She smirked, pulling back the slit of her dress to reveal several daggers strapped around her thighs. “I’ll be more than prepared.”
“Why do you always conceal your weapons? Is it because you’re not a soldier?”
Adelaide bowed her head. “That, and only a few know of my abilities. I can hold my own if it comes to it.”
“Why hide? Don’t you want everyone to know you’re a badass?” Amaris countered. “Why can’t you be like Gris or Sephardi?”
“Class and societal rules,” she seethed.
Amaris expected words like that to be followed with a pompous tone, but her voice was monotone and trailed with a sigh as if she regretted her birth.
“Doesn’t that give you more freedom?”
“The opposite, actually,” she huffed, her green eyes reflecting an onyx hue. “The duke disapproves of my training. He forbids me from joining his army and refused to allow me to train with Bennet as a child.”
The truth enraged Amaris, if that was even more possible. How could such an asshole have been related to Adelaide and Theodoric? Adelaide rolled her shoulders back, scooping the curls of Amaris’s hair into a bun.
“Then how did you learn to fight?”
“Theo.” The soft smile on Adelaide’s face beamed as she appeared to mull through the memories. “When I was young, I would chase after him and Luther with sticks, wanting desperately to join them in battles. Luther told the duke, and that was when he formally forbid my training.”
As she hung her head, a grim shadow passed over her. With her fighting spirit, it weighed heavily to be born into a family like hers.
“Why does he forbid it?”
“My mother,” she said. “I think it’s because I look like her, but Theo is different. He felt apologetic for how Luther and the duke treated me. When I was eight, he finished a grueling training session and spotted me watching from the kitchen. That night, he came into my room and pulled me from my bed. He brought a couple swords and took me out to the beach. With only a few candles to give us light, he taught me how to hold a sword.”
She pulled out several pins and flowers, arranging them around the bun atop Amaris’s head like a crown. “He gifted me his first one. It was large for my small hands, but I’ve grown into it. I keep it hidden because I know the duke will take it from me the moment he sees me with a weapon. Every night, I slip out to the beach to train where no one can hear me.When Theo can’t join me, I practice the movements he taught, ingraining them into my mind. When he went off to war, he entrusted Alan to continue my training.”
“That’s why you’re on the beach so much.” Amaris recalled her first night and the arms that had wrapped around her and choked her out. “The night when I escaped…was that you?”
“Which time?” She grinned, but the smile didn’t meet her eyes. “I’m sorry for knocking you out that first night. I was terrified my secret would get out, and as for the other night… I would’ve let you steal every horse in the stable to keep it. Only Alan and Theo know.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
Adelaide gave her a wry smile. “It’s mine and Theo’s secret…going to the beach. I fear what the duke might do to him if he ever found out, especially after what happened. I never thought he’d sentence his own son to a punishment of that severity.”
“What happens when Theodoric becomes the next chief?” If he’d trained her, maybe he’d allow her to fight one day.
“When Theo assumes the title of chief, it’ll be under Luther’s rule. He could very well allow it or hold to the duke’s wishes. Luther is more like the duke than Theo or me. I’m not holding my breath.”
Slumping, she gripped the handle of the brush. She pulled a few shorter strands along Amaris’s face, and their curls bounced against her cheeks. She hadn’t seen curls like that since she’d been a kid. She’d missed how the salty air caused her waves to turn to spirals.
A single tear rolled from Adelaide’s cheek. She let it hang on the edge of her face. “When I was younger, I tried to fight this.” She gestured to herself, her knives discarded across the room. “But I couldn’t.” She gripped her elbows and retreated to her disheveled bed. “I want to fight alongside everyone else.”
“A real woman will fight for her true self without caring what others think.”
Pressing the wrinkles from her dress, Adelaide wiped the tears from her cheeks, not even allowing them to ruin her makeup. “I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever be able to have the life I want. Each day passes, and I’m still training in hiding. I cannot wander the manor all day and train at night forever.” She adjusted the holsters around her thigh. “With Luther’s engagement, I fear I may be next. Theo doesn’t have to marry or produce heirs or anything. Well, neither do I, but I don’t have many options as a lady of Luana. I can either become a soldier or marry another pathetic noble. As the prior is not on the table, what else am I going to do with my life?”
“Fuck tradition,” Amaris blurted out. “Or run away.”
Adelaide’s look of complete disbelief was almost hilarious. Amaris didn’t know it was possible to render her speechless.
“If you want to be a soldier, go make a name for yourself somewhere else. Who says you have to stay here all your life? If you want your parents to arrange a marriage for you, then stay. But honestly, you should marry someone you love and trust, not some stranger off the streets.”
She pictured Adelaide in full military camouflage. Her soul yearned for a life far from her own. Amaris had no doubt in her mind if Adelaide could truly wield one of those large swords that she could easily become a soldier wherever she went. She didn’t deserve to be sheltered.
Amaris considered sharing the truth of who she was and where she came from, but she swallowed it. “What if you came with me?”
