The staging of our triangular formation was intentional to ensure that even pairings were made during training as well as protecting the least skilled behind a wave of their more formidable peers during real battle.
The cohort spread out across the training field, loosely maintaining the formation while creating space for true sparring.
Clashing steel rang through the yard in a cacophony of strikes and parries. Birds took flight, frightened by the disruption, wings beating against the cold morning air as they leapt from nearby trees.
My breath fogged in front of me as I assessed my opponent. Sharp eyes appraised his every movement. The tick in the small muscle at his wrist. The slightest shift of his heel in the dirt.
There was nothing quite like the sound of one sword crashing against another. Where I had once found it jarring, I now reveled in it, and I attacked with greater fervor. Each strike was carefully placed, a flick of the wrist enough to slice through fabric and catchon armor. Sweat steamed off our bodies as we clashed again and again.
“Shall we call it a draw?” He panted, arms shaking under the strength of my last swing.
“No.” I lunged, relentless.
“Come on, Corso, they’re only morning exercises. No need to take it so far.” He jumped back as my blade drew blood, the exposed length of his unarmored arm cut from elbow to wrist.
“Damn it!” He pressed his gloved hand to the wound, catching the blood as it welled. I approached again, and he snapped, “Are you fucking serious? It’s done.”
“I prefer not to talk during training bouts,” I responded clinically.
“And I prefer not to bleed out first thing in the morning. We don’t always get what we want.” The Guardian swung for me, his strength renewed by the anger I had stoked within him.
Both of us fought proficiently, but my stamina won out in the end. As we circled each other, my opponent breathed heavily. His face twisted in pain and exhaustion.
I let the tip of my sword drop, careful not to let my satisfaction shine through.
Lulled into a false sense of security, and overly eager to end it, he lunged for me. His movements were sloppy, muscles slack with fatigue. I ducked to the side, slamming my heel into his knee with a decisive downward motion.
The Guardian sprawled to the ground with a pained outcry, face sliding through the coarse grass. I sheathed my sword and outstretched my hand. He sneered up at me, gaining his feet and knocking my hand away. “Do not touchme, Corso.”
“It is an honorable thing to assist one’s partner between rounds of sparring,” I murmured, voice steady and without inflection. Like I was reading from the Guardian’s code of honor. Like I held no actual stake in the relationships on this field, because I didn’t.
“Fuck!” He spat. His words were laced with nightshade. “You think you’re so much better than the rest of us. You have strength in your swordsmanship and in your drills, but in nothing else. Not a single Guardian here can stand your presence.”
“Jealousy is unbecoming. My proficiencies as a Guardian are not the cause of your faults.” My voice grew steely. Anger threatened to rise in me, and I struggled to maintain my professional facade.
He raked a hand through his damp hair. “You care about no one but yourself.”
The Guardian stormed away, abandoning the training grounds altogether.
If I do not allow myself to care, I can never be hurt again, I thought. It was the same thing I told myself every time I came close to caring. I reminded myself that to trust was to be betrayed. It would always end the same.
As the hurt bubbled in my chest, I forced it back down again. I could almost pretend that I truly did not care. I could almost believe that it did not hurt to end another day alone.
Chapter eight
Harkin
The Ordelésan Palace was a looming threat of a fortress rising imposingly on the brightening skyline. Great stone turrets stabbed at the purple-pink clouds of dawn. Drakány and Gryffem lurched over barren trellises, cruelly twisted stone faces leering in perfectly carved spite. A wall wrapped inanely around the palace, too short to maintain any real defense.
The human king was proud of his home—boastful and overcompensating. The human king was weak. He refused to take any real actions to protect his people from Rázuri, and the Guardians were clearly expendable in his eyes. Surely, he would not notice when Seren Corso disappeared.
Equinox’s steady gait carried me ever closer to the lengthening walls.
Ornate crenellations rose and fell in waves along the highest stone peaks, but no Guardians appeared at their stations. The King’s Palace was gloriously unarmed.
King Tarquin of Acsilla maintained a consistent string of attacks on the human kingdom but had no motivation for true war. He had no stomach for it, truly.
The Rázuri King was perfectly content to sit upon his throne and be waited upon while his people struggled. As long as he did not seethe suffering, the king could convince himself that all was right in the world. He did not even realize that, had he wished it, Ordelés would have fallen years ago.
