Enzo #2
Aldric had served here too long. Loved or not, trusted or not, he was part of the bones of this place. If those bones were broken, the household needed to hear them crack.
Nadia looked away first, but there was no surrender in it. Only strategy rearranging itself around the thing she couldn't kill.
“Fine,” she said.
I didn’t make the mistake of relaxing.
She turned back to me. “I’m not watching from the balcony like a Court ornament.”
“I honestly didn’t think you would.”
Nadia folded her arms, clearly unimpressed. “Then I want the shadows under the ring.”
“Already assumed.”
Some of the tension eased from her posture at that, though only a little. “And Vessa close enough to burn whatever working he reaches for.”
Her eyes searched mine for a long moment, looking past the prince and the plan to the man standing in front of her. “And if he cuts you?”
“He won't.”
“That wasn't my question,” she said, frustration threading through the words.
“No,” I said quietly. “It wasn’t.”
The fury in her shifted again. Less flame now. More blade.
“If he goes past a sparring wound,” she said, each word precise, “if he reaches for a working, if the ring shifts wrong, if I decide for one second that this has stopped being your reckoning and started being your death, I’m coming through the shadows.”
“I know,” I said.
“I won't ask permission,” Nadia warned.
“I'd be disappointed if you did,” I replied.
Her eyes flashed. “Don't be charming right now.”
“I was being honest.”
“That's worse,” she shot back.
Despite everything, my mouth almost curved into a smile. Almost.
Nadia caught it immediately. She pointed a finger at me. “No.”
The smile vanished. A wise decision, all things considered.
Then her hand came to my chest, flat against the place the bond sat beneath my sternum. The anger didn't leave her face. If anything, it sharpened around something more fragile.
“I nearly watched you go over a cliff,” she said softly. “I nearly felt a wraith climb into me. I'm not in the mood to discover which of us can survive the other being dramatic with a sword.”
The words went under my ribs. I covered her hand with mine. “I'm not trying to die.”
“No,” she said. “You're trying to make a point.”
“I'm trying to make a wound visible before it kills this house.”
Her fingers curled once against my shirt. Damn her. Damn the way she understood me, even when she hated what I'd chosen. For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then Nadia drew in a slow breath and stepped back. The fury banked.
“Then get dressed,” she said, turning toward her belt and blades. “If you're going to make me watch you bleed for politics, I want the best possible view when I decide whether to ruin the lesson.”
I reached for my shirt. “Yes, my lady.”
She shot me a look over her shoulder. It should have killed me. It nearly did.
“And Enzo?”
“Yes?”
Her hand settled on the hilt of the knife at her thigh. “If he makes me come into that ring, I won't leave enough of him alive to answer questions.”
Her smile was small. Cold. Entirely without mercy.
I pulled the shirt over my head and let the weight of my crown settle back over me.
“Understood.”
The lower yard had been cleared by the time I reached it.
It no longer seemed like a practice ground. It looked like a verdict waiting for blood.
Household guard held the inner ring, hands near hilts, faces blank in the way trained men made themselves blank when they knew they were about to witness something they would be speaking about for years.
Officers stood along the balconies. Vessa waited at the eastern rail, small and still and mean enough to make the air around her feel sharpened.
Nadia stood above the western side of the ring. Dark leathers. Coat fastened. Hair pulled back from the mark on her cheek. Three knives visible and gods only knew how many hidden. She leaned against the rail with both hands, her face the perfect blank of a woman with no opinion at all.
The bond told a different story.
I didn’t look up at her. If I did, I might remember that I was a man before I was a prince.
Aldric waited in the center of the yard. He wore practice leathers, but the blade in his hand wasn’t a practice blade. It was the captain’s steel of Tharros, the same one I had given him on the morning I confirmed him in command.
That was the first wound of the morning, the memory of handing it to him.
He bowed when I entered the ring. “My prince.”
“Captain.”
His face didn’t change. That was almost impressive. Fifteen years at my side, six months hollowed out by treason, and still, he could stand in my yard and wear loyalty like a clean coat.
I drew my sword. Old steel. Tharros steel. My father’s gift on my hundredth year.
Aldric’s gaze dropped to it for half a breath. Then rose.
“You said live steel,” he said.
“I did.”
“May I ask why?”
Around us, the yard listened.
I held his gaze. “Because I’m done sparring with ghosts.”
Something shifted in his expression. Not enough for most men to see. Enough for me.
He raised his blade. So did I.
The first strike was familiar. That was the cruelest part.
My body knew him. Knew the reach of his arm, the rhythm of his steps, the slight hesitation before he shifted from high line to low. I had crossed blades with this man a thousand times. More. There were patterns in my bones that belonged to him, the way old roads belonged to a province.
Steel met steel. Once. Twice. Then again. For three breaths, it almost seemed like every other morning we had spent in this ring.
Then he moved back a half-step. One I hadn’t given him. The edge of his blade flicked toward my forearm, quick and small and wrong.
A test.
I caught it on my guard. Above us, the bond went blade-sharp. Nadia had seen it, too.
I lowered my sword by a fraction. “When did the order come?”
Aldric didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “This morning.”
The yard went still. “How?”
“A sending stone in my quarters.”
“You put one in my keep.”
“No.” His mouth tightened. “It was put there for me.”
“Six months ago?”
“Yes.”
There it was. A rot with a date. I felt the household hear it. Felt the ring change around us as witnesses stopped watching a morning spar and began watching the bones of their house break in public.
“What did it say?” I asked.
Aldric’s hand tightened around his hilt. For the first time that morning, he looked tired.
“It said my sister lives if you die today.” His voice stayed even. Only barely. “Her daughter. The children. All of them. If you die, they live. If you don’t, they die.”
No one moved. Not the guard. Not Vessa. Not Nadia above me, though the bond went so cold it burned.
I had known. Or close enough to knowing. It still landed like grief.
“Aldric.”
His eyes met mine.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He almost smiled. Small. Wrecked. The smile of someone who had been walking toward the end for months and had finally reached the door. “So am I, my prince.”
Then he came for me. No formal opening. No courtesy. No Captain sparring his prince. Only a man with a blade and one impossible order.
He struck low, fast, killing line angled to open me from hip to ribs. I parried hard enough to send the sound of it cracking around the yard. He pivoted off the block and came again from the other side.