That did seem to be one glaring problem.
“How will I possibly learn anything of use in two days?”
Hedda smirked at her.Wily.“I’ve already aired my grievances with our king. He should’ve asked you from the start whether you had any capabilities in battle. Without them, you’re nothing more than a pretty liability.”
“How could you air grievances you didn’t know to have?” Lunara threw her hands up. “You had no idea whether I could fight or not.”
Hedda squared her body to Lunara’s and dropped into a ready stance. “Exhale forcefully and tighten your core.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to hit you.”
“You’re what!” she shrieked.
Hedda’s mumbled, “Good enough,” was the only warning before she slammed her fist into Lunara’s stomach.
The one that pummeled into her jaw next was just insult to injury.
Lunara’s feet left the ground as the force of it sent her backwards, the breath exploding from her lungs as she hit the needle-laden dirt.
Bleeding fucking moons! She’s insane!
She tried to suck air in, but her spasming body refused it. Not until she coughed enough to make her throat bleed. Her wheezing gasp only served to highlight the pits of agony that had opened up in her abdomen, her face.
Hedda straddled her writhing form and bent over her. “People who know how to fight don’t walk with fear in every footstep.” She gripped both of Lunara’s forearms and yanked her upright. “They don’t announce their ineptitude with scrunched shoulders and wide-eyed looks of awe when someone else is doing it.” Her hands were surprisingly gentle as they brushed Lunara down and steadied her. “They don’t miss someone walking up behind them, or slam their faces into tree trunks because they were startled. And they definitely don’t let someone get a second hit in, even when theyaresurprised by the first attack.”
She has a point.
Oh, sure. Now she agreed with herself.
Apparently convinced that Lunara would not, in fact, be collapsing straight back down to the earth, Hedda released her. “We leave in a week. Caius already sent word to Glynmor that we’d be delayed, as of this morning.”
It was too soon for speaking. She might never be able to form words again.
All she could do was blink uselessly at Hedda, her arms curling around herself, convinced her guts would be spilling out any minute.
“And now,” Hedda said with a pat to her back, “you’ll be less scared when we get started this evening. If you already know to your bones what it feels like to be punched in two of the worst places, that it isn’t so bad in the end, then you won’t concentrate so hard on avoiding it. That only leads to other mistakes while you’re learning.”
She walked away backwards. “Meet me here just after sundown. The others will be feasting down in the city, so there’ll be no one around to see me kick your arse.”
With a wink, Hedda spun and rejoined the fray on the practice field.
This is a mistake, halfwit. A gigantic, arse-brained mistake.
And yet, as air began to fill her lungs more smoothly and the pain dissipated—pain that wasn’t really all that different from what she endured repeatedly through her power—Lunara couldn’t bring herself to believe that.
How could it be a mistake when she was grinning from ear-to-ear?
Lunara still hadthe overwhelming urge to sneak. To jump from shadow to shadow to make sure no one saw her heading for the practice field.
She’d spent the rest of the day in her room. Pacing. Eating. Not eating. Trying to decide what in the shite one was meant to wear while learning the art of hand-to-hand combat. Arguing with herself over the wisdom of her recent choices.
Or lack thereof.
The fading pinks and fathomless purples of the gloaming were battling with the light of the twin moons. Their celestial bodies had just cleared the peaks of the Sacred Sisters—a natural wonder she’d never once thought to actually see with her own eyes—as if to bless her presence here.
Lunara cast a glance around, checking that there was no one nearby, and opened herself up to them.
