The ring of the training ground is a wide circle of packed earth with a weapons rack along the east side and a post at the centre that has taken considerable punishment over the years. Three younger guards are running the perimeter. Two more are paired off at the edge, working a hold-and-break sequence.
Kai and Falla stand near the weapons rack. Kai has his arms crossed and the look on his face that means he's been watching the footwork problem unfold for some time and has opinions he's choosing not to voice. Falla is holding a short staff and gesturing with it in the way that, for Falla, counts as animated.
"— it's not about where your weight starts, it's where itgoes.You can launch from anywhere if you commit."
Kai spots me coming across the ground and tips his chin.
Falla glances over, lowers the staff. "Did you drop off the supplies?"
"I did." I drop the empty crate against the fence post and stretch my neck left until it pops. "Also nearly took a river stone off the side of my head."
Falla blinks at me. Not a reaction of alarm — more the look of a man processing new information and already preparing his verdict. "Which one?"
"The sharp one."
Kai's brow goes up. Not the whole face — just the one brow, the left one, which is his economical way of asking the question without the effort of asking it.
"Aislin." I drop onto the fence rail. "She had a sling. She was already mid-throw before she recognized me — stopped herself, but —" I whistle low. "Arm speed. Decent weight on the stone. Could have made the day considerably less comfortable."
"And you're surprised by this." Falla says it flat. Not a question.
"I'm notsurprised.I'm —" I turn it over. "She hates me. Specifically. I've been going every morning for a week, I've beenpleasant,I've been keeping the crates light enough to look manageable and dropping the voice and not laughing too loud anywhere near the cabins, and she looks at me like I'm something that needs to be removed from the area."
Kai's mouth moves. Not a smile yet, but the shape of one being seriously considered.
"Don't," I tell him.
"I haven't said anything."
"You were going to say something about how I can't stand not having someone like me."
The almost-smile arrives fully. He's insufferable. He's been insufferable since Saela, which is its own complicated thing because on one hand Kaihappyis an objectively better situation than the alternative and on the other hand I now have to deal with his face doingthatwhenever I hand him something he can use. "I was. It's true."
"It's apractical problem." I gesture toward the general direction of the cabins. "She's going to throw a rock at somebody eventually. The stopping herself part might not always hold."
"So you want her to like you for safety reasons."
"I want her to not arm herself every time she sees me coming, which is —" I stop. Falla is giving me a look. Different look, the Falla look, which is less amused and more brick wall. "What?"
"Don't harass the poor girl."
"I'm not harassing anyone. I brought supplies."
"You are approximately four times her size and you keep turning up every morning and trying to make her smile at you."
"I'm not —" I push off the fence. "I smile ateveryone.It's a general thing, it's not specifically aimed at her —"
"She came out of Stonevein captivity." Falla says it without volume, which is how he says the things that are supposed toland squarely in the sternum. "Give her the time. Leave the crates and walk away."
I know that. I do know that. I've read the shape of it in every set of shoulders when I've come around the corner — the way they locate me in space before they let themselves breathe, the quick accounting of exits, the way a smile takes effort rather than being reflex. I know what I'm looking at. Ressa had been the same, in the early days before Falla dragged her out of that cabin — and even then she struggled for weeks — and I'd seen what patience had built there.
It's just — Aislin's watchfulness has a different quality to it. Lessfrozen rabbitand morehawk with a sprained wing:absolutely tracking everything, absolutely enraged about the sprain. She's not surviving the situation so much as she's grading it. All of us. Continuously.
It shouldn't interest me as much as it does.
I'm thinking about it — her shoulder mid-throw, the stop, the recognition — when Kerra vaults the training ground fence in my peripheral vision. She lands square, because Kerra always lands square, and she has the look she gets when she's been running the perimeter and found it insufficient.
"You three look like gossiping hens," she says, her eyes flicking to me. "You getting into trouble?" She doesn't seem particularly worried. Just checking, the way you check on a large animal that's been quiet for too long.
