She only looked more confused. “I’m not a guard. I don’t fight.”
After the war, they’d stopped calling them soldiers. Each realm hadguardswho were meant for defense of its citizens. They enforced the peace and protected against criminals or exiles.
In those earliest years, each realm had been restricted on how many guards they could have, but the peace accords had let the realms slowly build up their force as it became clear that they could cooperate and work together. Guards transferring between the realms was encouraged as another way to make it feel as though they all worked together.
But the High King’s guard had jurisdiction everywhere.
So, really, they were still soldiers, but dressed up more nicely, like that could help them keep the peace. He couldn’t blame Larexa for not being interested.
“So I gathered from the fact that you never train with the guards,” Tor said easily. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know how to defend yourself.”
The music had drifted into something altogether more serious and somber-sounding, Tor realized.
“I don’t want to fight,” she repeated, a mulish expression on her face now.
“I can respect that,” Tor said, wondering suddenly if her father had tried to convince her to become the next great warrior, an Extraordinary guard in an army that didn’t have one. “I’m not asking you to fight. I’m trying to check to see if you could defend yourself if you were attacked.”
Larexa looked a bit alarmed now. “Why would I be attacked?”
“For the same reason that anybody is. Because you’re in the way, you have something that someone wants, or you’re a way to get to something that someone wants.”
She looked like she wanted to protest but couldn’t quite figure out how to do so.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she repeated after a moment. “And look at me.” One hand left the keyboard briefly, back almost before Tor had had time to process that she’d gestured the length of her body.
He gave his most polite leer. “And very lovely you are, too.”
She cast him an exasperated look. “I’m about half your size.”
“You’re… a little more delicate than me,” Tor agreed. “Perfect for someone who wants to wrap themselves around you, I imagine.” She made a face, making him smile. “Or not. I’m just saying that’s harder to do when someone is larger than you are. You run out of arm span.”
Larexa rolled her eyes. “I’ll take your word for it. But how am I going to defend myself when I’m half the size of the people attacking me?”
“Through your magic, of course,” Tor said simply. “If you don’t want to do anything physical, you don’t have to. If you’re magically stronger than your opponent, you can overcome them. You know how few Extraordinary there are.”
It was estimated that Extraordinary made up less than a fraction of a percent of the population. Illustrious were under three percent, and the vast majority of people were Unremarkable. It was all carefully registered when people were Presented to their ruler after they Manifested.
“Do you really think someone would attack me?” Larexa was frowning.
Tor shrugged. “I’d sleep better at night if I knew that in the unlikely event someone did, you could defend yourself.”
She eyed him speculatively. “You want music lessons?”
“No,” he responded immediately.
She raised an eyebrow sharply. “But it would be good for you. It would increase the dexterity of your fingers and your mind—and it would mean that you didn’t have tofake it the next time some poor person asks you to turn the pages for them while they’re playing the piano.”
And all Tor could do was laugh. “You drive a hard bargain. Very well; I accept your terms. If you’ll try to learn defense, I’ll try to learn music.”
He didn’t want music lessons even a little, but it would be worth it to know that Larexa was safer.
Varex really had been the more obedient twin. Not only had he taken his music lessons as a child, he’d allowed Tor to bribe him so that he took Tor’s for a while, too, until their mother figured it out and finally agreed that he was unteachable.
He’d have to see whether he or Larexa was more stubborn.
“Just, uh, give me a few days to figure out where things stand with your brother, and then we can start lessons, all right?”
“Good luck,” she told him. “Pel’s very stubborn.”
