Chapter 27
MENTORS, MORNINGS, AND THOUGHTS OF MURDER
The hour of stillness before dawn, when the world seemed to be holding its breath, found Bradley waking with a smile.
Not because he was alone in his room—no, the tula was there with him hogging the center of the bed, stealing all the covers, and having absolutely zero regard for his personal space.
He smiled because he had an excuse—no, a blessing—to make her life as much a living hell as she made his.
He sat up, shedding the tula’s limbs, slunk off the bed, and took hold of the fitted sheet as if it were a fishing net he was about to haul up into a boat, that is to say, with an exceptionally firm grip.
With one yank, he tore the fitted sheet free of the mattress and launched the tula into the air.
The stolen covers and pillows softened her fall upon the floor, but she still landed with a scream.
Millie fought free of the bedding and smacked the staticky auburn hair from her eyes. “Piss and plagues, Bradley! What are you— It’s not even morning yet!”
“Do you think the pirate life waits for sunrise?” he signed. “That the sea calms down at night so you can get your beauty rest?”
“I’m barely awake. Sign that again.”
“Sir Roger has delegated your basic training to me.” Bradley gave her a feral grin.
She paled. “You lie.”
The apprentice wasn’t. After dinner, when Bradley was locking up Sir Roger for the night in the dungeons, the hedge knight had asked for a word.
Sir Roger gripped an iron bar with one hand, braced himself upon the rattan cane with the other. “That little dragon’s stunt with the wind and all those tower quakes have woken some old injuries.” He jerked his head towards the pull-up bar sticking out of the wall. “That yours?”
Bradley nodded slowly, wondering where this conversation was going.
“Figured. That robe barely fits you around the chest, and you climb up and down these stairs like a billy goat. I was wondering, though I’ve got no grace to ask, if you’d put Miss Millie through the necessary paces in the morning.
You know, push-ups, squats, core work, pull-ups, and the like.
I can’t get her into fighting shape and train her in sword-fighting, at least, not until I’m healed up myself. ”
The apprentice’s first instinct was to decline—vehemently—but before he could shake his head, he had an epiphany.
This was the opportunity he’d been waiting for.
Under the guise of training her, he would break her.
Pull-ups would humble her, the stairs would silence her motormouth, and the burpees .
. . Bradley almost cackled. The burpees would crush any ideas of piracy to smithereens.
The seas he used to sail would be safe from another scourge, and the tula would be crying for the comfort of her castle by the end of the week.
Dirk would return her, no more Heroes would come, Bradley could study with some peace and quiet, and the luck dragon’s heart would stay safely in his chest.
It was perfect.
“N-n-no lie,” Bradley crowed as he yanked the sheets out from under the princess once more.
She landed with a mild thump upon the rug and quickly yanked her toes back under the hem of her nightgown against the cold desert air.
He handed her a scrap of paper, his grin widening as her eyes frantically scanned each line of Sir Roger’s note.
When she looked up at him, she recoiled from the devilish glint in his eyes.
“P-p-push-ups. Now.”
Millie, feeling betrayed yet knowing there was no malice behind Sir Roger’s decision, crumpled the note and lobbed it at her new mentor. It bounced off his thigh and fell pitifully to the ground. “What, sir, is a push-up?”
Bradley rolled his eyes, dropped into a plank position, and pumped out a dozen push-ups.
The princess gaped, and if she was being honest with herself, for more than one reason. The apprentice was still only in his boxer briefs, after all. But the push-ups . . . “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The apprentice rocked back into kneeling position and shot out a hand to manhandle her into position. She smacked him away. “I got it, I got it.”
Millie, in fact, could not do a push-up, not even on her knees.
Well, she could do half of one, since gravity was so willing to help her to the ground.
And she would’ve claimed pushing herself away from the rug to be impossible had she not seen the apprentice do it so effortlessly a dozen times already.
But for her, it was. So Bradley amended the exercise and made her hold the correct plank form—resting his foot upon her backside to ensure it—for as long as she could.
Which was about ten seconds.
Again, and again, with little rests in between, until Millie’s arms were shaking.
When she collapsed upon the rug, utterly spent, Bradley rolled her over with a nudge to her hip. “S-s-sit-ups.”
Millie learned a new pain as the apprentice stood on her toes, anchoring her as she hinged up and down until her stomach felt like it was sawing itself apart. She flopped down onto her back with a cry.
“Th-th-that was e-e-eight,” her mentor snorted. “Again.”
Millie’s nightgown was sticking to her body in a most uncomfortable fashion when the sit-ups finally defeated her. She lay staring up at the stones of the ceiling, panting, and seriously reconsidered her life choices.
Bradley leaned into her field of vision, not a bead of sweat upon his brow, not a whisper of fog upon his spectacles. “Quit-ting?” he asked.
Mutineer Millie detected equal measure of delight and scorn in those two syllables, and her ire rose.
If she could take on that room of tarantulas, she could survive this.
She forced herself upright, tugging her nightgown away from where it stuck and smoothing the damp locks from her face. “What next?”
Her mentor wasn’t to be deterred. He stalked over to the bedroom door, opened it, and swept his arm towards the stairwell. Demented delight dimpled his cheeks. “Stairs.”
