes— and then he'd tried to kill her.

Or so it had seemed to her at the time. She realized, not much later, that he'd been holding back, attacking her physically when he could have snuffed her with a thought. She held her ground, briefly, until his heavy two-handed sword had caught her upper arm in a glancing blow with a sickening crack, and pain overwhelmed her senses.

Well done, he said, standing over her. You lasted almost six breaths. Yours, of course. Now get up.

Get up? she cried. You broke my arm!

So fix it, he said. He wasn't even looking at her.

Fix it? Fix it? How in the hells—

Only then had he finally explained to her that she was no longer mortal. That her body was a convenience, a projection of her will.

You should have told me that to begin with, she said, holding back tears of anger.

***

STONE AND BLOOD