15. Lessons
Lessons
Dain’s life didn’t get any easier. In another world, I thought he might have been a gentle, playful child, but no one but Alluin seemed to be willing to look past the fur, size, or wing-arms. People treated him like a pet or like a monster.
They tittered behind his back and acted like he was a trained animal when he tried to sign to them.
I couldn’t understand why the high court held such antipathy for the young prince. Queen Ronelis’ hatred for her only child was obvious, but he still was her child, and the sole heir to the throne. One might have imagined that people would be glad to have the inheritance secured.
We hadn’t had a clear heir to Stag Court since the Queen’s ascension to the throne, which was always an uncomfortable place to be.
The general belief was that, at the root of all things, all bloodlines were one and thus there would always be an heir to a Court, but a strong bloodline tie made inheritance of a Court so much more stable.
Without a clear heir, borders were prone to breaking, especially with powerful neighbors like Raven Court or with internal enclave Courts like Icemelt Court.
Having Dain made all of us much more safe in the unlikely event of the Queen’s death.
Just for that, I would have thought people would have at least tolerated his existence, but he was so much more than merely an heir.
He was intelligent, curious, and remarkably strong in both magic and sheer brute strength.
I found it difficult to imagine a better crown prince, save perhaps in the looks department.
Even only a few years into arms training, Dain was a formidable foe.
Most nine-year-olds weren’t coordinated enough or strong enough to pose a threat to a grown warrior, but most nine-year-olds weren’t wolves the size of warhorses, armed with fangs, talons, and an extra pair of scythe-clawed limbs.
There were a few soldiers who were still capable of sparring with him one-on-one—Alluin, thanks to his strength talismans and his familiarity with our prince; a few of the elite monster-hunters in the First Army—but most of the time I paired him against small squads for live sparring.
We added glamor into the fights, too, because one of my goals in training Dain was to ensure that he could defend himself, and glamor was the most common magical skill among fae.
Dain was a glamor prodigy, but he was also nine, so he didn’t have the control or ability to make his glamors respond to faux-iron glamor in the same way as iron.
As a result, when we did fights that included glamor, we used live steel—unsharpened, of course, but still steel.
That wasn’t the safest thing in the world, but Dain was covered in fur and scales, so the risk of him being iron-scalded was low, and everyone knew not to go for the eyes or mouth.
We only used soldiers from the First Army for those fights, too; I didn’t want Dain to associate the palace guard with danger, and the First Army knew how to fight monsters.
If Dain was going to be going up against an armed force, they would be trained like First Army soldiers.
Plus, the First Army answered to Alluin, who had zero tolerance for anyone being cruel to his prince. I trusted that more than I should have.
I’d gotten into a comfortable routine with training.
I had Dain every day but feast days, so on the resting days of the feast week we did strength and agility training, and on the rising days we did drills and sparring.
When I wanted First Army soldiers for glamor fights, I put in the request via telling Alluin over breakfast, he collected and vetted the volunteers, and either handed them off or stuck around to watch the fight.
“Five today, right?” he said cheerfully as he met me at the gate.
I flicked my fingers at him. “As if you ever forget the count.”
Lu grinned. “It’s pleasant to be proven right on so many occasions,” he said, tilting his ears towards me.
“I brought a new group today so our prince can have a little variety. They’re all volunteers from the same squad.
Good soldiers. Lieutenant Delhara has a cousin in the high court, but don’t hold it against her,” Alluin added with a wink.
“She’s a capable woman. Very practical and solutions-oriented. I doubt she’ll be intimidated by Dain.”
“I trust your judgment on that count,” I said drily. “I’m rather familiar with Lieutenant Delhara’s career, as I’m certain you well know. I had the troubling experience of being her Second Army liaison when we were dealing with that rash of murders along the border of Icemelt Court.”
He smirked at me, knowing full well that Delhara and I rubbed each other the wrong way. “I’ll leave you to it, then, Commander,” Alluin said, lifting a hand in farewell as he turned and sauntered back out the gate towards the stables. “Have fun.”
I turned to greet the soldiers who were waiting patiently a few feet back. “Hail, well met,” I said, walking over. I held out my hand to the lieutenant. “It’s a pleasure when friends offer their swords in aid.”
