Chapter Nineteen
Chris followed Parry down a staircase that spiraled into the castle’s foundation. After a few minutes, the tight walls fell away to reveal a gymnasium of sorts. Some forty torches illuminated more ceiling murals—these of battles—and a black and white checkerboard pattern, formed of rough slate, on the floor. The far wall dissolved into columns and revealed a thundering white wall of water.
“We’re behind the waterfall?”
Parry nodded.
Allara stood in the middle of the room. She wore breeches and a white blouse belted at her waist. Both hands clasped the hilt of a sword propped in front of her.
Parry drew aside and motioned for Chris to pass. From his face, he didn’t want to go anywhere near Allara while she had a sword in her hands. She didn’t look like she had gotten more than a few hours of sleep last night, and she did look like maybe a hog or two had gotten into her flower patch.
Chris crossed the room to join her. “So what’s so important it can’t wait until after breakfast?”
“Time.” She touched the sword’s hilt to his chest. “And the lack of it. We’ve only a matter of weeks, if we’re lucky, before all Lael knows you’re here. I’ve written to my father. When he feels the time is right, he’ll summon us back to Glen Arden, the capital, for your official investiture. You’ve a long way to go before you’re ready for that.”
He slid his hand through the swoop of the hilt’s basket and closed his fingers around the leather wrap. “So this is Gifted training?”
She backed away, and her hand fell to her own hilt. The shimmer of firelight intensified against her dark pupils. Likely enough, she’d end up taking a whack at him just for spite.
He instinctively brought his sword up before his face with both hands.
A flicker of movement against the wall caught his attention, and Quinnon stepped away from the weapons rack on the wall, a sword in either hand. “Like the feel of that one, do you?”
He tightened his grip, his palm hot against the leather. It weighed heavy in his hands, but the balance felt right. “What is this? A rapier?”
“It’s an estoc,” Quinnon said. “A rapier won’t get you anywhere in battle. Too light.” He set the point of his smaller sword in a crack in the floor and pressed down, bowing the thin blade. “A rapier is the sort of thing folks carry around for personal protection. Light and quick. If you survive long enough, could be we’ll get around to training with one later. But we’re in a hurry.” He jutted his chin. “We’ll start you with Allara. She’s fast and she’s skilled. Could be enough to trigger these Guardsman skills you claim to have.”
“Sounds good. I guess.”
Quinnon raised both blades to rest against his shoulders. He grinned. “Then watch your back.”
Allara struck.
Chris parried reflexively and caught the silver thread of her blade against his.
She held the swords together for a moment and glared at him across the few feet that separated them. Her hair was pinned on top of her head, and the loose tendrils clung to the heat of her skin. The look on her face said she wasn’t about to cut him any slack.
He gritted his teeth. “So that’s how it’s going to be.”
“That’s how it’s going to be.”
She struck again, and this time he barely caught her blade.
Iron clanged against iron. Echoes reverberated against the stone walls. He staggered back, barely keeping up with her attack. This was no mock battle. One misstep and he’d lose a limb to her hammering blade.
Out of his peripheral vision, he glimpsed Parry at the foot of the stairs, gaping.
Allara had almost backed him into the wall. A few more steps and the fight would be over. He dodged her attack, barely, but the tip of her sword ripped through his left sleeve.
“You’re thinking!” Quinnon shouted. “Stop thinking! Your mind’s from another world. It doesn’t know what in the Garowai’s eye it’s doing. Listen to your body. Let it do what it wants.”
Chris clenched his teeth and tried to sink into the instincts of his muscles.
For an instant, it worked, just as it had in the fight with the Koraudians. Almost of its own accord, his blade spiraled free of Allara’s, and he lunged. This time she had to take one step back before catching his sword. But before he could recover his balance, she smacked it aside and nearly ripped it from his grip.
He glared. “Are you trying to kill me?”
Her brows lowered over her eyes. This was more than just a bad mood. She wasn’t just angry. She was terrified. And it wasn’t just a terror born of the events of the last few days. This went deeper. This was something she’d been carrying around for a long time.
He leaned back. “What’s got you so afraid?”
Her breathing froze. Then, without even blinking, she hurled another attack into his teeth and beat him back two steps.
“I am fighting a battle I cannot win! Is that not reason to fear?”
He held his sword against hers. “Of course you’ll win. You’ve got me on your side now.” He tried on a smile, but the joke didn’t take.
