A regrettably good teacher, Izabel called him. And she was right.
Tomison is straightforward and clear. He’s patient. And best of all, he isn’t overly mushy. He doesn’t shower me in praise when I do something easy correctly. When his eyes flash withapproval, I know it’s because I earned it. When I stumble over footwork or miss a parry, he just resets and says, “Again.”
We practice several forms. Stances meant to ease mounted combat. Tomison positions my body for me, exercising a clinical touch to reposition my limbs into shapes they’ve never needed to take until now.
“This will all be different on a wolf,” he tells me with an easy smile.
“It’s fucking awkward right now,” I grunt. My arm is raised almost up to my shoulder, the blade arced forward. Apparently, I’ve been holding it too low. Unready, he called it.
“Well, you’ve been making things more difficult for yourself,” he tells me as he steps away. His eyes assess my posture. I can tell he’s testing how long I’m capable of holding it. “Like this, training should be a little easier for you.”
I grunt. There’s sweat on my brow. “Easy. Yeah. This is the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” I say, purposely adding some strain to my voice.
Izabel snickers from the wall, and I hear the distinct sound of Venna whapping her arm. Tomison glances their way. His gaze catches, then flicks back to me.
“Okay. Parry practice,” he says, tapping his blade to the ground.
He swings at me. And keeps swinging. And I’m focusing on my feet. On my arms. On moving my body in ways I’ve never told it to move before. Muscles I don’t normally use are cramping and knotting. Sweat soaks my back and beneath my breasts.
When I manage a pretty perfect parry, Tomison lets out a whoop.
Venna claps. Izabel lets out a long, appreciative whistle. Then quickly adds, “That wasn’t for you, Tomison!”
“Sure, it wasn’t!” he calls back.
But when I glance her way, Izabel is smiling, and her eyes are definitely not on me.
Unfortunately, that mild distraction earns me a vicious smack to my left arm.
I jolt and grimace, rubbing the spot. “Easy, prick.”
“Prick? I’m saving your ass,” he protests.
“Don’t talk about my ass,” I grumble, earning a crackle of laughter before we launch back into it.
At the end of the sparring session, Tomison doesn’t hold back. He gives me a list of the muscles I need to strengthen, my apparent weaknesses having become clear to him throughout our practice.
“Side abdominals, too,” he says, patting his side. “But most importantly, thighs and glutes. It doesn’t matter how well you can hold your sword if you’re going to be thrown off of your wolf three seconds into the fight.”
Izabel joins in, then, to offer up her own training regimen in combination with Tomison’s. Venna joins in, demonstrating a few exercises for me. Things like certain stretches that will make sitting on Anassa’s back easier or working out my hands to increase my grip strength and decrease the likelihood of a fall. She even agrees to teach me some sign language.
It’s clear that I need to be strength training every day, if I’m going to stand a chance here. Hours of my life are going to be swallowed up by weights and stretches and buckets of sweat. But it suddenly doesn’t seem impossible.
It seems like a path I can follow, with clear steps and a destination.
And I’m not walking alone. Sparring in the training yard, stretching in the morning, complaining about soreness and bruises with the others… I can picture it already, and something deep in my gut is suddenly heavier in a not altogether unpleasant way.
I look around at the three of them, stare into our inevitably shared future, and I wonder. I watch them smile and laugh, and I wonder. I know in my tired bones and sore muscles that they’ve helped me today, maybesaved my ass, and I wonder.
Is Killian’s warning fair? Is it possible that people like this might actually stab me in the back?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Time passes strangely. It somehow manages to fly by while also grinding along slowly, kneading salt into my wounded soul as it goes. Everything’s a blur of sitting through boring classes and trying to stay awake, desperately clinging to life in training sessions, and trying not to think about Killian.
In the moments between, I’m training on my own. Izabel and Venna have not stopped trying to get me to join their nightly activities, but I’ve been too busy with the strength routine Tomison gave me. When I’ve improved my ability with the sword, I also ask for help with a bow and arrow.
Stark hasn’t lashed out at me again in the same deeply humiliating way, which I’ve taken to mean that I’m actually improving. He also hasn’t repaid me for the spit in the face, so I continue to keep my guard up around him.
