Chapter 16
Iwake to a forceful knock on my door, the heavy thump of a fist against wood, pulling me from my nightmares. Ruskin was wrong about me getting used to all this death. If it’s not haunting me in the day, the violence and danger I’m surrounded by is certainly finding me in my dreams.
“It’s Halima.” The thudding continues. “I hope you’re up.”
“I am,” I grunt, wrenching open the door. “Though you need to work on your wake-up method.”
“My intention was to rouse you if you were still sleeping. Therefore, my method worked just fine,” she says, striding past me into my room.
“I’m assuming Ruskin sent you,” I say, closing the door behind her. The anger from yesterday returns when I look at the proof standing before me that Ruskin will do whatever he pleases—and that my preferences don’t matter.
“Yes, he did,” Halima replies in her usual concise way.
“Well, you can tell Ruskin that I’m not some prize sow to be guarded, and that if he thinks I need a babysitter?—”
“I’m not here to guard you,” Halima says, a line appearing between her brows.
Surprise takes the wind out of my frustration.
“You’re not?”
“No, I’m here to train you.” I think even the usually stoic Halima looks a little smug at correcting me. “Dawnsong said that if you aren’t going to accept protection, you need to get better at protecting yourself.”
“Really?” So he heard me after all and was willing to compromise—at least a little. Of all the people he could have chosen to train me, I know he picked Halima because she’s the one he trusts most to keep me safe if there’s another attack—but agreeing to have me trained is still more bending on his part than I expected. I feel untethered by the discovery. I’m pleased by Ruskin coming around, but why did he have to be so stubborn in the first place, and why am I struggling, even now, to trust this olive branch?
“Yes, and I agree. It is a good idea. The Seelie Court is…turbulent at the moment. Random violence is more likely, especially without any immediate resolution to its problems.”
I recall the fragment of conversation I overheard between Halima and the guard. I get the sense she’s not just referring to the iron attacks, but also the general instability since Evanthe woke up. Halima likes order and straightforwardness, and I can see it’s disturbing her to be in such a gray area where the court’s leadership is concerned.
“So what, you’re going to teach me to fight?”
“To begin with. There will be specific magical training too, seeing as your enemies are also likely to use their magic against you. The training will also help you grow both your physical and magical strength, and that, in turn, may improve your ability to tackle the iron.”
“Sounds sensible.”
“There’s something else.” She reaches into her belt and pulls out a roll of parchment tucked there. “This came for you.”
I snatch it up eagerly, unrolling it to see Dad’s writing.
Nora,
I know you would not stay unless it was the right thing to do. But come back to me as soon as you can. Come home.
All my love,
Dad
The shortness of the note makes me bite my lip. I’d written him pages of rambling explanations as to why I had to stay—a lot of it vague, because I didn’t want to scare him—but his letter makes clear he doesn’t care about any of that. He knows he has no control in this, and it hurts my heart, but what he’s written is true: this is the right thing to do.
I roll the paper back up, trying to put it from my mind.
“All right,” I say. I agreed to stay here and help with the Seelie’s troubles, so it needs to be worth it. I’m ready for the challenge, whatever it takes. “Where do we start?”
“With you putting some proper clothes on.”
Halima takes me to the armory first, where we quickly discover that regular fae armor like the kind she wears is far too heavy for me. After some complaining under her breath about weak human limbs, Halima finds me something designed for fae children which fits me at a stretch: a thick leather chest piece, and guards for my forearms and thighs. I can at least move around in them without fear of toppling over.
Then she hands me the thing I’ve not been looking forward to—my sword. The blade is thin—again, made for children to learn with, she tells me—and while it’s not too heavy, the weapon just seems unwieldy in my hand. I hold it awkwardly in front of me, worried I might accidentally cut myself.
Halima rolls her eyes and taps the scabbard on my belt.
“Sheathe it for now.”
She takes me to a courtyard beyond the memorial square and the stables. This one is sparsely decorated, and the area mostly cleared of the plants that otherwise seem to cover every inch of the palace. The ground isn’t paved or mossy, but of loose earth with a labyrinth of tracks trodden into it, evidence of the thousands of dances that have taken place on it before now.