“That is such a comfort.” She disengaged the blades and pulled back, just out of range. “I’ve fought all my life to protect my country from another war. And now it’s coming.” She sidestepped, trying to flank him.
He kept pace with her as they marked a circle on the stone floor. “Who says you have to take the blame?”
She flinched. He half-expected her to hurl the question back in his face. But she didn’t. She lowered her sword. “I do. I say I do.” Her voice thickened. “It was my job to keep this from happening. All of it.”
“I thought your job was to find me and show me what to do.”
Her nostrils twitched. “Aye. And that’s gone well, hasn’t it?”
There it was again—that broken look stealing out from behind the edges of her ice-hard façade. Her strength, her confidence, her authority, it was all a mask. She didn’t have any more answers than he did. That’s why she was so angry.
He stepped forward. “I’ve never been a leader, never wanted to be. I don’t follow anyone else and no one follows me. And that’s the way I like it.” He forced a laugh. “I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t exactly been a stunning success. Life is hard work, and I’ll tell you the truth, it scares the wits out of me.”
She gave her head half a shake. “Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not mocking you. If I could do it over again, I would never bring Mactalde across, even if it really could have gotten me out of here.”
He filled his lungs. If he said what he was about to say, the die would be cast irrevocably. He said it anyway. “What I do from here on out, I do because I decide to do it. Not you. Me. Which means whatever happens is my responsibility. So teach me, show me how to survive, tell me what to do, but let’s just get it straight that Mactalde is my problem, not yours.”
Her cheeks flamed once more. “So you’re taking over?” But the anger in her voice was fading.
He lunged, sword lofted. She snapped away, her reflexes a blur. His body reacted, and the sword moved where it was supposed to before he even realized it. They fought all the way back across the floor. The spray from the waterfall beaded his skin with a cool mist.
Then Allara spun away, surprising him with her speed. Before he could lose his position, he clubbed his sword into hers with all the strength he could muster. Her hilt slipped from her hand, and she cried out as it clanged against the floor.
He twitched the tip of his blade up to her throat and grinned. “Yield?”
Her breath fogged his blade. “You’ll need more than brute strength to beat Mactalde.”
Quinnon walked up behind him, sword in hand. “For a minute there, you almost had it.” He had stripped out of his Guardsman tabard into a loose-weave shirt, open at the collar. “But were you and Allara evenly matched in strength and size, she’d have cut your throat before you took two steps.”
&n
bsp; So much for impressing the veteran. Chris huffed. “I did feel it there at the end. It was like my body just took over. I was reacting without even thinking.”
Quinnon brought his sword up and raised his other hand behind his shoulder in an en garde stance. “Let’s try again.”
Chris caught his breath. “Now?” He gestured to his wounded shoulder. “Maybe I should check to make sure I didn’t pull that open again.”
Quinnon didn’t lower the sword. “Battles have this tendency to not wait until you’re rested and well.” He lunged.
Chris snapped his sword up and caught the attack.
Quinnon backed off. “So you want to be a leader, do you? I have to tell you, wanting doesn’t get the job done.” He grinned. “Wanting doesn’t make you my leader.
Chris stepped to the right, his eyes on Quinnon’s. His nerves whispered fire up his arms.
“People believe the Gifted are deliverers,” Quinnon said, “sent by the God of all. But I only believe what I see.” His sword moved to indicate the tear in Chris’s sleeve where Allara’s blade had gotten past his defenses. “What I’m seeing is a man who wasn’t good enough.”
Chris sensed the attack coming before Quinnon barely moved. He caught it, parried, and drove Quinnon back a full step. But if he had been stunned by Allara’s speed and ferocity, the addition of Quinnon’s strength left him reeling.
They fought in a mindless blur. Some part of his consciousness registered the burn of his muscles, the sweat soaking his hair and his clothes, and the dragging weight of encroaching exhaustion. But still he fought. Quinnon responded with none of Allara’s white-hot fury. The corner of his mouth twisted in a hint of amusement and never altered. They fought all the way across the floor, Quinnon sometimes giving ground, but mostly taking.
Chris didn’t have time to think. He fell into the rhythms of his body and felt muscle memory take over. His body wasn’t his anymore. It responded to the training someone else—some other Chris—had given it. It responded with strength and precision, confidence even. Maybe he was a swordsman after all.
