Chapter 1 #4
He circles Evran with a low-shouldered ease that comes from a lifetime of working with a blade, to the point that improvement is something he has to actually work at.
He's been a warrior longer than Evran has even been able to read, but he doesn't put any pressure on him to be more than he can be.
Every correction he calls out is in a no-nonsense, clipped tone that had been hard to stomach in the beginning and now just rolls off his back.
He has learned to hear the shape beneath the words: drop your elbow, guard your line, again, again, yes, like that, good.
"Again," Kellin says, and Evran resets.
The wooden practice sword is lighter than a real one but heavier than it was a season ago, because Kellin has been sneakily switching them out for weightier models every few weeks and pretending he has not.
Evran breathes out on the strike. His feet settle.
He throws the combination Kellin drilled him on yesterday, parry-parry-cut, and Kellin's blade meets his with a clean ringing crack and then slides off at the last turn, and Evran's follow-through goes where it is supposed to go instead of where gravity would take it.
"Better," Kellin allows. "Better than last time anyway."
"Oh wow, don't compliment me, Kellin," Evran says in good spirits. "I might think I'm doing something right."
Kellin grins at him. "I would never imply as much."
Evran laughs, winded, and wipes his brow with his forearm.
He is never going to win a tournament. He knows this.
He is never going to be the kind of swordsman who makes bards write songs.
But he can hold a guard now. He can throw a combination.
He can keep his feet under him when a bigger man comes at him, and last week he surprised Kellin with a low feint that Kellin had not seen coming, and his teacher had laughed, and clapped him on the shoulder so hard Evran felt it in his teeth.
Progress. Quiet, unglamorous progress.
It fills him up in a way he does not quite know what to do with.
Afternoon is the weaving terrace, where Aether has saved him his usual place near the window and is working on something long and russet-colored that is clearly too ambitious for the remaining hours of daylight.
She raises one eyebrow at the mouth-shaped bruise on his throat that has blossomed into a really lovely purple as the day has worn on.
"How is our Warlord doing today?" she asks, as he takes his place at his loom. "I feel like I should have a word with the kitchens about his voracious appetite if he's taken to biting my student."
Evran flushes to his roots, even though this sort of commentary is more than commonplace when it comes to Aether. No matter how many times she teases him, the novelty of the fact that she's teasing him openly about being the consort to the Warlord does not wear off.
"Still a student, am I?" he asks, instead of rising to the bait.
She smiles pleasantly at him and, because she's the best, she allows the subject change. "There's always more to learn when it comes to weaving."
He sits. He threads. His hands know this work now, know the weight of the shuttle and the pull of the warp, and for a long while there is nothing in his head but the soft clack of wood and the low murmur of the other women across the terrace and the way the afternoon light falls in long warm bars across the stone floor.
Aether leans over once, examines the section he has just finished, and makes a small approving sound.
"This is trade-worthy," she says. "You really need to send it with the wagons when they travel."
"Yes, so you've said."
"I am saying it again because you fumbled your shuttle and changed the subject last time."
Evran opens his mouth to deny it, and then closes it, because he can feel the heat climbing his neck right now.
Aether smiles, pleased, and goes back to her own loom.
Later, much later, when the evening meal is finished, the great hall has thinned, the torches have burned down and Evran is warm with ale and tired in the loose-limbed way of a body that has been used all day by good work, he and Vaike climb the stairs to their chambers together.
Vaike's hand is at the small of his back. Not pushing. Just there.
The door closes behind them.
Evran goes to the window first, the way he always does, to unlatch the shutter a little because he likes the night air, and he stands there for a moment looking out at the mountain in the dark.
The stronghold is quiet. The terraces below are a layered shadow.
Far out beyond the walls, on the slope, a few last campfires of the season's hunting parties are visible as pinpricks of orange. The sky is enormous and full of stars.
Vaike comes up behind him. Sets his hands on Evran's hips. Rests his chin on the top of Evran's head.
They stand like that for a long time, not speaking. Then, finally, Vaike's arms come around him.
"Come to bed," he says, quiet, into Evran's hair.
He turns in Vaike's arms and lets himself be led to bed.