“You shouldn’t touch people without permission. Evenyouaren’t allowed to touch me without asking.”
Kassia’s father, Leon, taught both of us this rule years ago. And he taught us to throw a punch, making us hit a soft bag over and over.
But hitting a person is different. My knuckles sting, and I hate seeing the swelling along Ti’s cheekbone. He’s going to bruise.
I did that.
I bite my lower lip. “I’m—”
“You want to leave? Go.” He glowers, thrusting the button at me. But I don’t take it.
Instead, I turn and run away.
He’s not at the tree the next day.
Or the next.
Or the next after that.
“YOU WANT MEto do what?” I ask the next morning as Leon gestures at the rope swinging in front of me.
“Climb it.”
Our presence at the ropes has already drawn too much interest. Maeva gives me an encouraging look, while Baldric’s eyes glitter with malice.
My prediction was correct, and my muscles are so stiff today I can barely raise my arms. My jaw aches, and I force myself to unclench my teeth. “Why?”
“Training.”
The hall is even busier than yesterday. Already, I’d give almost anything to be able to train outside. To go for a run and feel the wind in my hair. To practice swordwork with the sun on my skin.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask quietly.
While Leon’s expectations were always high, he was also always fair. He had an intuitive sense of which of my muscles needed rest, and which muscles he could push a little further each day. He’d make allowances for the ache in those muscles after a rough training session.
He rakes me with a disparaging look. “You want me to go easy on you?”
“Of course not.”
Silence.
My back and shoulder muscles are so stiff, even walking is painful.
Maybe asking Leon to come with me was a mistake. Maybe …
And that’s the problem. Ididn’task. I manipulated him into this.
Leon has never gone out of his way to make me hurt before. But things are different now. And if this is what he needs …
I study him. Tension lines his face, and he leans forward on the balls of his feet. He’s waiting for me to say I won’t climb. Or to fail. Either option would give him an excuse to walk away. So he can tell himself he tried, but I was untrainable.
He wants out.
Striding toward the ropes, I look up. And up. Once, I could climb these as quick as a monkey. Kassia and I would race up them. Most of the time, she would win. She had more upper body strength than I did. But every now and then I’d beat her to the top, and she’d pout while I crowed victoriously.
Both of us were fiercely competitive.
“Go on,” Leon says behind me.
