Paragoy Dimension

  Chapter 4

  “Okay, no blood, got it?” Finn asked.

  Kyrin nodded, and the knight across from her frowned. “I know that.”

  “I do too,” Kyrin said, picking up on his concern.

  Finn turned to her. “You are positive you know that? This is training only.”

  “I can refrain from killing him!”

  “We’ll see about that,” Finn told her. “Flails aren’t common here, so we have no experience fighting with them.”

  “I’ll be good! I swear.”

  Finn’s eyebrow rose. “You… be good?”

  Kyrin smiled. “Okay, so I’ll not draw blood.”

  “Please don’t. He’s not going to hit you hard enough to either. The last thing we need is for one of Alric’s knights to injure his wife.”

  “Oh, he’s not going to get a shot off on me.”

  “Just don’t kill him.”

  “I won’t! Damn.”

  Finn turned to two knights, who stood behind Kyrin. “Use your best discretion. If she starts to get too serious, take her hands.”

  “Wait!” Kyrin said, looking behind her. “These two are there for me?”

  “Yes, they are,” Finn said matter-of-factly.

  “You act like I’m a savage with no control at all.”

  He just watched her.

  Kyrin put her hands on her hips and looked at him. “Is that what you think?”

  “Just go,” Finn said, and then stepped back when the knight unsheathed his sword.

  She spun, flail ready, and faced the knight. It irritated her that he was smiling, and she knew that the knights all assumed if the fight was fair, they would win.

  “No blood, Kyrin,” Finn reminded her.

  She mimicked him and then attacked. The knight blocked her flail hit with his sword. One of the chains wrapped around the blade, and she jerked back, almost disarming him. He was able to grab his sword at the last second, but he was no longer smiling.

  The fight went on for several minutes, as both seemed to be evenly matched. The fight had drawn the attention of castle staff, and soon, everyone was around watching. Most were secretly hoping to see more magic, but Kyrin wasn’t going to use it when she had hard steel in her hand.

  Suddenly, Kyrin dodged a sword strike that would have hit her, mid-stomach, and she backed up as her eyes turned darker. It had come close enough to slash her shirt open.

  “Watch it,” Finn snapped at the knight.

  When she lunged at him, she managed to avoid his sword block and the balls of her flail slammed against the side of his head. Blood poured from his scalp as he brought his sword down onto her arm, slicing through her tunic and into her flesh.

  Knights swarmed forward and pulled the two apart. Two held Kyrin’s hands while the ones holding her opponent disarmed him and turned him to face their captain.

  “What was that?!” Finn yelled at his knight.

  The knight was too angry to speak and struggled to get out of the grasp of those holding him.

  “Answer me!” Finn screamed. “Why did you break a direct order?”

  He glared at his captain. “I was defending my life.”

  “She wasn’t after your life until you tried to kill her.”

  “She would have been! It was only a matter of time before she tried it.”

  “You’re on report,” Finn said. He then looked at the knights restraining him. “Put him in jail until I can talk to the king.”

  They dragged him away and Finn turned to Kyrin, who was furiously trying to get away from her knights. It was obvious that she was trying to get her hands together.

  Finn reached out and gently took the flail from her hand. “Calm down. He’s been taken care of.”

  He sighed when he saw the fury in her eyes, and her struggling didn’t stop.

  “Let me see your arm,” Saith said from beside her. One of the knights had called for a priest the instant the Lady of Valhara had been injured.

  “Touch me and lose a hand,” Kyrin yelled.

  Saith simply moved to stand beside Finn. Those that knew her realized that black eyes were a sign to leave her alone.

  “Let me go,” she said to the knights.

  “Calm down first,” Finn told her.

  “I’m calm!”

  “No, you aren’t. I can’t risk you casting on us.”

  After a few minutes, when the pain kicked in, her eyes returned to warm brown and the knights let go of her.

  “May I please see your arm?” Saith asked again.

  “No,” she told him, and headed inside after tearing her flail away from Finn. Blood had saturated her sleeve and was dripping behind her onto the floor.

  “Did the king know about this training?” Saith asked, turning to Finn.

  “Yes, he did. This time it wasn’t her fault. Glorfin overstepped and attacked her first. I think he’s lucky he still has a head.”

  “She is quite good with her trade.”

  “The problem is her temper. It takes her longer to calm down when it gets out of control.”

  “Why did he attack her?”

  “I’m not sure, but I plan on finding out.”

  Saith nodded. “I would take King Alric with you. He has a right to know why his wife is injured.”

  Finn nodded. “I will. I’ll also see if I can get her to let you look at her arm.”

  “Alric may be your best bet. I can tell by how she looks at me that she despises me.”

  “I wonder why.”

  Saith shrugged and then headed back for the city.

  Kyrin stormed up to her room and then slammed the door shut behind her. She was glad to see that Alric wasn’t in the room. The nicker was, but he would let her be until she calmed down.

  After grabbing a thin, metal needle and some sinew out of her backpack, Kyrin sat down by the fire. She examined the sword cut. It was deep and permeated partially into the muscle. She’d had similar wounds before and knew how to treat them.

  Kyrin held the needle up against the fire to clean it, and then used her dagger to cut off a small piece of the sinew. After slipping her tunic off and leaving just a sleeveless shirt in its place, she threaded the sinew through the needle and moved so she could get to her arm better.

  With shaking hands, she jammed the needle through her skin and stifled a scream. She was able to tie the first stitch off before she had to take a break. The pain was always excruciating, but she had to get it closed off before she bled more.

  The second stitch took longer, and her hands were now shaking worse and sticky with blood. The nicker watched nervously from across the room but seemed repulsed by the blood.

