Chapter 25
he next morning, I arrive for my pre-dawn training session with Zelle, only to falter as I enter the battle yard. Kyor is there, leaning againstT the wall, without a scrap of fabric on his torso despite the cold. ‘I’ll come back later,’ I say, turning to leave, but before I can move Zelle steps out of the shadows and shakes his head. ‘He’s here to help.’ Kyor snorts. ‘I’m here to trounce you. It’ll be fun.’ The commander levels a withering look at the prince, who offers a jerk of his shoulder in a half shrug. At least the smirk is now gone from his face. ‘We still need to work on your stance,’ Zelle says. ‘Without weight on your side, if you don’t position yourself correctly, you’ll be too easy to topple.’ I press my lips tightly together. We’ve been working on this for the last few sessions, and I thought I was making good progress. Though if Zelle’s brought Kyor in to humiliate me, he obviously doesn’t think the same. ‘Every step needs to become instinctual,’ Zelle continues. ‘We’re aiming for muscle memory so that your body, not your mind, is what controls how you move.’ He shifts into a low stance, knees bent, feet apart.
His movements are precise and elegant, like a blade being drawn from its sheath. ‘Focus on balance first,’ he instructs. ‘Without balance, you fall.’ Kyor grins like a wolf scenting prey. ‘And falling means you die. ’ I shoot him a glare, then mirror Zelle’s stance. My thighs, already tired from the last few days, start to burn almost instantly, and my back foot wobbles. Kyor doesn’t miss it. He steps in close, and I immediately prepare to back away, but he grasps my hip with one strong hand, the other reaching
down to nudge my ankle wider. I tense until I realise he’s helping me get my stance right. What the fuck? ‘Too narrow,’ he says. His breath brushes my ear, his voice irritatingly smug. ‘You’d topple like a drunk with one push.’ The comment hits close to home, bringing up memories of finding my father sprawled on the floor too many times to count. I shake them off and focus on the present.
Because out of the two of us, there’s only one who arrived at the first ball barely able to stand and drinking from the bottle. ‘You’d know,’ I mutter. ‘Your stubbornness is going to be the death of you.’ He taps my shin with the flat of his boot. ‘Weight forward.’ Zelle clears his throat, the sound sharp as a whipcrack. ‘Less commentary, more correction.’ Kyor sighs but presses down lightly on my shoulder, forcing me lower.
My legs tremble. ‘Better. Now move. Right foot first. Small steps. Keep your stance. Don’t cross your legs.’ I obey, shuffling forward. It feels clumsy and awkward, like learning to walk again. My arms flail, searching for balance, and Kyor chuckles drily. ‘Graceful as a baby deer.’ ‘Shut up,’ I snap, then instantly lose my balance, lurching sideways. His hand clamps around my elbow before I can hit the ground, and heat flares in my cheeks at the contact, even more so when his smirk returns. ‘You’re welcome.’ He winks.
Zelle strides over, his expression flat as stone. He adjusts my foot himself, his grip firm but not rough, then gives Kyor a look that promises pain if he speaks again. It’s a moment I’ll cherish. ‘Muscle memory takes repetition,’ Zelle repeats. ‘Again. Left foot.
Back. Hold your weight evenly.’ I grit my teeth and try again. Step. Step. Balance. Burn. Every correction feels like humiliation, yet beneath it all something steadier is forming. The muscle memory is slowly returning after years with no proper training. My body still aches, but my stance doesn’t falter as easily by the end of the session .
The whole time, Kyor circles me like a hawk, pointing out my mistakes with unbridled joy.
‘Why are you helping me?’ I mutter when Zelle is far enough away not to overhear. ‘You think I’d miss the opportunity to watch you humiliate yourself over and over?’ He grins. ‘Besides, I told Duarte I’d train you, and I’m a man of my word.’ ‘You said you’d rather train me than her, not that you would.’ He shrugs. ‘Zelle also bet me that I couldn’t make a decent fighter out of you. I like a challenge, and I was bored.’ I want to be furious that Zelle bet against me, but I have to admire the cunning. The challenge appeals to Kyor’s gargantuan ego, and if he’s busy trying to prove himself as a teacher, then he might be less inclined to kill me.
For the first time since I saw the other Rettlings fight, I actually feel optimistic.
THE NEXT WEEK is a blur of sleep, fighting, reading until my eyes get too heavy to stay awake, then waking up and doing the same again. Zelle keeps Kyor in check, but I continue to struggle with the training sessions. Having the prince’s hands on me is distracting, but little by little, I’m improving.
