I shouldn’t have been fantasizing about her. She was my instructor, a teacher. Yet, we were both adults. There should be a reasonable way to enjoy a social relationship outside of our contractual one. I just had no idea how that worked. It was not something which had come up in any of my studies. And Tisera specifically was vastly different from any woman I’d ever known. I had no clue how to even approach her.
Almost all of my interactions with women — before now — had been carefully arranged by my mother. They had been restrained and courtly, two words which did not describe Tisera.
Luckily, I had been married for two years and had learned a lot about women in that time. It had been our duty to have an heir. Yet it had not been easy for Theodora to conceive, which meant… we had trieda lot. Still, as much as I’d learned to help her enjoy the act, our coupling had often been a bit perfunctory and mandated, which cast a shadow over it. Something told me sex with Tisera would be anything but perfunctory.
I stood there, staring at where she had been for a long time before shaking myself out of my reverie and making my way back to the yard on the other side of the house. I’d brought a change of clothes, expecting to get sweaty and dirty in the heat of the summer’s day. But first, I’d need a bit of a bath myself. When I found the well, I saw another man sitting nearby, on a bench in the shade of several trees.
“Are you Daz?” I asked. “Tisera’s brother?” She’d mentioned her brother in passing a few times.
The man nodded. “Adoptedbrother, yes. And you’re her new student?”
“Yes, Leo. A pleasure to meet you.”
“And you.” He gave a breath of a laugh. “It looks like she ran you ragged. Need some water?”
“That would be amazing, yes, thank you.”
“The well’s right there, you can draw it yourself,” the man said with a wink.
I laughed. I was a little too used to people doing things for me. None of that happened here, and it was quite refreshing.
I pulled up a bucket of water and dumped it over my head, dousing myself. After a second one of those, I turned back to the man. “Where might I change?”
“Up in the cottage is probably best. A man like you wouldn’t use a barn, would you?”
“I would prefer not to.”
“Yeah, the cottage should be fine.”
I nodded to him and made my way back up the path beside the garden toward the small house. Oddly, the man rose and followed me.
“Not that you made a bad choice, but what made you choose Dizzy as your instructor?” he asked.
“Dizzy?” I asked back.
“Oh, right, Tisera, sorry. Most of those who know her call her Tisi. I modified that a bit. She is dizzying when she fights, isn’t she?”
“She is indeed. It is a very apt name for her. As for why I chose her…” I hesitated to tell the truth — that no one else would teach me — and instead went for something more tactful yet still true, even if I hadn’t known it at the time.
“The male instructors I’ve known tend to think everyone is the same. They were taught one way and so they teach others the same way. And if you’re not built like them… you don’t do well. Miss Tisera, however, is very insightful and teaches me in a way which is best for me. She can see my strengths in addition to mymanyweaknesses and helps me build on the former while working on the latter. She’s quite brilliant, and very skilled at her trade.”
“That is all true,” Daz said, just a bit wistfully.
He waited outside the cottage, leaning against the outer wall, while I changed. When I came out, before I left, I turned back to him.
“Thank you for your hospitality.” Then my curiosity got the better of me. “You’re Dazar Stormhold, the Phorasti who ended the Siege of Vestrea, aren’t you?”
I’d known he was a Phorasti when I’d first seen him, since he’d been in full robes. Yet his hood had covered his face so I hadn’t seen his darker, soft-brown complexion, which was clearly Dathi. A few Pearlians had learned the ways of the Phorasti, and when Tisera had said he was her brother, I’d assumed “Daz” was one such mystic. It hadn’t been until I’d seen his features and heard he was adopted that it had sunk in for me.
And as much as there were a few other Phorasti in Pearlia, Dazar was the only one of any real power. Atruehero of legend!
Dazar grimaced. “That’s not what I want to be known for, but yes.”
I shood my head. “I can’t believeyou’reTisera’s brother. What a family!”
Dazar gave a wry smile. “Adoptedbrother,” he said, emphasizing that word once again. “Dizzy’s father took me in after the war… The Dath-Riven War that is.”
I nodded. “A kind man, was he?”
