Chapter 28
W hen she showed up to spar in a dress meant for dancing, I realized I had been remiss in clothing my captive. She didn’t complain about the cold, though, or the inappropriate clothing.
Her hair was braided back from her face, curly strands springing free at random with each swing of the practice blade.
She didn’t complain about that either, though. She only blew them away from her face with a short huff of air, cheeks pink with exertion. She was faster than I thought, though not as fierce as she had been on the actual battlefield. That was normal, though. Rarely did soldiers give their all until their lives were on the line.
Still, I couldn’t help but picture her at the other end of a Besklanovvy weapon, a careless mistake costing her more than she’d bargained. Somewhere in the middle of our spar, my training instincts kicked in.
“You’re dropping your elbow,” I informed her calmly, slowing down long enough for her to correct the movement just as I did with my men.
She fumed, but lifted the elbow in question.
And so on it went, the princess growing increasingly irritable but surprisingly pliant to my instruction. It was evident that whoever trained her must have been blunt and quick to bark orders because she was quick to take them.
Not just a tutor, in all likelihood, because I knew from experience they were usually hesitant to be too harsh with someone who outranked them. Her father, perhaps, or her uncle, who was the current captain of the guard there.
But she didn’t fight exactly like a man did. Her mother, then? Lochlann’s Warrior Queen.
She took a deep, obvious breath, steeling herself to ramp up her efforts in a way that was entirely too obvious.
“Careful, Lemmikki. Your expressions give you away.”
She rolled her eyes like it was ridiculous that someone might be able to read her very obvious face and body language.
“And what exactly are they telling you right now, Lord Aalio ?” she gasped between heavy breaths, each one clouding in the air in front of her.
“That you’re flagging already.”
She let out a feral growl, and even her hair seemed to crackle a bit with her ire as she increased her speed. It was only temporary, though, since she slowed down after a few more parries.
Which was a problem, given that even a skirmish could go on for far longer than we had been sparring so far.
I slowed down to give her time to recover, and she narrowed her eyes.
“Why are you dragging this out?” she demanded, her silver bracelet clinking with another irritable thrust of her practice sword.
“We need to test your stamina,” I told her. And ideally, increase it, not that there would be time for that before we left.
Already I had garnered curious looks from every one of the guards when I marched into the sparring ring with a princess in tow. Here was hoping they thought I was just torturing her here rather than letting her fight.
More likely, they thought I had an entirely different reason for bringing her here and insisting on complete privacy. They failed to realize that I wouldn’t be tempted by someone who was literally enslaved to me, let alone an entitled princess who had a talent for grating along every single one of my nerves.
Even if she was…passively attractive when her eyes were lit up from the thrill of sparring, and her cheeks were pink like she was basking in the afterglow of?—
“Maybe you should worry about your own stamina.” She grinned, a catlike expression that was nearly as feral as her growl had been.
It had been years since anyone had surprised me in a spar, let alone with verbal taunts, but I froze just long enough for her to swoop in and get a few solid hits. This was why I needed to get rid of her. Distractions were a danger I could ill afford.
I should have ended the fight right there, but she wasn’t done yet, and something unreasonable in me wanted to push her to find out just how far she could go.
Finally, her movements slowed to the point of clumsiness. After passing up several opportunities to best her, I couldn’t help but throw her words back at her.
“Well, Lemmikki, it would appear that my stamina is perfectly intact.”
Before she could respond, I launched into an actual attack and made the finishing blow, knocking her sword from her grasp. She shook her head in fury, dislodging a few more curls and wafting the scent of amber and citrus my way, where it mingled with the steel and sweat and sand of the training ring.
No . I wasn’t tempted by her at all.
She let out an impressive string of curses that would have made Taras die on the spot from the impropriety, causing me to revise my assessment of who might have trained her, unless the Lochlannian royalty were even less appropriate than their progeny.
“Indeed,” I said drily. “Let me know once you’ve recovered yourself and I’ll ask that question.”
She shook her head again, frustration seeping from every pore.
“By all means,” she gestured sarcastically.
“What were you really doing in the tunnels that day?” I had played her actions over in my head.
As little sense as she made in general, that trip in particular stood out. I had never been to the tunnels, but it was safe to surmise they were unpleasant, dark, cramped, and cold.
Why did she go herself for vodka when she could have sent literally anyone, including her guard?
She blinked, tilting her head. “That’s hardly a secret. Why would you waste your one question on something Iiro already told you?”
Interesting that she was hedging rather than answering what should have been an easy question.
I shrugged. “Humor me.”
“Apparently, everything I do is already for little more than your humor.” Bitterness soaked her tone like snow melting over a hearthstone.
I cleared my throat, prodding her along, and she let out a reluctant sigh.
“My sister was grieving. I thought a good bottle of vodka might lift her spirits.” She delivered the words with less expression than I had ever heard her use. It didn’t fall flat, like her lies did, but it still felt…off.
“You agreed to answer honestly,” I reminded her.
“I…did answer honestly,” she said in the dubious tone of someone who knew they had done no such thing.
“Really?” I resisted the urge to snort. “So you couldn’t have, I don’t know, gotten her a different gift?”
“Vodka is her favorite drink,” she insisted.
“What about sending someone?” I suggested an obvious alternative. “Did you really need to accompany your guard?”
“And ask someone else to take that risk on my behalf?” she countered with indignation, because she would never dream of putting someone else out for her own sake.
“And all of the other times you were in the tunnel? Were those for your sister, too?”
This time, she hesitated, no easy answer on her lips. “Not all of them.”
“So you were happy at the castle, before you left? Getting along with everyone?” Had she left because of a fight? For attention because she wasn’t the heir? In the hopes that she was kidnapped by the enemy and her father took notice of her?
She paused, and I wondered if I had finally gotten somewhere near the truth.
“My family is very close.” Another nonanswer.
“That’s not what I asked.” I wasn’t sure why I kept pushing except that I had finally started to see something real from her, and it was like a drug, unexpectedly addicting.
She swallowed, looking away. “Well. I already answered your one question.”
“But not truthfully, so it doesn’t count.”
“I think I would know that better than you do.” She almost sounded like she believed herself.
“Would you?” I demanded. “Because I’m not sure you and the truth are always on the best of terms. I think the truth lies somewhere in why a Lochlannian princess who grew up with everything at her fingertips decided to risk her life, on multiple occasions, for little more than a whim.”
I stepped toward her, a self-destructive moth drawn inexplicably to the flame of all her contradictions.
“So tell me, Lemmikki, were you running away from something, or were you just that bored ?”
She sucked in a breath like I had slapped her, stepping back and closing down entirely.
“I don’t know, Lord Aalio ,” she spat. “Is there a reason you turned out as empty as you did or are you just that bored now?”
I was anything but empty these days. Der’mo, wasn’t that the problem?
I straightened to my full height, pulling myself together and away from her.
“The latter, I suppose. In any event, you can have your weapon on the road.”
Her lips parted. “Even though I didn’t win?”
She truly was naive sometimes.
“I never thought you were going to win, Princess. I would have been an idiot for arming you if you did.” I turned to take her back inside before I let myself get even further out of hand. “I just needed to know what you were capable of.”
Like lying to yourself nearly as much as you lie to the rest of us.