Every part of my body aches. Muscles in places I didn’t even know I had muscles have been stretched and strained to their limits. Baths are no longer the luxury they were when I first arrived, but a necessity. ‘Holden was pretty harsh on you this afternoon.’ Benny speaks between mouthfuls at our table that evening. ‘What was his problem today?’ ‘Oh, just the usual. Me.’ Since our first conversation in the cave, Holden has varied his interactions with me, from completely ignoring me to criticising and belittling me at every possible opportunity. ‘That’s a great example of how to get killed easily’ is one of his favourite lines, and it’s usually paired with a taunt about my father. ‘He had sloppy footwork for a noble, but then again, that should hardly be a surprise, considering he wasn’t actually a noble, was he?’ Today’s dig was about my father again. ‘Fighting like that, you seem to think the Great Goddess will offer her gifting to just anyone. Then again, I
guess you need her to.’ ‘He’s all bark,’ I add, aware that the others are still looking at me. ‘Honestly, I can’t imagine how he got a dire wolf to bond with him.’ ‘I guess some wolves just have really shitty taste,’ Llinos replies.
As I laugh, my eye is drawn to the far end of the dining room, where Oke is glowering at me. It’s not an unusual sight, and I actually wouldn’t be surprised to discover they’ve written up a timetable, an actual rota, to ensure that, no matter when or where we are, one of the Rowell Rettlings is glaring at me. ‘You know we have spare beds in our dorm,’ Llinos says, staring pointedly at the Rowell group. ‘You can move in if you like. Safety in numbers and all that.’ Safety from Zara is what I’m sure she means, yet there have been no threats on my life since that first day. I have a horrible feeling that Zara wants an audience when she finishes me off, which means a trial that they let spectators attend. ‘Oh yeah,’ Benny says, ‘I’m sure Rose wants to give up her little corner of tranquillity to listen to you and Caz all night.’ Llinos’s cheeks colour. ‘Talking,’ she clarifies. ‘We talk. And it’s not all night. She always makes sure she’s back in the northern arc in the morning.
The last thing we want is for someone to catch us and stop her coming.’ Benny’s cheeks puff and his eyes squeeze shut as a strangled snort threatens to burst free. ‘What are you doing?’ Llinos asks as his body shudders.
A snicker escapes. ‘You said you didn’t want someone to stop her coming. It’s just too easy.’ Llinos rolls her eyes before looking back at me. ‘So … about the room?’ she asks yet again.
I press my lips together as I prepare to give her the same reply I’ve given the last five times she’s asked me. ‘Is it okay if I think about it?’ ‘Is someone else having their own bedtime conversations?’ Benny waggles his eyebrows suggestively. ‘You and Jonas were having a good spar the other day. From where I was standing, things looked as though they were getting rather hot – if you get my drift.’ ‘Everyone gets your drift,’ Llinos comments scathingly, ‘because your innuendo has all the finesse of a horny bull on market day.’ I snort .
‘Wow. Cruel.’ Benny pouts. ‘But seriously.’ Llin turns to me. ‘Have you two finally bitten the bullet yet, or are you still pretending that you’re just “old friends”?’ She uses her fingers to emphasise the last two words. Not that I need the visual cue to get her meaning. ‘We are just old friends. I think,’ I reply, only to let out a sigh.
I’m still not sure what’s going on with Jonas and me, but it definitely hasn’t got to the stage of needing a room. We’ve mostly given up sparring together, mainly because he’s still going too easy on me – making me oddly grateful that I have Kyor making my morning training sessions such a misery – yet Jonas always appears at some point in the day, and each time, we end up talking. Sometimes for hours. Often the conversations centre around the trials, but not always. He’s told me about his father’s wards and how he’s sure Kay will be enjoying her time with them. He’s massaged my shoulders when they’ve been tight from training, and I’ve offered him salves to help with his scrapes. I’ve even fallen asleep on his shoulder at the dining table after a particularly brutal day.
And through it all, he’s never once mentioned any significant men or women in his life. But then, I’ve not brought it up either. Though if he is betrothed, or even seeing someone, I can’t imagine they’d appreciate the time he and I spend together. Or the static hum that buzzes in the air when his eyes have held mine for just a fraction too long.
I hate to be cynical, but I’ve come to two conclusions: one, that he doesn’t want to sleep with me and get too attached because he thinks I’m going to die; and two, that he doesn’t want to sleep with me because, like many of the other Rettlings, he’s repulsed by my lack of magic. But the more time we spend together, the less the second one feels true.
So early death it is. I just hope that whatever this is between us, it’ll be enough for him to feel a desire to look after Kay if anything happens to me. ‘They told me to warn you! They told me to make you see!’ My thoughts are severed by a commotion over on the other side of the dining hall. Seiren is wildly waving her hands around as she races between the tables, shouting at the top of her lungs, ‘Why won’t you see?’
‘Fuck, here it comes,’ Loch mutters. ‘Brace yourself.’ Benny grimaces. ‘Maybe Kestria will manage to stop her before she—’ I don’t get to the end of my sentence before the entire dining room is swallowed in darkness.
Seiren’s illusion magic is something else. The walls are instantly replaced with towering trees, the tiled floor now grassy undergrowth, complete with scuttling rodents. But it’s the shift in the air that’s most astonishing – the cold chill and crisp sweetness that can come only from the forest.