But just the realization was enough to pull his brain out of instinctive response and back into his conscious control. He stumbled, and Quinnon delivered a sideswipe that wrenched open his grip. His sword spun away, and he stopped. His breath rasped in his ragged throat. Technically, he’d just died, of course. But it was still an improvement.
Quinnon poked Chris’s chest with his sword. “Don’t just stand there! When you drop your sword, go after it.” He looked Chris up and down. “Not bad. Not good, but not bad. I wonder where you served your term with the Guard.”
Chris used his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “Not with you, apparently.”
“If you had, you’d have known better than to stand still for that last thrust.” Quinnon leaned his blade against his shoulder. “But you know it now, don’t you?” When Chris nodded, he nodded back. “We’ll take a break. Get yourself a drink.” He jutted his chin toward the waterfall. “She’s got you a whole lesson plan worked out and fencing’s just the start of it. Firearms, equitation, tactics, political history, and not forgetting everyone’s favorite—etiquette.” He sounded rather entertained by the whole litany. “You’re about to become a busy boyo.”
Chris turned to the waterfall. “At least I won’t sprain my thumbs from twiddling.”
“Fetch your sword first. And don’t ever let me catch you with it out of your sight.” He stalked off, back toward the weapons wall.
Allara had picked up his sword for him and was holding it out, hilt first. He accepted it and peeled his collar back to check the bandage on his shoulder. No blood, but it didn’t feel quite as good as it had an hour ago.
“I see what you meant about brute strength,” he said.
The globe flickering overhead shadowed her eyes and masked her thoughts. “I’ve had a sword in my hand all my life. Not many can best me, disparity in strength notwithstanding.”
If he didn’t know better, he’d say that was almost, not quite, but maybe a compliment. He walked toward the pillars and the waterfall beyond. The mist engulfed him. It wasn’t thick enough to get a drink, but it dampened his tunic and cooled his skin.
She led him to the corner, where a two-inch hole in the rock ceiling let in a steady stream of water. She bent and twisted her head to catch a mouthful. When she straightened, she touched the back of her hand to her mouth and looked up at him. “Quinnon told me what the Garowai said about the wind and the imbalance.”
Chris hadn’t seen her after leaving the Garowai yesterday. By the time he and Quinnon got back to the palace, she had been barricaded in some private sector of the castle, with obviously no desire to talk to him, and he hadn’t asked for an audience.
Now, he stepped up next to her and leaned forward for his own drink. The water was cold and sweet. He swallowed and stood up. “I guess that means things are worse than we thought.”
“Time will tell. But it can’t be good.” Her eyes charted his face. She had every right to explode into another outburst. If he had really rocked two worlds out of balance, that was definitely fuel for a verbal filleting. But, for a change, she didn’t seem ready to behead him. She looked like she had actually believed what he said about taking charge.
He chose his words carefully. “If Mactalde being here is what’s causing the imbalance, his death should solve the problem, shouldn’t it?”
“Is that what the Garowai said?”
“More or less.”
She watched the white rush of water. Beyond, silver-sailed ships glinted vaguely against the lake as they maneuvered in or out of the port on the western side of the falls. “Sometimes what the Garowai says is open to interpretation.”
“You got any other ideas?”
“Killing Mactalde is as good a place to start as any.” She dabbled her fingers in the spray overhead. “It’s hard to believe the worlds could really be out of balance. How could that happen? How could that be allowed to happen? And all over a little nothing like one person being where he’s not supposed to be.” She looked at him. “Bringing living beings over from the other world is forbidden. Everyone knows that. But there’s nothing written about it causing the worlds to tear.”
“Maybe they aren’t tearing. Maybe it’s just a cold front or something.” From here, the lake’s blurred images of the other world were indistinguishable aside from the wash of colors. “Maybe Harrison Garnett knows something about it.”
“He’s still in contact with you?”
“He got shot by Mactalde’s men just before I crossed over. But he was still alive. Maybe tonight, when I wake up, I can find a way to talk to him if I can get out of the house.”
She frowned. “You can’t leave your house?”
“Mactalde’s got some thug after me.”
Realization dawned in her face. “He wants to kill you. If you don’t live in both worlds, you’re not a Gifted anymore. You’re just a man.”
He shrugged. “That’s what I feel like most of the time anyway.”
She turned away. “I’ll have Parry bring down some decent food. Then we’ll get back to it.” She stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Master Redston.”
He faced her. “Yeah?”
“Stay alive—in both worlds.”