He turned his sword over in his hand, heart pounding as she glowered up at him, mud caked in her hair.
Dorian couldn't help himself.
"Here, I thought cats always landed on their feet."
Her spear whacked his knee. Leg buckling, he cursed the sky as the pain ricocheted through him. Her legs wrapped his foot, and before he realized what was happening, she had whipped him sideways. Dorian crashed into the mud on his side. Her shield hit his chest, and he fell on his back again.
Dorian groaned into the mud, coughing as he tried to regain his breath from the shield hitting him.
"Did you get that out of your system?" she asked.
Dorian coughed and pushed on her thigh. "Yes," he croaked.
She shoved off him and reached out. Dorian grunted as he took her hand, and she pulled him to a seated position.
"Two laps around the stadium, little King," she instructed.
"You just kicked my ass, and you want me to run?" he asked.
An expectant brow arched on her face, and he sighed.
But being bossed around by women was his favorite thing. And he rose to his feet with a smile that made her eyes narrow.
"Complaining, and now you're smiling," she mocked. "Something you'd like to tell me?"
Dorian threw the wooden swords on the ground and grinned at her. "Familiar territory is all." He started backward. "Just the two?" he asked.
"Keep questioning me, and you'll be running benches."
Dorian grinned at the sky, his pace picking up, and he watched as a raven circled overhead. "You'd have enjoyed this," he uttered to it.
With the exhilaration of seeing the familiar bird moving through his bones, Dorian ran. Katla shouted at him to pick up or slow down. On the second lap around, she went to the rock launcher in the middle, and she started slingshotting small rocks in his direction. It looked almost like a crossbow, and she wielded it like one. He dodged most. One hit his arm, and he practically fell into the wall, slumping to his knees and holding his arm. But a laugh emitted from his lips, and he pushed himself to his feet again.
"Is something amusing about your getting hit?" she shouted. "That could have been an arrow. You'd be dead."
Dorian didn't reply. He saw Corbin making his way into the stadium then, and Corbin paused beside Katla.
"Belwark, tell me why he's smiling at being hit with rocks?" she asked.
Corbin chuckled and wrapped his arms around his chest. "Probably reminds him of home."
Katla glanced sideways at the Belwark just as she shot another rock towards the Prince.
"You get used to it," Corbin said fondly.
Dorian finished his laps and came back around to Katla. Corbin excused himself after shaking his head at him and told him he would bring back breakfast. As he left, Katla nodded towards the wagon and told Dorian to try it again. She propped herself up inside it as he started pushing.
"I am glad to see you've had no more incidents," she said as she settled onto the weighted crates.
Dorian gave the wagon a push and cursed his injured side. "What do you mean?"
"I mean my finding you in the snow two weeks ago."
Dorian stopped moving. "That was you?"
"You certainly were out of it, weren't you?" she mocked.
He started pushing again. The memory, or lack thereof, that night raced through his mind. How he'd not been able to rise from the bed that next day and Corbin had had to force him to eat.
