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Rodrick reached for her wrist and stopped an inch from her skin. There it was again, that awareness that appeared whenever his hands came too close to her. Entirely inconvenient now that he knew the taste of her mouth and had developed several theories concerning the open neck of that shirt.

He clasped both hands behind his back. "Turn the wrist. Let the edge lead. Strike with the flat, and all you accomplish is offending an armed man."

"That sounds unwise."

"Excellent. Your military education advances at terrifying speed."

Her mouth twitched. Rodrick moved around her, inspecting the stance instead. One foot forward. Weight balanced. Knees loose. Good. Too good. She learned everything quickly, which would have pleased him considerably more if the lesson had been dancing.

"When riders pass, you get one cut. Do not wait for inspiration."

He drew his own saber. Steel had a way of preserving things flesh preferred to forget—leather darkened by sweat, horses under him, men shouting through powder smoke.

He demonstrated the stroke, shoulder to opposite side. "Through the target, Lou. Never at it."

The blade hissed through the air. Louise copied the movement. The second stroke would have opened a man from shoulder to ribs.

Louise lifted the saber again. She ought to understand what those movements meant. This wasn't the Salamander striking painted enemies beneath theatrical flames.

The muscles beneath Rodrick's ribs locked hard enough to steal his breath. He tried to drive the images back, but they came at him like cavalry through a broken line—Louise beneath a horse, Louise under a saber, Louise lying still in some field while the battle moved on without noticing.

"Rodrick?"

"Take position," he said through gritted teeth.

She raised the blade and found her stance. "You are quiet today. What happened to Rodrick the singer who—"

"Silence. You will learn. That is enough."

The cut came from his right shoulder in a clean diagonal line. She brought the saber up just in time. The parry was rough. The steel rang on contact, the vibration traveling up her arm. She disengaged quickly.

"Napoleon will win this," she said mulishly. "He always does."

He circled to her left, forcing her to turn with him. "Stick to ballet and horse tricks, Louise. You know nothing about war."

He attacked from the opposite side. She met it again, though the force knocked her off line. She recovered. Reset. Kept her chin up.

That chin. That absolute, immovable, magnificent, idiotic chin.

She had maps and letters and a girl's faith assembled from secondhand accounts, and she was going to ride north into the teeth of it with that chin at that angle, and she was going to—

"If you are so convinced Napoleon will lose," she said, panting, "why are you here? Why didn't you go with Hélène?"

The coal behind his sternum became a furnace.

"If you think for one second that I have a choice—"

He attacked. The combination came fast. Right shoulder diagonal, reverse, horizontal sweep.

You want war. Here is what war is.

She blocked the first cut. Caught the second. The force drove her back, but instead of yielding ground, she stepped inside his reach and brought her blade up to answer. Rodrick was already committed to the third cut. He turned his wrist too late. The edge caught her high on the arm.

He stepped back as blood tinted her sleeve.

His ears rang. He opened his hand. The saber hit the dirt.

That I can do. With my life.