The Cadet of Tildor

  Sasha dashed to the exit with the rest.

  “No.” Renee grabbed her arm. “Get to a corner!”

  Before they could move, a large man barreled past, growling and shoving bodies from his way. His paw caught Renee’s head and threw her, like a rag doll, against Sasha. They stumbled back, knocking over lit candles. Sasha doused the infant flames before they nipped her dress, while Renee regained the balance a stronger soldier would never have lost.

  A few paces away, Savoy overturned a side table and dragged a protesting King Lysian behind it for cover. The king struggled, but Savoy kept him pinned. Renee watched, dimly aware that she couldn’t have done that either.

  A chorus of wails rose beside the door. Half the bodyguards threw themselves against it, as if their shoulders could crack the heavy wood. The other half found cover for their wards and awaited rescue. No one worked together. Bloody gods, they likely had never even met each other before now. No wonder the arrangement had irritated Savoy.

  Another arrow sliced into the room. And another. A woman’s scream tore the air.

  “De Winter.” Savoy’s voice was steady, almost bored. “The window.” He was shielding the Crown and could not move a span without the young king attempting to escape.

  Sasha grabbed Renee’s shirt. “Don’t leave me.”

  Renee swallowed. Savoy was right. “Stay flat,” she whispered, untangling her friend’s fingers. She slithered across the carpet. Bits of pudding and broken pottery riddled the floor. A sharp edge of glass ripped her sleeve and sank into her forearm. She reached the window and crouched beneath it. Sweat beaded on her lip. The arrows came fast now, a rain of shafts that poured into the marooned room. Most crashed into walls and clattered down. Some drew screams of pain. Renee took a breath. She had to close the window shutter. And to reach it, she’d bring her body into the line of firing. Focus on the task. The window shutter. Close the shutter.

  Renee pulled off her coat and popped up for an instant to throw the cloth over the window’s jagged remains. She crouched again as an arrow sliced in, shattering a vase instead of piercing her temple.

  “Stay down,” Savoy spat.

  “I can’t see from here.”

  “I can. The shutter swings in from outside. Extend your hand up and out to feel for the shutter’s bottom. I will guide you.”

  Renee grabbed a napkin from the floor and wrapped it about her hand. She listened and moved, trusting his eyes to be hers. The orders were simple and calm, and she repeated each one in her mind. Reach up. That’s the base. Grip. Good. Now pull. Nothing moved. Savoy repeated the command, but, reaching overhead as she was, Renee could not budge the heavy metal sheet.

  “I can get it,” King Lysian growled at Savoy. “Let me up.”

  Savoy ignored him. “You must grasp farther out for better leverage. Stay down until I say, cadet.”

  Renee crept to a new position, her face flushed with shame more than fear. Alec could have moved the shutter. Any of the guard—

  “De Winter. Pay attention.” Savoy’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Rise and reach on my mark.” Heartbeats ticked, arrows flew through the window, tickling the edge of Renee’s vision, a drop of sweat dripped into the corner of her mouth. “Now!”

  Rising to her full height, Renee reached out through the shattered glass, grasped the shutter with both hands, and swung it closed. It banged shut just as another arrow thudded against it. And another. And a third.

  Renee blinked. Nothing more entered the room.

  It was over.

  She sagged to the floor, breathing hard.

  Around her, the movement took on a pattern. Someone must have unjammed the door, because the guests were gone. Fisker’s troop of the Palace Guard, and what must have been all other free guards in the palace, stormed inside. Someone escorted Sasha out. Tear tracks stained her cheeks. Renee wanted to apologize for leaving her, but by the time she found her voice, her friend had disappeared. Two soldiers who knew their business collected the king, covering his body with theirs as they ushered him out. A woman in a captain’s uniform, the senior guardsman in the room, interrogated Savoy, periodically turning her head to issue orders.

  “Strong work, cadet.”

  Renee blinked. The captain now stood above her, offering her a hand. Renee scrambled to her feet and stood at attention.