Halima directs me to stand opposite her. Looking up at her towering form, I start to feel nervous, realizing we’re really going to do this.
“First,” she says, drawing her sword so smoothly it’s like the blade is part of her, “you need to know how to hold a blade.”
She demonstrates the way my fingers should sit on the grip, explaining how it will give me the best control and flexibility, then makes me run through a series of movements, clumsily copying her for the better part of an hour. It isn’t long before my arm is aching, and I’m a sweaty mess. I drop the tip of the sword to the ground, resting my weight on it.
“Halima, how long does the average High Fae train in swordsmanship like this?”
She sheathes her blade, looking utterly unruffled by our training session, though she’s barely stopped moving the whole time.
“A High Fae child will take weekly lessons alongside the rest of their education. But unless they’re planning to specialize in work as a swordsman or woman, they’ll usually only do so for ten years.
“Ten years?”
“Yes. Not enough, in my opinion, to properly equip the average civilian, but most Seelie tend to prioritize other things.”
“Halima, how is any of this going to do me any good? I don’t exactly have a decade to work on this, and if I can’t fight well enough to hold my own against a High Fae, what’s the point?”
Halima gives me a long look. “I’m trying not to be insulted at the suggestion that I’m an idiot who hasn’t thought this through.”
I gape. I’ve gotten so used to Halima just taking everything at face value, it never occurs to me to try to be sensitive in my phrasing around her. But I suppose when it comes to this—the thing Halima lives and breathes—she won’t take any perceived criticism lightly.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything like that.”
She nods, immediately accepting my apology.
“Of course, your limitations had occurred to me.”
I don’t bother pointing out it’s more a limitation of time itself, and allow her to go on.
“That’s why you’re going to have to cheat.”
She crosses her arms across her chest, like she’s waiting for me to argue.
“Okay, sounds sensible to me,” I say.
She purses her lips. “It’s not the way of a warrior, no true soldier would stand by it, but in your circumstances, I think we’ll have to make an exception.”
“Great,” I say. “So how exactly are we going to do that?”
“Your magic.”
“Oh.” I was expecting some kind of secret set of forbidden sword moves.
“Your powers are the perfect shortcut and unique enough that most fae will be unable to combat it. And you should be able to pick it up quickly. After all, you’ve moved weaponry before with some success, correct?”
I think back to the time I disarmed a young fae with a knife, but I didn’t tell anyone about that. And then there was also…
“You mean when I killed Cebba?”
“Yes. Ruskin told me how you directed a sword with your power. Moreover, you did it with enough intent to kill a powerful enemy. That’s good—it means you won’t back down when you need to stay strong. I believe we can use your ability to speed things along. We don’t have the time to turn your body into a honed weapon—but we can turn your magic into one.”
“I see. You really think I can skip over a bunch of stages that way?”
“The goal for every swordsperson and archer is for their weapon to become an extension of themselves. You have a way to get there quicker than most.”
“I just have to know how I want my weapon to move?”
“Precisely.”
She unsheathes her sword again, spinning in a motion as quick and smooth as a dancer, whipping her blade through the air, up towards the outstretched limb of a training dummy. But rather than striking it directly, her blade slices right past it, then twists to take off the dummy’s head.
The cloth ball of stuffed straw bounces across the ground.
“The longer your run up, the longer you enemy has to block it, especially if you’re taking the time to summon your magic,” explains Halima. “But if you make them think you’re trying one move,” she pats the arm of the dummy, “you can create an opening to attempt another.” Halima walks over to the severed dummy head and gives it a kick.
I nod, trying to absorb it all. If I were still just Eleanor, the fisherman’s daughter from Styrland, there’s no way I’d be able to move like Halima just did. But now that I have my magic, I might be able to copy her, at least to some degree. After all, recreating something in your mind is much easier than doing so with your body, and visualizing moving my sword with my magic will happen more in my mind than in my body anyway.
