By the time I finished explaining how it’d failed, the little furrow had appeared between his brows.
“How foolish can they be?” he demanded. “Trendell has only remained neutral in this war because my mother has allowed them to. If she takes Rhodaire, she’ll come for them next. They’re condemning themselves.”
“They don’t see it that way,” I replied. “They think we’ll lose even if we fight, so they should protect themselves as much as possible for as long as possible.”
Ericen snorted derisively. “Fools,” he said again. “They won’t have another chance like this.”
Something red flashed on the hill at his back. I barely had time to make out Elkona staring down at us, arms crossed and with the expression of a thundercloud, before she turned away.
My stomach swooped, but my fists curled tighter. Maybe I’d gone about this all wrong from the beginning. After all, what did Elkona really know about me besides what my mother had done?
There is a strength to you that lifts others up, and that’s what this world needs right now. Not another politician. You.
I’d walked into a room of people and tried to politick my way to an alliance, but I’d never been good at speakingatpeople. I needed to speaktothem.
One step at a time.
If I could befriend the Illucian prince, a boy born to be my enemy, then I could befriend Elkona too.
Twenty
Early the next morning, Res and I joined Kiva and Auma for breakfast on the pavilion, where they played a game with painted cards Auma had taught her back in Sordell.
“Have you seen Elkona?” I asked as Auma placed a card with a silver fox wreathed in thorny vines on the table.
Kiva scowled at the card, but Auma’s expression remained stoic as ever as she looked up at me. She’d make a fantastic dice player. “There’s a training ground down by the cells to the left. She’s there.”
As she spoke, Kiva played a card, to which Auma laid down another from her hand without even looking.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Kiva’s curses followed Res and me down the winding cobblestone path.
A distant, heavy thudding reached my ears. The repetitive cadence was familiar. It was the bite of steel into wood, the solid thud like a second heartbeat. I followed the sound down the curving path.
The thudding dulled as I approached, emanating from a plateau on the opposite side of the hill that mirrored the one Res and I had been working on. It was a small, personal training ground, with several posts for practicing sword fighting and hand-to-hand combat, a circle of packed dirt for sparring, and several targets set up for knife throwing, a favored skill of Trendellan soldiers.
Stripped to the waist save for a midriff-baring wrapped cloth, her hands wrapped to the elbows, stood Elkona Kura. Again and again, she struck one of the wooden posts, which had been padded with feathers and encased in cloth to soften the blows, though the princess didn’t seem to care a bit about the pain. She swung with incredible power, her muscles rippling beneath tawny skin that gleamed with sweat.
The long braid of her hair, woven with beads of glass that glinted in the sunlight, bounced against her back with each strike. With a cry of frustration, she spun about, driving her armored boot against one of the pegs on the post, snapping it in two.
She panted, her shoulders rising and falling in quick bursts. The signet jade ring she’d worn on her hand now dangled from a silver chain around her neck.
Slowly, she turned to face me. Her expression was sharp as cut glass.
“Spying, Princess?” she asked.
My first instinct was to snap back at her, but I forced it down. Looking at Elkona was like looking in a mirror. She was angry and hurt and damaged, and she wanted to set the world on fire. Hot words would only fuel the flames.
“That was pretty impressive.” I nodded at the broken training post. “You’re quite skilled.”
“I know.” There was no haughtiness in her tone, only hard fact. “That still does not explain why you have come here.”
“I heard a familiar sound.” My eyes sought the glint of metal at her feet. Lying sheathed at the base of the post were two moonblades, the handles bone white, the curved blades masked. She must have switched to hand-to-hand combat before I’d arrived.
Her gaze followed mine, and she smiled dangerously, as if imagining what she could make those blades do to me.
“Whatever you feel about me, whatever you feel about Rhodaire, standing against this alliance will only hurt you and your people,” I said softly.
Her hands curled into fists, her smile turning vicious. “How kind of you to tell me what is best for my people. If only your mother had had such concern for her allies. Perhaps then my family might yet live, and the Kovan Forest might still stand. Perhaps we might have even been friends, you and I.”