The first time it happened, it showed which of the Rettlings were able to keep their cool. I, like most of the others, went straight for a weapon. But there were several – including Elenor – who began shaking with fear.
Shrieks of ‘It’s the first trial. It’s the first trial!’ rang out. ‘It’s not the first trial!’ Kestria yelled in response, trying but failing to make herself heard above the chaos. ‘It is not the trial! It’s Seiren.’ Only when the old woman calmed down did the illusion finally drop and the dining hall return to its previous state, albeit with more than one upturned chair and several spilt jugs of water. ‘How long do you think this one’s going to last?’ Jonas asks as he sidles up beside me. A corkscrew twists my insides as I consider the conversation we were having just before Seiren’s latest episode. ‘Where did you come from?’ I ask. ‘I was just over there talking to a couple of knights. Apparently, they think the first trial will be within the next three days.’ ‘I’m pretty sure someone said that three days ago,’ I remind him. ‘Maybe, but it pays to be alert.’ I can’t help but scoff a little. Alert has been my constant state of mind since I arrived here. So much so that I even considered taking some of the paparvy seeds from Dinah to relax. But that’s not a route I want to go down. ‘Probably best to get an early night then,’ I say, finding his gaze through the darkness and making my intention perfectly clear. Or at least I thought so. ‘That’s probably best,’ he replies without a hint of hesitation. ‘The better rested you are, the better you’ll be able to fight.’ I’m still not sure if it was a brush-off or complete obliviousness on his part as I climb the stairs to my room a short while later. He’s right about one thing though – I do need sleep. I pull off my boots, strip down to my underwear, and drop down onto the bed.
MY EYES JOLT open as I bolt upright . ‘What the hell?’ My body feels like I’m in the centre of a bell as a thunderous peal sounds, loud enough to shake the metal bed frame. I clamp my hands around my ears, unable to see the source.
Magic, I realise groggily. Magic is waking me up when it’s still pitch- black outside, and I know there’s only one reason that can be: the first trial.
An uneasy sensation rolls through as knots clamp around my insides.
It’s started.
As lucidity takes hold, the sound softens but doesn’t stop.
I hastily pull on the clothes I dropped by the bed before I fell asleep, only to remember I need my furs for this. Not to mention my sigils.
The ruckus is muddying my thoughts and there’s no way I’ll do a good job of painting my sigils in here, so when my boots are on, I sheath my daggers, grab the tin of blue paint and a brush, and head downstairs. I swear the metal staircase creaks more every time I go up and down, and I can’t help but wonder if Zara’s loosened the screws so that I’ll tumble to my death.
I dismiss the thought quite quickly as that’s not her style. She’ll want to look into the whites of my eyes as she kills me.
I’ve just reached the bottom step when Jonas appears next to me. He’s got a bag with weapons on his back, and despite not being fully dressed, he has already painted his sigils.
How the hell have I not seen him topless before now? I try not to gawp, but it’s damn hard. Of course, I knew he was toned – I’ve seen his bare arms often enough – but his chest? His shoulder blades? His tattoos? Not just Wrohelm rings but the lines of Galreck, too – probably for his time spent training there when he was eighteen – and a sweeping letter U for Una, his mother, who passed away when he was only a toddler. A small line of hair runs from his belly button down, and it’s only when he clears his throat that I realise I was looking in entirely the wrong direction.
A rush of embarrassment floods me, and when I lift my eyes, the slightest hint of a grin flutters on his lips, though it almost immediately turns into a frown. ‘You were still upstairs,’ he says. ‘Why’ve you not moved in with Llinos? She asked you again yesterday, didn’t she?’ ‘She did,’ I start, only to stop. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I asked her to. Just like I asked her after the vows.’ ‘You did what?’ Each of those beds belonged to a person. A friend. A friend who was now gone. That’s why I haven’t accepted any of Llinos’s previous offers to take one, and that’s why I’m more than a little pissed that Jonas has done this. ‘If I want to move into her dorm, I’m perfectly capable of asking her myself,’ I snap. ‘And if you thought it was a good idea, why didn’t you say so?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he admits. ‘I guess I didn’t want you to feel like I was coddling you.’ ‘Like when we fight, you mean?’ I grit my teeth. ‘Jonas, Etta accepted me, and no one has tried to kill me for weeks. I’m fine, okay?’ Whether I will be after the first trial is another matter, though.
Thankfully, Llinos appears before Jonas can continue. Trailing behind her is a tired-looking Caroline. From the way both of them are rubbing their eyes, they didn’t get much sleep either.
Jonas’s eyes widen. ‘She’s not a Rettling. Why is she here?’ Caz’s lips purse slightly, but Llinos doesn’t miss a beat. ‘Library delivery service,’ she says. ‘Now, shall we get going? This damn ringing is driving me insane. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a trial to survive.’
