Chapter 21 #3
Lord Erendi had his brows drawn together, his eyes narrowing slightly as he eyed Rion.
At first, it was with a stubborn sort of suspicion, but then his attention swept over Eiko, and that suspicion settled into brittle disbelief.
He must have been watching then from the sides of the hall, marvelling over how the beautiful woman with the long auburn hair and the other one who stumbled around blindly so closely resembled his son’s best friends.
Eiko didn’t like that he remembered her well enough to make the connection, even with the delicate chains covering her face and her cane nowhere in sight.
He had only been in her presence for a single night, just a bare few hours, and that had been months ago.
She especially didn’t like that it was Rion who had mostly stirred his attention, especially since Rion had never been introduced to him.
He must have deliberately sought out information on who Ky spent his time with. And to recognise Rion, he must have ventured out of the mountain to lay his own eyes on her.
And now he knew that they had survived.
Which meant he was considering that it was possible Ky had survived, though the disbelief still painting his face clearly communicated that he wasn’t willing to believe it.
“Where are your parents?” Eiko whispered to Rion, after the Lord and Lady of Stonesigh promised to attend one of the queen’s lunches in the garden before they returned home.
“My father sent word that my mother was unwell,” Rion whispered back. “But … I think they may not have been invited.”
I think so too, Hymn agreed. The king and queen are presenting you both as Godsguard soldiers, not as daughters or Stoneborn women. They won’t want anything here to detract from that.
Eiko sighed and pulled her shoulders back as exhaustion threatened to send her hunching towards the ground. Her second sight flickered, and she cast one more glance around the incredible circular ballroom before allowing it to fade entirely.
The next day, Cairn was waiting by the bench beneath a shaded overhang where they usually trained. She couldn’t hear him warming up as usual, so she slowed her steps in curiosity.
“Hurry up, blind girl,” he ordered gruffly.
She picked up her pace again, waiting for him to shove her usual wooden staff into her hands.
He did. She waited for the first whack, trying to anticipate it as usual, but instead, he stepped back, calling towards the stands, where one or two of the Eclipse soldiers still liked to lounge in the morning for a couple of hours, for a little spot of morning entertainment.
“Ewan! Grab a stick.”
Eiko quickly pulled on the second sight—just enough to spot a large man amble over from the stands and pick up a second wooden staff.
She had seen him around, but he was one of the Eclipse who was often away on secretive missions, so she wasn’t very familiar with him.
Far more concerning, however, was his size.
With wild, reddish-blond hair pulled into a messy knot and amused brown eyes, he towered over her, his biceps as big as her head.
Cairn stopped by her shoulder, muttering low, “Release the sight or I’ll blindfold you.”
“Asshole,” she grumbled. How does he always know?
He spends all day, every day with you, Hymn answered, as she released the power, sending herself back into darkness.
“Begin,” Cairn grunted, walking away.
Eiko exhaled slowly and set her feet. Ewan circled her, toying with her, and she tuned in to his quiet, measured steps, ignoring the external sounds of more soldiers approaching—drawn by the sudden change in her training routine.
She felt the air shift as Ewan moved, his boots whispering against the stone. The first strike came without much of a warning, the sharp crack aimed at her ribs. She barely deflected it in time, the impact rattling her arms and driving her back a step.
Too slow, but she had managed to block.
The second strike followed immediately, angled for her shoulder. She twisted and felt the staff graze her leathers. She countered instinctively, but she was too late, and her reach was too short. The sound of wood on wood rang out, but it wasn’t her landing a hit; it was her blocking again.
Ewan laughed softly, and this time he came in closer, his staff snapping low, then high. She retreated, adjusted, and felt the rhythm of him begin to resolve. He wasn’t sloppy or cruel. He was efficient and controlled, conserving his energy as he searched for a killing blow.
It was … oddly familiar. Not the fighting style, exactly, but she could recognise the techniques and movements even though Ewan arranged them in a different way to Cairn. It felt like fighting Cairn, only at a slower, more manageable pace.
“You’ve improved,” Ewan said, his Stormridge brogue heavy.
She skipped back a few steps, needing the space to shelve her surprise before he attacked again.
She had been so focused on the monotony of her training, on the inevitability of her failure every day, that her true failure had been in not noticing that Cairn had been scaling.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t been getting faster; it was that he had been getting faster.
He had been challenging her in incremental inches.
Tightening her angles. Cutting her pauses shorter.
Hitting harder and then harder again to steady her footwork.
He hadn’t just been beating her up; he had been honing her.
She was an idiot for not noticing.
Ewan pressed in, and she stopped simply trying to survive. She listened instead, cataloguing the scrape of his boots and the way his breath changed just before he struck. The faint displacement of air as his weight shifted.
She blocked again, and it was cleaner this time.
Then she stepped inside his reach, and her staff clipped his forearm. It wasn’t hard, but it was the first time her staff had ever made purchase.
There was a sharp crack as they parried again, him blocking her next swipe.
