Chapter 82 Practice, Practice
Practice, Practice
Dinner tonight was routine. He had chosen a deep red silk gown with a bodice laced tight enough to ensure my posture never faltered. The candles were arranged precisely, the table set for two. When I entered, he stood.
When I sat, he wasted no time.
“Indulge me.”
By the time I returned to my chamber, the evening had left no visible mark on me. And yet I felt the familiar shift inside, as though I had been lifted carefully from a shelf and returned to it again, polished, positioned, and expected to remain exactly where I had been placed.
But this evening, before the light fades entirely, I eat what Maridale brought.
Bread first, then the cheese. I sit at the small table near the window and take measured bites, allowing my body to recognize nourishment without shame.
By the time I fold the cloth and hide it, warmth gathers beneath my ribs.
It is a small difference, but it is enough.
When night falls, I test the door out of habit.
Locked, as expected, but the window opens easily.
I pause on the sill, listening. There is no guard stationed beneath it tonight.
When I lower myself from the window, my landing makes the faintest rustle against the gravel below, but no soldiers appear. The courtyard remains quiet.
I begin to suspect that when Iavis heard me at the window tonight, he walked in the other direction.
I am grateful. Beneath my cloak, wrapped carefully in linen, I carry three small wooden boats.
I finished them weeks ago, in a brighter version of myself who still believed she would deliver them personally.
Orsan’s is orange. The others are simpler, but sanded smooth and fitted to run clean along any groove.
As I enter the woods, the Baron’s house is loud again, the rowdy voices of Mysin’s friends carrying through the night. The sounds fade as I walk deeper into the forest.
Arven is already there. He stands at the edge of the clearing, his maroon hair reading darker here, closer to wine than red. There is nothing soft in his face. Tonight, he is watchful.
“You are late,” he says, though I am not. I am learning that this is his favorite way to greet me.
“You are early,” I answer, stepping into the clearing.
He grunts, approving the reply.
“I have something for you,” I say, unwrapping the linen and holding the boats out.
Arven looks at them as though I have presented him with an unfamiliar weapon.
“I do not play with toys,” he replies.
“They are not for you.”
He takes one between his fingers anyway, turning it over with faint suspicion. “You expect me to walk into the capital carrying children’s boats.”
“I expect you to leave them at the orphanage,” I say evenly.
“On the back steps. After dark.” I feel a pang that the toys will not be dropped off in the daytime, directly to the children like I do.
That Orsan may not know that the orange boat is for him.
But perhaps he will choose it all the same, I tell myself.
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I will find another way.”
For a moment he says nothing. Then he wraps the toys back in the linen with more care than he intends to show.
“I will see that they arrive,” he says at last. “Quietly.”
“Thank you.” He does not respond to the gratitude. He only tucks the bundle into his pack and steps back, as if restoring distance between us before the work begins.
He circles me once, assessing my posture, the way I hold my shoulders, the fatigue I try to disguise.
“Are you hungry?”
“No, just a bit tired.” As if on cue, a yawn escapes me.
“You are not usually this tired.”
“Perhaps the palace has finally taken its toll on me.”
His expression changes at that, the mockery receding into calculation. “Tell me what you feel when you are there.”
I consider the question honestly, because lying to him has become pointless. “Not much,” I admit. “I am too tired to feel much of anything clearly. But since yesterday there has been a sense of something approaching. As if the air inside the palace is waiting."
He studies me more carefully, stepping closer until the distance between us is charged rather than neutral. And then he moves suddenly, not attacking but testing. I feel him before I see him, a change in pressure at my back, and I pivot, catching his wrist before he can close the distance entirely.
“Better,” he murmurs.
“I am trying.”
He releases himself and steps away, drawing a blade. “I need to teach you how to kill me,” he says, and there is no humor in it now.
I frown. “Why?”
“Because if someone stronger than me finds you first, you will not survive by guessing.”
The usual amusement on his face is gone.