“Now you try,” Halima says, striding over to a box by a dugout and hauling a fresh dummy from it. She sets it up a few feet from me, then looks at me, waiting.
“All right,” I say, thinking I’ll feel more confident if I act like it.
I lift my sword and Halima immediately corrects me.
“Remember, thumb not too tight,” she says, and I loosen the offending finger.
I don’t bother with the fancy spin. We’ve agreed I’m not here to master those kinds of moves—I’d be more likely to drop the sword or cut off my own foot if I tried. Instead, I sprint towards the dummy, focusing on the pool of magic in my mind.
Still the magic. Set your intention. Release.
I know these steps now, but coupling them with physical movement is like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach while singing the alphabet backward at the same time. I visualize where I want the sword to go, drawing the blade through the air in my mind until it finds its striking point. The metal responds to my call, and I feel it come alive under my grip.
I extend the blade, and it soars upwards like a whip, feinting past the dummy’s arm with inches to spare just as Halima had done. I let the blade keep flowing, driving towards the sky where I visualize it twisting round and?—
The sword “flows” with so much force that it pulls free of my hand, sailing through the air. Halima side steps as it arcs and plummets like a stone, impaling the ground with a clang, until it’s embedded—handle upwards and swaying with impact—not far from where she was just stood.
“Sorry,” I say weakly.
“What happened?”
“I lost control,” I say, although that much is obvious. “I think I just wasn’t cautious enough with my magic. I was working so hard on putting momentum into my movement, that I end up being too forceful with my magic.”
She nods, thinking this through.
“It’s good you can identify the problem. That’s more than a lot of beginners can do.”
I blink at her praise. Coming from Halima, these words are equivalent to throwing a parade in my honor.
“Pull back a bit,” she suggests. “You don’t need the physical momentum as much as others do. Let your magic do the work for you, more than your body. It might help you control it better. And tighten your thumb grip?—”
“But you just said?—”
“I know I told you to loosen it, but that’s for normal combat. It seems you need to keep as tight a hold on that blade as possible.” She stares at the weapon sticking out of the ground not far from her.
I swallow, accepting her point, and walk over to dislodge the sword from the earth. As far as it has buried itself in the ground, even pulling it free would be hard if it was left to my own weak muscles, but I use it as chance to practice my magic, pulling the metal towards me with my mind so it gives more easily.
“Okay, let’s try this again,” I say, attempting to stay upbeat.
I run towards the dummy, but I don’t put so much effort into my swing this time, letting the magic carry it. Already the movement feels more stable, and when the blade clears the edge of the dummy’s arm, it’s like the metal is ready and waiting for the next instruction even as it glances through the air. I hit it with the next wave of my magic, visualizing the smooth twist and swipe Halima executed. The blade is responsive to my will, pivoting and coming swooping down—right through the straw-stuffed arm of my victim.
The limb tumbles to the ground and I stand back with a feeling of triumph.
“Were you even aiming for the head?” Halima asks, puncturing my success.
“Er, yes, actually. I guess my aim was a little off. Still, at least I got him, right?”
“It’s close enough for your purposes,” Halima says simply. “That’s one maneuver down. Now we try the rest.”
Halima is relentless. I only survive the next few hours because swinging the sword around is a lot easier when I’m using my magic. Easier.Not easy. The swordswoman seems pleased with my progress, however, and we graduate from practice dummies to actually sparring much quicker than I expect. She’s a good teacher, and she’s realized I respond better to trying different things and piecing together when various moves are effective rather than drilling the same sequence over and over again. The magic isn’t so much about repetition as understanding what I’m trying to do. It’s the strength of the intention, not the familiarity of the execution, that it needs.
But even with this learning curve and my powers to help me, it’s exhausting. As my mind gets tired my movements get sloppier.
“You’re not focusing,” Halima says as the flat of her blade strikes me across the chest. Even with the protective leather and her pulling her punches, I’m knocked several steps back, a dull ache blooming from the point of impact.
“It’s hard,” I say reflexively, tired and sore, but I regret my complaint the moment I air it. Halima rounds on me.
