Step. Pivot. Strike.
The tension bled out of me with each motion, replaced by the familiar burn in my muscles and the grounding pull of my own breath.
Block. Turn. Kick.
I moved through the forms again and again, until the thoughts circling my head slowed enough for the room to come back into focus. The pale stone walls. The bed tucked beneath the window. The wardrobe still holding all the clothes I suspected Trew had given me.
By the time I stopped, my pulse had steadied, and while the emptiness remained, it had quieted enough I could think.
I drifted around the room, lifting one object after another, things left behind by prior warriors. A small jewelry box empty except for a solitary red-stone earring. They’d probably lost the other and left this one behind.
A watercolor painting hanging to the left of the wardrobe, a rather good impression of the castle. Three polished stones rested on the top of the bookcase. And a pottery bowl that might’ve been used to hold trinkets.
I let my fingers trail across the books lined up on the top shelf. Most were on military strategy, dense, leather-bound tomes whose weight I could feel without even lifting them. Siege mechanics. Supply-line disruption. Counterspell grids.
But then I touched something that hadn’t been there when I looked before. A book with swirling patterns on the spine had been tucked between two thick volumes.
I pulled it free.
The deep green cover held a gold title nearly rubbed away.The Clever Maidens of Corvale & Other Scintillating Tales.
My chest tightened.
I’d told Trew about sneaking into the library back home to readstories about trickster heroines who outwitted kings, tragic endings that left my heart aching for days.
I shifted the book from one hand to the other, my pulse quickening, before flipping back the cover, where a line of fresh ink curved across the page.
For when you’re done stealing thrones and wish to borrow one instead.
I pressed my lips together, but my smile still came. He hadn’t signed it, but he didn’t need to.
I scrolled to the first chapter and found a scrawled note in the same handwriting.
The heroine in this one is far too reckless to be safe, and far too clever to be caught.
The second chapter had another note.
Tell me you wouldn’t have poisoned his wine in this one. I dare you.
By the third, I was laughing under my breath.
A tragic story. Try not to cry on the pages and mess up the ink. I’ll want this back.
He’d made a note on each chapter.
This one’s ending won’t gut you, promise.
You’d be a fool to fall for the supposed hero; he’s an idiot.
The lady in this scene reminds me of you. Tell me if I’m wrong.
I climbed onto my bed and leaned against the headboard, letting the book rest open in my lap.
It was getting very hard not to like Trew.
Lifting the book, I began to read.
The words blurred on the page long before I admitted I was too tired to keep reading. With a sigh, I set the book aside and padded into the bathing room.
