“Excuse you? I’m twenty-five years old. I’m not a damn child so stop treating me like one,” I shot back.
He folded his arms and gave me an amused look. “Your handful of years mean nothing here. I’m seventy-seven, and do you know what I’ve done for most of those seventy-seven years? I’ve trained. It took me decades to master the art of combat, and I can assure you, three weeks will do nothing but give you enough confidence to get yourself killed.”
He was seventy-seven? Damn, he looked good. I kept forgetting how people didn’t really age here. He wasn’t wrong about my lack of combat ability, though I refused to give in and let him call the shots. I grabbed his hand before he could walk away again.
He stilled and pivoted slowly back to me, his entire body stiff.
“I’m pretty sure my father gave an order, so how about you get off your high horse and show me something useful. Anything useful. Even if it's just enough to defend myself for five minutes until one of you big strong males can swoop in and save me.” That last part was dripping with a level of sarcasm that he didn’t seem to appreciate given the deep furrow lines carved across his forehead.
He snatched his hand away from mine, then growled at me again in Rivellan.
I ran a hand across my face in frustration. “English! Fucking English! Is that so damned hard? Hell, you speak it even better than the others around here. Which I meant to ask you about. Why are they all stiff and formal and you aren’t?”
Something dangerous flashed in Sin’s eyes. “You want to know why my English is better than theirs? Because I spent years looking for you in the human realm. Cam and Ram went a handful of times, and Dey went exactly once before he found you. Before that it was me. For over twenty years, I was the sole person looking for you. So yeah, I picked up a bit more of your colorful language than they did. They only know the proper shit Corym studied before passing it along.”
He searched for me for twenty years? Was he actually just jealous that Dey found me first?
I really examined him then, his tense body, the fists clenched at his side, his teeth grinding together, his breath that came out in short bursts. He was seconds away from snapping, and I didn’t think I wanted to see what would happen when he did.
“Is that why you hate me?” I asked. “Because you failed to find me where Dey succeeded?” It was the only thing that sounded reasonable even if I thought his reaction was a bit over the top. Trying to find one human must have been like looking for a needle in a haystack.
“Maybe,” he replied, his voice low. “Maybe I do hate you for my wasted time. Maybe I hate you for being useless to me and my realm in your current condition. Maybe I hate you because you simply don’t belong here. And maybe I hate you because the fate of our world shouldn’t rest in the hands of a petulant child who doesn’t even speak our language. Take your pick.” Then he whipped around and stomped up the stairs.
“Will you at least tell me what Fea Remia means?” I shouted after him.
“Learn Rivellan if you want to know so bad. You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy,” he called back without even pausing, his long legs taking the stairs two at a time to leave me in the dust.
When I finally reached the top of the arena, I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to catch my breath before deciding to go in search of the twins. Maybe they would be more willing to help.
I found Cam and Ram back at their cottage, dressed in the burgundy sleeveless tunics of the royal guard. Theirs were a bit nicer though with gold stitching along the edges. I walked up to them just as Ram unsheathed a sword from his back and dropped it onto the porch. Cam followed suit with the belt of daggers around his waist.
“Hey guys,” I said pleasantly, having shaken off my earlier irritation. “Is this a bad time? Looks like you’re getting off shift or something.”
“Not at all, Princess,” Ram replied. I still felt bad about his burned off loc, but it did make my life easier. “We were actually in the process of getting ready to train some new soldiers when Sin came by and told us to find you instead.”
“Seriously?” I couldn’t imagine Sin doing anything remotely helpful for me. He’d made it clear he thought I shouldn't even be here let alone take part in studying or training.
“He came by a few moments ago,” Cam chimed in. “He said something along the lines of 'she is your problem now.' Then he left to go prepare for the upcoming King’s Council.”
Now that sounded more like Sin. “Fucking asshat,” I grumbled. “He handed me a sword that I could barely lift, then said I was basically useless to him and left.”
Cam and Ram exchanged a curious look.
“You honestly could not wield a sword?” Cam asked.
I groaned. “You don’t need to take his side. I get it, I’m weak. But come on, that thing weighed like twenty-five pounds and sorry, but I don’t have your muscles.”
Both twins stared at me for a second, then fell against each other laughing, their loud guffaws echoing through the trees.
I glowered at them, feeling like I was once again the butt of some unknown joke. “I don’t think it’s that funny.”
“Apologies, Princess. We were not laughing at you,” Ram insisted once he calmed down. “We were laughing because Sin gave you his personal sword, correct?” At my nod, he grinned knowingly. “His sword is made from a very special, very heavy, metal. He only handed it to you because he knew it would be too much for you to use. Any other sword would have weighed no more than five pounds.”
He plucked out a longsword from his pile of weapons and handed it to me. I took it tentatively, and my jaw dropped when I felt how much lighter it was.
“That son of a bitch!” I bellowed, my vision turning red with anger. “He did that on purpose so he wouldn’t have to train me.”
I gripped the sword tightly while fighting the urge to go find Sin so I could give him a piece of my mind. Or the pointy end of this sword. How dare he stand there and call me useless when he set me up to fail?
