Chapter 10 #2
Smiling to herself, she hurried out of the door and toward the area she knew that the men used for training. She expected that Keir would already be there, waiting to scold her for being late, and she found herself joyfully anticipating the bickering argument that would no doubt ensue.
But when she arrived, the training area was empty.
She had seen Briana and Theon already awake, passing them as they prepared breakfast for the morning, but there had been no sign of Graeme or Noah yet, and nothing at all of Keir.
Uncertain, Elin considered moving back toward the fire, but she quickly changed her mind.
Instead, she moved to the very centre of the training area, settling primly on a small stump and facing the direction she’d come from, a little smug about how she would be the one to reprimand him about being late.
As she waited, the sun rose higher in the sky.
Five minutes became fifteen which became somewhere close to half an hour.
Elin slowly grew more and more irritated, but her stubbornness refused to let her move until Keir showed up.
Where was he? She could hear voices drifting over from the campfire, though she could not see it from this angle.
Surely he hadn’t stopped to have breakfast first?
He’d been the one to say they must meet at dawn?
She clasped her hands together on her lap, only just stopping herself from impatiently tapping as time crawled past.
“Are ye waitin’ on someone?”
Elin yelped and fell forward, only stopping herself from properly collapsing by throwing out her hands just on time. Once she had righted herself, she whipped her head around to see Keir standing there, a smirk on his face and a single eyebrow artfully raised. “What—?”
“I’ve been waitin’ for ye tae notice I’m here for such a long time I was beginnin’ tae think ye’d gone deaf and blind,” Keir told her, offering his hand.
She scowled but accepted it, allowing him to haul her to her feet. “But-But I was here long before ye. I had me eyes on the way here the whole time. How are ye here?”
Infuriatingly, Keir smiled. “I got here almost the exact same time ye did.”
“Ye didnae!” Elin insisted.
“I did. Ye want tae learn stealth, Elin? Ye need tae learn how tae manage yer expectations. That’s what it’s all about.
Ye expected me to give some sort of sound or visual indication I was nearby, but I was walkin’ almost right next tae ye among the trees and ye didnae see me at all.
” Keir shrugged. “All I had tae do was ask Theon and Briana tae make a wee bit more noise than usual as they were makin’ breakfast this mornin’. ”
Elin gaped at him. The lesson had started and she hadn’t even known it. She expected to be annoyed, but instead a twisting swirl of admiration curled around determination that she would one day be just as good. “Ye tricked me.”
“Any opponent ye face will be lookin’ for some sort of clue tae where ye are, Elin,” Keir explained.
“Ye must use that tae yer advantage. Focus on the sounds ye make, the tells ye have, the slightest things that might give ye away, and find a way tae turn them tae yer advantage. It isnae just about stayin’ hidden, but about doin’ so while distractin’ yer opponent without distractin’ yerself. ”
“How?” Elin asked immediately. She did not want to waste time asking pointless questions, not now. Her focus grew intense, and she intended to fully throw herself into learning everything she could.
Keir gave her an approving nod. “What are yer advantages? Yer disadvantages?”
She thought about it for a moment. There was one answer that had followed her for her whole life, wasn’t there? “I’m a woman,” she said. “One who catches the eye of men.”
He nodded. “And which is that? Advantage or disadvantage?”
“Both,” she said, the answer coming to her just from the tone of his voice.
She thought of how it had been to be with Eamon, alone and with his friends.
She thought of her time at the orphanage and all the places she had had to exist and work simply to survive to work her way into the heart of the clan. “It has always been both.”
“Explain.”
Elin took a breath, concentrating hard. “Men notice me. I stand out just by me appearance, so it’s hard for me tae blend in, especially if I’m in a place where men mostly go.
But… but it’s also an advantage. Because they may see me, but they overlook me, dismiss me.
In mixed company, I’m one bonny face in a sea of many, and none of them care what I think or say.
None of them see me as a threat. I can blend in, especially if I pull up my hood. ”
She was rewarded by a brief smile that shot straight to her heart. “Good. But out here ye’re nae in mixed company,” he said. “Out here, there’s just ye and me. Say I’m yer enemy. How will ye stop me from noticin’ ye? What advantages do ye have out here?”
A thrill shot through her as she remembered how he had caught her, not once but several times, catching her as she fled like a wolf closing its jaws around the neck of a fleeing doe.
Those sharp teeth had pressed against her pulse again and again, but never hard enough to bite.
She shivered, averting her eyes under the guise of looking for an answer.
There wasn’t much around. The forest stood thick before them, the sky grey above them, but otherwise only stumps and weapon boards dotted the training area.
“The trees?” she asked. It was the only thing she could see that would help her hide, but she had been found so easily in that very forest before.
“The trees, aye, but they’re only a wee bit of it,” Keir said. He moved until he stood behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Close yer eyes.”
The heat of his body behind her bolstered her, and she obeyed. She closed her eyes, matching his slow breathing as she calmed herself.
“What do ye hear?” he murmured. “What do ye smell? What do ye feel?”
The trees rustled in the slowly building wind, and the sound of birdsong pierced the morning.
The scent of the cookfire traveled even to here, mixing with the aroma of the soil and pine and the taste of heavy moisture in the air.
Her skin prickled with static as she rhythmically breathed, the hairs standing on end, and a low rumble above told her that morning thunder was on the way.
And, more than any of that, she felt the weight of Keir’s strong, reassuring hand on her shoulder, giving her a steadiness she’d never known before.
Elin opened her eyes and turned to face Keir. “Everythin’,” she said.
He nodded. “Good. Then we begin. Let’s see how well ye can sneak up on me, shall we?”