That statement didn’t necessarily include her, and by the heavy-lidded look of annoyance she gave me, I knew she knew I’d picked my words with care.
Kianeh Delhara looked exactly like I remembered her, tall and well-muscled with a hawkish nose, crimson curls braided tightly back from her face, and a glorious constellation of freckles across all her lovely tanned skin.
She was exactly the sort of woman I enjoyed bedding—in appearance, that was.
I didn’t generally enjoy taking pit vipers with a taste for blood to bed, and Kiki was no different.
She clasped my forearm in a soldier’s greeting. “We thought to ease the burdens you’ve been given,” she said with a sharp little smile. “Loyalty commanded can be such a dreadful weight. In such a time, old companions can clear the field for you.”
Was she trying to be nice? That was even more unpleasant than her normal attitude towards me, which fell along the lines of treating me like a feckless child who was a hairsbreadth away from getting a willow switch taken to his haunches until he learned to shut up and let the adults have their way.
“How…thoughtful,” I said.
Kiki snorted and rolled her eyes. “You always were a bit dense, Commander. Tell me,” she asked, gripping my arm for a hair longer and with a touch more force than was strictly necessary, “do your pretty looks make it as easy for you in the high court as they did in the out-villages?”
I dropped her arm and resisted the urge to rub mine against my leg, as if I could remove the slight dents her fingertips had left in the sleeve of my gambeson. “Is the ire truly necessary, Lieutenant?” I asked. “It’s been decades.”
She shrugged. “Merely a question. A good soldier makes use of all the weapons he has available, no? Your student, for example, and his…odd anatomy.”
“The prince is an interesting student. There aren’t many creatures like him.
I find coming up with drills for him an enjoyable exercise in tactics,” I said, trying to let my irritation roll off my shoulders.
Kiki liked to bait people, and I knew it.
She was a damn good fighter, and her squad boasted one of the lowest injury rates in the First Army, but she wasn’t the sort of person I ever wanted to spend time with.
Even this conversation was wearing on me.
“I suppose that makes sense, though it was a bit surprising to me that the Queen selected someone from the Second Army instead of someone from the First or Third,” Kiki said.
She gave me a pretty smile. “Perhaps she was afraid a monster-hunter might mistake her boy for a target instead of a student.”
I gritted my teeth. “Is that all, Lieutenant?”
Her full mouth quirked up in an expression of amusement. “You’re so easily riled. I know you’re duty-bound to train him, Zhio. We’ll get the job done.” She put one hand on her hip. “We did last time, too, did we not? We may not like each other, but when it comes to swords, we’re efficient.”
We had been efficient when it had come down to swords.
When it came to blades, Kiki was a ruthless killer—exactly the sort of person one wanted by their side when facing down the worst of the monsters Faery had to offer.
That attitude would make her a useful person to face down Dain, too.
If people were going to try to kill him, they would surely be people with her training and bloodthirsty viciousness.
Still. I wasn’t inclined to give her a compliment for it. “Introduce me to your squad, if you will.”
“Such formality,” she said, pursing her lips at me. “Irridyi’s been with me for about six years now, and she’s death with a spear. Duennain and Maizha you’ve met, and of course you know Tiernan,” Kiki finished with a smirk.
He winked at me when I clasped his forearm. “A pleasure to see you again, Commander Ulahana,” he said in his gravelly voice. “Perhaps we might cross swords later tonight, once we’ve finished with the Beast Prince.”
I did, indeed, know Tiernan. Off duty, he was Kiki’s long-term paramour, and he’d passed down two offers of promotions to stay in her squad.
I’d only discovered he was her paramour after I’d fucked him, of course, which had been quite the experience.
They had a whole thing about it, where he would ‘cheat’ on her, she would discover it, and then she would fuck him within an inch of his life.
I knew very well which swords he meant, and they weren’t the steel ones hanging at our sides.
Unwelcome heat coiled in my gut. It had been several weeks since I’d gotten laid, and there was only so long I could live in a house where Alluin routinely wandered around in nothing but loose linen pants before I wanted to hump everything in sight.