  “At ease. You’ve earned it.” The woman motioned to the door. “We seized the maid who exposed the window and stuck a bit of clay into the door lock. She had orders from the Vipers.” A burst of yelling tore the captain’s attention away from Renee, and she tilted her head to where Savoy stood smiling blandly at a ranting Fisker.

  “Incompetent bastard.” Spittle flew from the guardsman’s mouth and he shook his four-fingered fist in the air. “I’ll see you held accountable.”

  “Mmm.” Savoy snapped off the arrow shaft protruding from his shoulder. “I tremble at your importance nowadays, Senior Palace Guardsman Fisker.”

  The captain rubbed her temple. “Excuse me, cadet, but I must prevent Servant Savoy and Guardsman Fisker from shredding each other to ribbons.”

  “They’re acquainted?”

  “Eh?” The captain pulled her gaze from the men. “Oh, them. Fisker claims Savoy cost him a finger.”

  Renee stared at the familiar scarred stump. “Did he?”

  The captain chuckled. “I believe Junior Guardsman Fisker once fell from his horse and cut his hand because Cadet Savoy loosened the saddle girth. But it was embarrassment, not Cadet Savoy, that kept him from attending the Healer until the small gash festered to a problem.” She shook her head. “Guardsman Fisker’s duty is his life, cadet, and Commander Savoy has cost him his pride too often. Between Vipers, the Family, and Commander Savoy, I’m unsure whom Guardsman Fisker hates more. And,” she added as Savoy grinned at Fisker’s reddening face, “that overgrown adolescent feeds the fire each chance he gets.” She shook her head. “Make certain the Healer checks you,” the captain said, nodding at the cuts on Renee’s arm before turning to prevent a brawl.

  Overgrown adolescent. Renee almost laughed. Then grimaced. You didn’t laugh on the heels of battle. Did you?

  Renee let herself out, wondering why her hands had only now started to tremble.

  CHAPTER 11

  The news of the attack must have already reached the Academy. Alec ambushed Renee on her way to the Healer’s office and followed her inside, toward the reek of salves and dried herbs.

  Despite the late hour, Healer Grovener, a tall, dry twig of a man, looked as immaculate as his workspace. He pursed his lips, spreading disapproval between Renee and the hovering Alec, as if the twin assaults on her flesh and his workspace were a personal affront. He went to wash his hands.

  Renee drew a breath, held it, and exhaled slowly. Injuries and Healings were facts of training for fighter cadets, but that didn’t make the experience pleasant. Rubbing her face, she stared at the only spot of color in the room—a painting depicting a woman with a blue glow and an eagle perched on her shoulder; Keraldi, who first described the barrier to Healers, some thousand years back.

  “I brought that.” A boy in a Healer’s apprentice robe smiled at her and adjusted his round spectacles. “It’s Keraldi and her bonded mage bird, Talon. Once the bond took, they shared sights and feelings.”

  “Did they?” Renee raised an eyebrow. This was an old story. Keraldi might have managed to tame a mage bird, yes, but more likely Talon was just an eagle. And for certain, the bond was a myth.

  Alec shrugged. “There’s some evidence for bonding being real. Mostly from before the rebellion, when mages were stronger and mage beasts more common . . . ”

  Renee grunted doubtfully, but little wanted to debate. “You know entirely too much mage history,” she said instead, poking his chest. “But at least you’re smart enough never to
try to pet a mage beast.” Lore held that only wild animals—and of those, only predators—showed Control abilities. The best to be said for animal mages was that they were mercifully rare now. “Right?” she pressed.

  Alec smiled, but it failed to hide the worry from his eyes.

  “I’m really all right,” Renee told him quietly as Savoy entered the room. She bowed a greeting to the man, uncomfortably aware that despite an arrow cutting his shoulder, he had controlled the room and King Lysian both, while Renee had been pushed around and nearly failed to shift the heavy shutter.

  Alec squeezed her uninjured arm and stepped away to lean against the wall.