  Just when she shoved the needle through for the third stitch, the door opened.

  “What in god’s name?!” Alric yelled, and ran over to her.

  Finn followed him in and they both knelt down beside Kyrin. Alric took the needle from her and tossed it to the side. She was about to black out and wasn’t able to speak.

  Finn gently laid Kyrin down onto the floor as Alric began to heal her arm. The pain instantly began to decrease, and her vision cleared.

  “Why didn’t you just let Saith heal you?” Finn asked, frustrated.

  When the wound was gone and Alric had removed the rough stitch job, she sat up.

  “I can fix it,” she said, looking at her arm.

  Alric sat down and sighed. “I can do it without pain though. Why didn’t you come to me?”

  “I didn’t think about that. I just knew I had to stop the bleeding.”

  “How do you even know how to do stitches?”

  “I had to know how. Do you know how many times I’ve had to do that?”

  “I’m almost afraid to know,” Alric said, and kissed her arm softly. “Just remember you aren’t alone anymore. I can help you with this stuff.”

  “Why ask for help when I’m perfectly capable of doing it alone?”

  “B
ecause that’s what married people do. They help each other.”

  “Well…” Kyrin hated to thank anyone. It wasn’t in her nature. However, she had to agree that his way was better. “Thank you.”

  He frowned. “I guess it’s the least I could do. Finn told me he attacked you.”

  “I knew he would. I was just a second too slow.”

  “That’s what concerns me. You have a bleak outlook on people, always expecting the worst. I hate nothing more than when someone in Valhara proves it to you.”

  Finn’s hands clenched into fists. “I could kill him myself. All we do is try to build trust, and he shot it down.”

  “It also concerns me that Saith offered to heal your arm, and you instead opted to do it yourself. That needle has been god knows where, and the pain involved was all unnecessary,” Alric told her.

  “I told you. I was in battle mode and just needed to fix it,” Kyrin said.

  “That’s why I’ve decided it’s time you have a Lady in Waiting.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a woman to help you. Like a personal assistant.”

  “I don’t want one.”

  “I want you to have one. She has been trained to assist queens, and with additional training will be able to help me with you.”

  “What do you mean to help you with me? What exactly are you implying?!”

  “Nothing bad, please. I just think that if you had a Lady in Waiting, she would have alerted me that you were up here in pain. I could have been here faster.”

  “I don’t need a tender.”

  Finn smiled. “You said yourself you were in battle mode. I’ve seen it. You hit a state of mind that’s very dangerous, almost primal. I’m sure you’ve needed that in the past but not here. A Lady in Waiting would soon be able to recognize that and know that you needed the king’s help.”

  “I get the feeling she’s going to be stopping me from doing things I want to do. I can hear it now, ‘Lady Kyrin, that’s not proper.’”

  “Normally, yes,” Alric said. “However, we can do what we want with her. If we have her help you with things like writing notes or getting help when you need it, that would suffice.”

  Kyrin looked over at him suspiciously. “So this is what you want. One of these Ladies in Waiting?”

  “For you, yes. I feel it would help you to stay safe,” Alric answered carefully. He couldn’t quite explain the new look on her face, and it made him nervous.

  She looked over at Finn. “Does your wife have one?”

  He smiled. “Nope, she’s not a noble.”

  “If that’s what you want,” Kyrin said, but her voice cracked slightly, and she had to fight back tears.

  “What’s wrong?” Alric asked. It made him nervous when she showed any emotion other than rage, as she rarely did so.

  “Nothing,” Kyrin told him, and stood up. She checked her arm again and then went behind the dressing curtain.

  Finn and Alric stepped out to give her privacy.

  “What’s up with that?” Alric asked him.

  Finn shook his head. “I’ve never seen her almost cry before. She’s upset at something.”

  “Think it’s because I healed her?”

  “I don’t think so. It started with the Lady in Waiting.”

  “I still feel like we need one,” Alric explained. “Just someone who can watch her and let me know if she’s doing something on her own that I can help her with, or if she’s maybe doing something not normal to this dimension.”

  Finn chuckled. “You didn’t mention that last part to her.”

  “I didn’t know how. I start to think she’s getting the hang of how we live, and then she’ll do something like try to stitch her own wound.”

  “I know. It’s just funny.”

  “She won’t find it funny. I have the Lady in Waiting coming in already. She’s an elf from a noble family in Minathim, and she’s schooled in etiquette and our customs.”

  “Why an elf?”

  “Both Sithias and I felt she might be more comfortable with someone from Minathim than one from Valhara.”

  “She seemed tense around the elves.”

  “We’ll just have to see. Her name is Azimeth, and she’ll be here late next week.”

  Finn started for the stairs and then turned. “How long did you want to give Glorfin?”

  “For attacking the Lady of Valhara? At least five years.”

  “He’s lucky I’m not doing the punishing,” Finn said, and then disappeared down the stairs.

  Alric heard Kyrin walk out into the room and stepped back inside. She was in her fighting tunic.

  “Why are you wearing that?”

  “In case the knights attack.”

  “They aren’t going to attack you!”

  “They did last time I fought one of them.”

  “It won’t happen again,” Alric assured her.

  “We’ll see.”

  “How is your arm?”

  “It’s fine.”

  He smiled. “Which isn’t entirely the truth. I can get rid of the cut, but it can remain sore for a few days.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “I wish you would have let Saith heal you.”

  “Are you mad?” she asked, looking into his eyes.

  He shook his head. “Of course not.”

  Kyrin turned to look out the window, but Alric spun her and pressed his lips against hers.