“Marvelous.” Though she was morbidly sore from all the dashing about she’d done yesterday, she still thrust her nose into the air, crossed the room with all the grace and dignity of a princess, and began her descent.
Bradley grabbed an undershirt and a pair of trousers and followed her.
Millie’s tormentor maintained a steady pace which prevented her from slowing when her legs grew shaky.
No matter how many times she flung a murderous glance over her shoulder, the apprentice never got the hint.
Millie gripped the guide rope as the lifeline it was and collapsed onto her hands and knees when she reached the sand at the bottom of the tower.
Bradley walked around her without even a wobble in his gait and unlocked the dungeon.
“Good . . . morning?” Sir Roger ventured.
“Is it?” Millie snapped, still on all-fours in the sand.
The hedge knight chuckled. “We’ve all been there, miss.
And I’ll tell you now, training has no set finish line.
It moves with every achievement, every goal surpassed.
That is its true purpose—to get you to keep improving.
” He looked over her head at the apprentice.
“I’ll meet her in the training room.” With the aid of his cane, he began a slow but methodical ascent up the stairs.
Bradley snapped his fingers at her to gain her attention, then pointed to the pull-up bar. He jumped, caught the bar, and performed a set of twenty-five before he threw in a handful of muscle-ups to show off.
When he landed in the sand and indicated it was her turn, she labored to her feet with a cavalier, “Why not.”
The princess couldn’t reach the bar, couldn’t jump for it either, so Bradley hoisted her up by the hips. She had no upper body strength to speak of, so he supported her in a dead hang until her grip failed, that is to say, after three seconds.
Millie tried again and again, sweat squeezing from every pore despite the coolness radiating from the spring and sand. Her hands burned, her knuckles swelled. On her fourth try, she couldn’t get her fingers to curl, and she slipped from the bar with a cry.
Bradley supported her only until her toes reached the sand and let her fall gracelessly to the ground. It was the only way she would come face-to-face with her failure and realize this life was not meant for her.
Instead, the princess gathered herself up, flicked her braid over her shoulder, and planted her hands on her hips. The whole affair had taken quadruple its normal effort. She stood in a wide-legged stance so she wouldn’t topple over. “What next?”
Squats, apparently, and no sissy half-squats either. Her knees had to bend at least ninety degrees or Bradley threatened to manhandle her again. His touch had this way of patronizing her even as it assisted, and Millie had had quite enough of that, thank you very much.
When her legs shook harder than the leaves of quaking aspen caught in a hurricane, Bradley jerked his head towards the stairs. “Up.”
“Lovely.” She staggered through the sand, gripped the guide rope with knuckles as white as oracle bones, and heaved herself forward.
As before, the apprentice adopted an unwavering march and drove her forward.
About a third of the way up the tower, Millie was climbing the stairs on her hands and feet like a dog. Panting like one, too.
“Breathe,” he snarked.
Millie glowered down at the stones under her hands, striped purple from the crystals and cream from the approaching dawn.
If it wasn’t before, her fingernail polish was definitely chipped now.
Her hands and fingers were swollen and ruddy, and she doubted she could grip the guide rope even if she could stand.
If there was ever a time to call that sorcerer apprentice a fuckwit or an egomaniacal masochist, this was it.
She’d already caught herself twice opening her mouth to tell him off, yet she knew if she did, that would be the equivalent of admitting defeat.
He wanted a rise out of her. Wanted her to scream and bitch at him .
. . for doing exactly what she wanted. How else would she get fighting fit?
So, even as a plethora of curses and discrediting insults bubbled up within her like magma with an irrepressible desire to blow the top off a volcano and view the sky, she swallowed back each and every one.
She would employ patience and exact her revenge when her enemy was at his weakest.
In his sleep. With a very thick pillow.
When she crawled past the open training room, Sir Roger jerked out of his warrior pose, snatched his cane, and hustled to the door. His jaw dropped as the princess continued her march upwards on all-fours, and his gaze hardened when he met Bradley’s.
“I said train her, not break her,” the old man growled.
The apprentice only lifted an eyebrow, his expression clear. Don’t like it? Train her yourself.
Sir Roger winced as his back tinged. He glowered warningly at the apprentice and returned to the training room in hopes downward dog would relieve the ache.
“I think it’s time for a bit of a rinse,” the princess said with forced lightness when she reached the bedroom landing.
Using the guide rope and the last of her strength, she hauled herself upright.
“I’ll join you in the kitchen for breakfast—” In a few minutes were the words she’d been going to say, but that didn’t seem a believable timetable.
Eventually was too vague also, so she just left the sentence dangling there.
Millie didn’t wait for permission, she just staggered into the bathroom and locked the door. Only then, when she was alone, did she clap a swollen hand over her mouth and sob.
The apprentice had done his best to humiliate her, and he’d succeeded.
Though shame burned, her heart burned hotter.
He would not defeat her, and neither would those stairs, squats, pull-ups, or whatever infernal exercise he’d come up with next.
Her future depended on it. Besides, anything worth fighting for wouldn’t come easy.
She’d learned that from the relentless teachings of her etiquette tutors and governesses.
The sweetness came in the earning, and her victory would be like a three-tiered pavlova topped with whipped cream and sun-ripened mango. Divine.
With a reserve of strength she didn’t know she had, Mutineer Millie hauled herself into the tub and got the hot water running.