  “I saw a mage wolf once,” the apprentice said. “Defending her cubs from a bear. The wolves will run usually, you know, but not this one. She had the bear writhing on the ground while she herself just stood a few paces away, hackles up and a stream of mage flame flaring. Added three hours to our trip, staying clear of her.”

  Grovener cleared his throat. “Have you divined a means of Healing without touch, boy?”

  The apprentice blushed, hastily extending a blue glowing hand to Renee’s shoulder. “May I? Healer Grovener gave his permission.”

  Renee nodded and the boy laid his hand on her, the hot brush of his energy sliding along her Keraldi Barrier. Despite knowing what was coming, she gasped as the mage nicked an opening and slid past it. From here he could exploit her insides as he pleased. Seaborn had said mages once made a practice of it. That the Mage Council would have the boy’s life if he harmed her did little to quiet her heartbeat as his energy coursed beneath her skin. A few minutes passed before the flesh around the cuts on her arm heated and pulled, healing rapidly with the young mage’s assistance.

  “You seem all right. I found nothing beyond gashes on your arm, and they were shallow.” The apprentice pulled back. “Did I hurt you? I tried not to.”

  “Not at all.” She smiled at the boy and rubbed the pink skin now stretching the cuts’ edges closed. “Are you far from home?” she asked.

  “Half a day’s ride, if you have a horse.” His face said that his family did not. That would change once the young mage finished his training.

  Renee turned to watch Grovener cut away the dirty remains of Savoy’s shirt and mop a wet rag around the protruding remains of the shaft. The water in the washbasin reddened. “Do you know if the maid was telling the truth about the Vipers orchestrating the attack, sir?” she asked.

  Savoy winced as the blue light shimmering about the Healer’s hand touched the wound. “Yes. They issued demands.”

  “Quiet.” Grovener stepped back. “I must remove the arrowhead and sew the muscle before Healing. But I can mend you, boy. This time.” He reached for a small blade and hesitated, considering his patient.

  “I’ll be still,” Savoy said dryly.

  Grovener clasped the arrow while Savoy braced his good hand on the table’s edge. Tinges of nausea gripped Renee under her jaw when the knife pierced flesh. It was ironic, she thought, that a man who trained his whole life to protect himself could allow another to cut him. Healer Grovener need not know attacks and parries to deliver a fatal blow. He could just do it. If he wanted to. And Savoy trusted that the mage would not.

  Alec touched her between the shoulder blades and inclined his head toward the door. The warmth of his palm was welcome, like a blanket after a storm. She looked at Savoy.

  He stared at the wall while the Healer addressed his shoulder, but he felt her gaze and turned his head. “It’s not my first cut, de Winter. I don’t need the company.”

  Blushing, she let Alec lead her back to the barracks.

  * * *

  The next day, early rays of sunlight pulled Renee outside. She hadn’t slept. The previous day’s assault reenacted itself in her mind all night. Would a stronger fighter, a boy, have done better? Would Sasha have been safer with Alec? Would the screams and blood and crash of shattered dishes ever stop flooding her thoughts? She shook her head and picked up into a run. Dew-covered grass and the shush of green and gold leaves gave the still courtyard and empty walkways a mystical feel. A pair of bickering birds and several early shift guardsmen spiced the silence. She sighed. The guard detail had doubled overnight.

  Approaching the training salle, Renee frowned at the open door. Having never yet encountered company during her morning workouts, she secretly considered the room hers. Inside, Savoy flowed from stance to stance in an unfamiliar pattern. Sweat glistened in his hair and framed the angle of his jaw. The blade resting in his left hand slashed a deadly rhythm. He didn’t greet her.

  Renee’s heart quickened. Feeling blood rush to her face, she turned her back to Savoy and claimed an empty part of the salle. She pulled a weapon from her bag, drew a breath, and commenced her routine, begging the movements to clear her mind as neither sleep nor willpower could. She finished one pattern and started another, and then a third, hurrying to get ahead of her thoughts. When she paused, a hand touched her shoulder.

  She startled.

  “Work with me?” Savoy switched the blade to his right hand and rotated the shoulder experimentally. “That was a request, not an order.”