“Hard? Hard? You’re right it’s hard. Dying is easy, Eleanor. If you want to stay alive, you need to fight like it’s worth the effort. What are you going to do the next time a High Fae decides they want you dead? Stamp your feet and complain about it being too much work?”
I scowl. “I don’t stamp my feet,” I grumble halfheartedly. Halima just nods—she knows I’ve gotten the point. If you want the result, you have to put the work in. You can’t give up, no matter what. It was that mindset that kept me working with metal all those years, conducting experiment after experiment to get the results I needed.
I’m worn out, but if we’re going to call it a day on this training, I need to show Halima that we’re making progress—that I won’t quit when things get tough.
I lift my arms back into a fighting stance, rally my frayed mind, and raise my sword.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go again.”
I think Halima smiles, but the expression is gone too quick to confirm. And then I can’t be bothered to look at her face because she raises her sword and comes at me.
Up until now, I’ve tried to just manipulate my own sword, guiding it into the parries and thrusts Halima has shown me, pulling it into place as her blade comes whistling through the air at me. I haven’t touched Halima’s weapon—partly because I know I need to learn defense as much as offense, but also because when I’ve gotten close to sensing Halima’s sword with my magical awareness, it had felt too big and too firmly locked into her grip to budge.
But I try it now. I only have seconds before her sword will collide with mine, and, unless I have my magic ready, my weapon will go flying out of my hand. I decide I need to get to hers first. Focusing in on the flashing strip of metal, I race down the length of it in my mind, until I reach the curve of the handle and Halima’s large hand wrapped around it.
I put all my remaining strength into pulling on it.
To my surprise, the blade rips from Halima’s fingers. She looks bewildered, totally confused as to what has just happened. Now it’s her turn for her weapon to go flying through the air. I still have control of it, though, and in a final flourish, even as the effort of it makes me wince, I slow its momentum. I let out a pant as the sword drifts towards me, the handle landing in my outstretched palm.
I grin. “Now I bet you didn’t thi?—”
It hits me like a lightning strike.
One moment I’m in the training square with Halima, the next I’m standing on the bank of a hill. The sky is black with a rolling fog, a thick stench of fire and magic seeping from it, blinding and choking me.
Then a gust of wind lifts it, carrying the wave of smoke up over the hill, clearing my view.
This time, I nearly choke on my own horror.
Screams of agony rip through my ears as I take in the sight of a battlefield. There are bodies everywhere, limbs lying severed and mangled in the grass, bits of flesh and bone barely identifiable as bodies entwined around ragged uniforms and dented armor, piled on top of each other so you don’t know where one person ends and another begins.
Now the fog has cleared, I can smell the decay and death. The ground is slick and dark with blood. Three feet from me a horse lies with its side ripped open, its rider draped across its exposed ribs, her own eyes wide and unseeing. From the half of her face not mashed to a pulp, I can tell she was beautiful—High Fae.
Most of them are. Their elegant bodies have been slashed to ribbons, or crushed by blunt objects, or turned purple and bulging from vines wrapped around their now limp necks: a field of slaughtered angels, except this place is worse than hell.
Below me the battle rages on, the clash of steel joining the groans of the dying, as swords meet and spells collide, filling the air with even more sparks and smoke.
I feel cold, bone-weary grief at the sight of it. A rage and sorrow that I fear will never leave me as long as I live. It is knitted into my soul now—the stain of slaughter. I look down and see my breastplate spattered with blood, my sword in one hand and in the other…
My stomach roils in disgust, and I throw the severed head of the fae I’ve just butchered from me.
But I must collect myself. This is war and I am a soldier. Whatever they ask of me, I must answer the call. If I must blacken my spirit for my kingdom, I shall. I raise my blade, and sprint towards the fray…
The loose earth of the training square softens the impact as my knees hit the ground. I fling the sword from me, thick sobs clawing up my throat.
Halima bends over me, shaking me.
“Eleanor. Eleanor!”
“Oh God,” I gasp, relief flooding through me as I take in the familiar sight of her, the sound of birds in the air and the empty courtyard, where the sun shines on bloodless ground.