She heard someone murmuring in the stands, and the rustling of Ewan’s uniform as he shrugged it all off—meaning he wasn’t expecting her to strike a third time in quick succession.
It wasn’t like her at all, and these men watched her regularly.
So that was exactly what she did, her staff flying across his midsection.
Ewan hissed in surprise and stumbled back half a step.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” someone muttered.
Cairn chuckled.
Her heart hammered, her adrenaline spiking, but she didn’t freeze. She followed the opening, striking again, this time catching his thigh. The impact jolted up her arms, but she felt it land.
Three hits. Three.
But then Ewan adjusted, and the change was chilling.
The next blow came down hard, knocking her staff wide.
She barely had time to react before his staff shoved into her chest, sending her sprawling onto the stone.
The impact drove the breath from her lungs, and she lay there for a second, staring blindly up at the sky, her chest burning.
A shadow loomed.
Ewan planted his staff beside her head and gripped her hand, holding it between them—his version of offering her a hand up when she couldn’t see it. “You all right?”
She let him pull her up and accepted her dropped staff when he pressed it back into her hands. “Fine,” she grumbled. “Just got a little too big for my boots.”
He sounded like he was grinning. “You’ll get there. You did well, lass.”
Cairn walked over to them, his unique, limping shuffle giving him away.
“Good to see you actually trying,” he said. “Took you long enough.”
She scowled at him. “You’re a terrible instructor.”
He snorted. “And yet you just landed three hits on an Eclipse. Tell me, Ewan, do you think any blind girl off the street can manage to land three hits on you?”
“She might get in one if she gets me deep into my cups first,” Ewan drawled.
You did so well, Hymn said, curling about her neck, his tail tickling her collarbone. We’re going to be unbeatable in no time.
Cairn turned away. “Go get some water. We’re not sparring today.”
“Am I fighting him again?” she asked, nodding towards where Ewan was still standing, the slap slap sound of his staff against leather remaining steady as he tossed it back and forth between his hands.
“No,” Cairn said over his shoulder. “He’s done entertaining himself.”
Ewan laughed. “Looking forward to next time, lass.”
“So am I,” she lied, rolling her sore shoulder and following Cairn over to the overhang, using her staff as a cane until it hit the bench, and then she swapped it out for her actual cane.
She collapsed to the bench and snatched up the canteen she always brought to training, draining a few gulps of the cool water.
“It’s time to choose a speciality, now that you can almost hold your own.”
“I can absolutely hold my own …” She didn’t need her second sight to know that he was giving her that perplexed, disbelieving stare that he gave her sometimes. “Against a tray of cream puffs,” she finished.
Silence.
It’s the stare, Hymn confirmed.
The one that says, “Were you dropped on your head as a child, or are you going down the same path as Vana?” she asked Hymn.
Definitely that one.
More silence.
“Just ask about the Copperlight Thingy,” she said to Cairn. “I know you’re dying to.”
He sighed. Long and hard. “I’ve let you get too comfortable.”
“You didn’t let me. It’s just my nature. I’m extremely adaptable. The trick is to never confront your emotions, thoughts, or feelings, and to run from all difficult conversations at all costs—if you wanted to know.”
An unwilling chuckle escaped him. “I appreciate the insight into your frightful little bird brain. Now—” He slapped a heavy tome or ledger onto the bench between them, making her jump. “—it’s time you pick a speciality.”
“In what?”
“Killing, blind girl.”
“Why just blind girls? Why not all girls?”
Silence again.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Was a late night.”
His sigh was heavier than the last. “You must choose a weapon—”
“Poison,” she declared automatically.
Yes! Hymn cheered enthusiastically. And one day, we’re going to fake poison the commander, and then fake save him, fake poison him again, and fake save him seven more times!
Eiko blinked rapidly. Holy sun, I really am that stupid, aren’t I?
“You might want to know the options,” Cairn said dryly. “Once you decide on a speciality, there’s no changing your mind. You have to complete the training from start to finish before you can pick anothe—”
“Definitely poison,” she said.
He picked up the ledger, and she heard the brief scrape of a quill. “Poison it is.” There was a hint of amusement in his tone. A hint was too much amusement.
I just made a terrible mistake, didn’t I? she asked Hymn.
Before he could answer, Cairn slapped the soft leather cover of the ledger closed, and she heard him tying it off.
“You’ll still train in basic combat with me in the mornings,” he said, “but then you’ll need to report to the current poison specialist for the rest of your training.
We only have one poison specialist in Eclipse. ”
Oh, darkness. Hymn sighed. Yes, we made a terrible mistake.
“Who is the—”
“The commander,” Cairn interrupted, expecting her question. “Naturally.”
“Naturally,” she drawled. “So anyway, I’m going to pick daggers. Love daggers. Great method for killing.”
“I already wrote poison,” he said—was he walking away?
“Hey, old man!” She jumped up and tried to run after him, but he had placed a wooden training staff on the ground right in front of her, and it sent her quickly sprawling to the stone.
“Report to the damned commander!” he snapped over his shoulder. “And next time, you’d better listen to me instead of making rash decisions!”