  Her skin tingled. Renee brushed hair from her eyes. Rivers did not run uphill, arrows did not fly into the Crown’s dining room, and Savoy did not issue requests to cadets. “Why, sir?”

  “I’m bored.”

  She blinked.

  He rubbed his temple. “My shoulder, de Winter. I need to work my shoulder and it’s boring.”

  She blinked again. Yesterday he was wounded saving the Crown’s life. This morning he was bored. Diam had a longer attention span. “Healer Grovener will be unhappy.” She stepped into the center of the salle.

  “And I’ll know whom to blame if he finds out.”

  Squaring off with him, Renee saluted, hiding her concern over their lack of padding behind the leveled tip of her practice sword.

  She needn’t have worried. Savoy’s game resembled nothing she saw in class. Instead of blocking her blows, he redirected them to slide off his blade. His attacks were gentle and deadly, a brush across her throat, a slide down her wrist. By the end of the bout she felt as if she were waving a club at a killer bee.

  “You never showed us that,” she said, panting between rounds.

  “I teach the standard style. It works for most fighters most of the time.”

  “Why aren’t you using it, then?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I can’t.” He extended his arm, holding the practice sword parallel to the ground. A few seconds later his arm began to shake. He retracted the weapon and massaged his shoulder.

  “Sorry. I just thought . . . I apologize, sir.”

  His brows drew together for a moment and then he chuckled. “You thought I’d ignore it?” He nodded to himself. “Of course. That’s what fighters do. That’s what you do. Right?” His blade flashed to her neck, the wooden tip pressing into the groove just left of her throat. His mirth dissolved. “Why rip my shoulder smashing your skull when I can slice your artery? You are just as dead, and I am spared Grovener’s rebukes. I fight to win. You fight to prove you’re the same as the boys.”

  His practice sword pressed harder into the soft spot. Renee grew lightheaded and stepped away, blood rushing to her head again. She hadn’t asked for the match. Or the condescension. With his reputation, Savoy could afford pet styles, moves that shied from confrontation and snuck in attacks instead of meeting their opponent on even ground. None would hold such choices against him. “I fight to prove myself worthy of the privilege of remaining at the Academy. Sir.” The last word came out with a hiss she was certain to pay for. “May I be dismissed?”

  He cocked his head, regarding her for several seconds. “No.” The word was mild. He switched the sword back into his left hand. “Fight.”

  Fine. She skipped
the salute and went for his throat.

  The throat moved. And continued moving.

  The harder she swung, the more Savoy slid, his very lack of force mocking her efforts. An urge to hurt him suddenly gripped her, and Renee threw her whole weight behind the blows, aiming for his ribs, his thighs, his hurt shoulder. If a blow connected, just one, just once, he’d feel her worth, her potential, he’d know she belonged here with the boys. Her breaths came fast, burning her lungs. The wooden blades quarreled, carrying on a conversation voices could not. The world blurred to a buzz. She . . .

  Renee did not realize she had tripped until Savoy grabbed her tunic to steady her on her feet. She shuffled to reclaim her balance, her muscles trembling even at rest. She stared at him, aghast. “I—”

  “Saw your first battle a day ago.” He put away his blade. “You’ll see more.”

  She wiped her face, realizing through a haze of exhaustion that her mind was quiet for the first time since the Queen’s Day dinner. Savoring the tingling relief, she looked at Savoy and knew that he knew. She had needed that fight.

  “Thank you, sir.” She chewed at her lip. “Will . . . will you be bored again tomorrow?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Renee bowed and drew herself to full height before him. “I will get stronger, sir.”

  “Save it for class. Won’t be much use with me.” He shrugged and turned away. “And if you plan to play strength games again, de Winter, don’t bother showing up.”

  “Yes, sir.” Renee bowed again. “I—I’ll be here.” One did not turn down a chance to train with the leader of the Seventh, no matter how impractical a style he insisted on teaching.

  And, she noted with a smile, the muscles shifting beneath his shirt didn’t hurt either.