Page 103 of Beds and Blades

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My routine in Mytharo had settled into place somewhere near the end of my first month and had not required revision since.

Skip was gone before dawn.

He always kissed my forehead before he left. I was always approximately seventy percent asleep when he did it. Through the bond came his familiar morning warmth, present and certain and already occupied with eleven things that needed to be done before sunrise.

I slept another hour. This was my one remaining civilian habit, and I was not giving it up.

When I dressed for training, the clothes fit differently than they had four months ago. The trousers no longer sagged at the hips, and the tunic pulled more closely across my shoulders and arms. Varia’s drills had put muscle where there had mostly been stubbornness before. I was still small, but no longer slight in quite the same way. The outfit that had once made me look like a child borrowing a soldier’s clothes now looked as though it belonged to me.

After I dressed, I went to breakfast in the mess hall, usually with Flavia.

The rest of the soldiers had grown more comfortable around me. Months earlier, they had fallen silent whenever I entered the mess hall. By Kolveth, they spoke to me. Around me. As they did with each other. No adjustment. No carefulness.

In that context, it was the highest compliment available, and I had not missed it.

The food was still extraordinary: dense bread warm from the ovens, salted meat, thick pottage ladled from a communal pot, hard cheese, and the sharp bite of pickled vegetables. Every mouthful tasted vivid and unmistakably itself. Perhaps that was because the food had been made to be eaten, rather than preserved. It was simple, unaltered, and entirely unapologetic.

After breakfast: Varia.

Training every morning, regardless of weather. Rain, wind, cold, and now apparently snow.

The war room came at midday. Over four months, it had become one of the most engrossing parts of my day. Skip had given me a formal role that had gradually expanded from pattern recognition into strategic consultation, which was the most academically honest description of what I was doing. It resembled the analysis I had done in my doctoral program.

Except here, the room listened first. The men did not begin forming their objections while I was still speaking. They considered the idea on its own terms, and responded to what I had actually said rather than what they had expected me to say.

Cato had conceded three separate points in the last month.

I was also quietly proud that the signal system was working.

The system I had proposed months earlier had moved from theory into practice with a precision that was deeply satisfying. The villages behind the line each had its own signal configuration. Two fires for contact, three for a turning in progress, horn patterns for fog and darkness when visibility failed.

So far, none had gone beyond contact.

The garrison responded quickly. Forces deployed. Incursions were contained before they could escalate.

The watchtowers extended that advantage. Small bands attempting to slip through the gaps between outposts were spotted early and intercepted before they could reach the interior.

Taken together, the line was holding.

More than that, it was functioning as intended.

Morvanna’s strategy had been clear: bypass the outposts, establish footholds in the villages, and convert them into sites of expansion.

I had identified it early.

And, just as importantly, I had identified how to stop it.

The afternoons belonged to the fortress. I helped where help was needed. I worked in the infirmary when Caen required an extra pair of hands, in the stores when inventory needed attention, and on the walls when repairs were underway.

I was not a soldier. I was not pretending to be a soldier. But I was capable of identifying where work needed doing and doing it, which was, I had concluded, the only credential that actually mattered.

My life in Mytharo had more purpose than it ever had on Earth.

I had not previously understood how much of my energy on Earth had gone toward managing the gap between what I was capable of and what I was permitted to apply it to.

The gap was gone.