“I already know how to kill Threns,” I say quietly. “You have shown me.”
His eyes search my face, weighing desperation against resolve. “Yes I have shown you how to kill Threns. I have not shown you how to kill me."
I look at him, confused.
"Someone more powerful," he says with a smirk.
"So humble," I grumble.
What follows is not elegant. He moves through the mechanics of it with cold clarity, demonstrating vulnerabilities that are not obvious to human eyes, explaining the angles that matter and the ones that waste effort.
He forces me to repeat each motion until my muscles remember what my mind cannot afford to forget.
He shows me how to redirect momentum rather than meet it, how to use my reach before steel, how to disrupt balance in a body larger than mine.
He rolls his eyes, though I can see a hint of pride cross his face.
He circles once, then stops. “Show me the kills I’ve taught you.”
He comes at me without warning. I step inside his reach and drive for the space beneath his ribs as his blade stops at my throat. “If I were your enemy, I would be dead,” he says. “Again.”
He resets and comes at me a second time, faster. “Do not aim for them,” he adds. “Aim for me.” This time I move sooner. My hand finds the opening before his strike fully forms.
“Good,” he says. “How to kill someone twice your size.” He comes again, layering feints into one. I miss it once. The second time I don’t.
“How to survive more than one attacker.”
We continue until my lungs burn.
“The undead,” he says. “They do not fear death.”
He pauses. “A feeder.” He stares at me, making sure I understand the intention behind the request.
This time I watch for the change that comes before movement, and act before it fully forms. He advances, and I use the exhausting thread of perception that has become my greatest weapon.
I reach for the first sign of intent before his body follows, moving aside before the strike fully forms as the blade stops inches from my skin.
“Good,” he says, and there is something almost pleased in his tone.
I look at him. “Easy,” I say, a faint smile touching my mouth.
At some point another yawn escapes me, unbidden.
He notices immediately. “This is not like you,” he says.
I shrug.
His expression darkens slightly. “The ports reopened today,” he says pointedly. “Vaelor ships will dock within days.”
The thought stirs something in me. Eravic. Junis. News of Colsar, perhaps, if I am even permitted to see them.
“And?”
“And you do not look well.” He steps forward abruptly and catches my waist, spinning me toward him before I can anticipate it. His hands are firm and warm through the fabric of my shirt, his face close enough for me to see the faint gold woven into the braids near his temple.
“You do not have to stay in Veynar,” he says, searching my expression with an intensity that feels less mocking than before.
“My prince is in the mountains.” I think of General Rorin. “And the General is on his way there to update him on… the palace. On me.”
Arven is unimpressed. “The mountains are worse than the rumors,” he replies, voice tightening. “It could take his General days to weeks to reach him, possibly longer. And he may not survive long enough to give him the message at all.”
I know he is right, but it is painful to hear anyway.
His grip loosens slightly, though he does not step away at once. “Your legs work well,” he says, as if concluding a calculation. “You are fast. If you are in danger, if you need to leave, I will help you leave.”
"I thought you didn't care."
“I absolutely do not,” he says, and yet his hands remain at my waist a moment longer than necessary.
I place my hands lightly over his wrists, feeling the strength beneath my fingers, the life that hums through him even when he is still.
He freezes at my touch, and for a moment a look of hunger, maybe longing, passes over his face so quickly I think I imagine it.
“I will see you tomorrow night,” I finally say, forcing a small smile despite the weight in my limbs.
“I will be waiting.” There is no sarcasm in it this time.
When I finally slip back through my window and lower myself into bed, exhaustion crashes over me in full. My muscles ache, my mind overflows with too many possibilities, and yet beneath the fatigue there is satisfaction. I passed each one of his tests tonight.
I know how to protect myself now.
My fingers find the ring at my throat. The absence of my mother’s pendant lingers. As sleep pulls at me, I think of the Vaelor ship cutting through dark water, of movement and opportunity and danger converging toward the palace like an approaching tide.