by Amanda Fleet
“Your weight distribution is good for what you’re trying to do, but limiting. If your attack fails, you’ve no options for defence. Shift your balance back. Then, if I do this—” he moved and would have been able to pin me easily if I hadn’t changed position “—you have more options. You could kick, or you could use the flat of your forearm, or you could use your shoulder. Do you see?”
“Mm.”
“Good. Again.”
We spent much of the rest of the afternoon like this – me trying my best shot with him, him teaching me how to improve it – and my body ached as I forced previously under-used muscles to work hard.
Eventually, he seemed satisfied. “Good. Gloves off.”
My eyes widened, and I stared at him warily. His expression softened. “I won’t hurt you. It’s still a spoon.”
He flicked his fingers, inviting me to disarm him and I circled him slowly. To my delight, I landed several blows, one even eliciting an “oof” from him and we fought hard for many minutes, Faran occasionally calling instructions to remind me to correct my balance or open up my options. My attention slipped for a fraction of a second and, immediately, my back slammed against his chest. The spoon rested against my throat and his right arm pinned my arms to my sides. I expected him to release me so that we could start again but he held on.
“Get free,” he said.
I took stock, then let all my weight drop as if I’d fainted. His grip tightened sharply, but I pulled him off-balance.
“Aeron? Are you all right?”
I planted my feet and drove upwards as hard as I could, the top of my head cannoning into his mouth and nose and sending him backwards. I spun on the spot and kicked the backs of his knees, bringing him to the floor, snatched up the dropped spoon and moved behind him. I grabbed his hair, yanked his head back and swept the bowl of the spoon across the front of his neck.
“I’m fine. You’re dead.”
I let go, and he sat back on his heels, grinning widely. “Interesting. You didn’t learn that here.”
I blinked away memories of kick-boxing with Finn.
“Does it matter? Sure you don’t want to wear some protection?”
Still chuckling, he brought his hand up to his ballooning lip. “No one has bloodied me in training since you left.”
I held a hand out to him to help him up, feeling smug. He licked the blood off his lip. “Hm. I need salve.”
“Yeah, what is that magic cream?”
“Salve? It only works on Guardians. It helps us heal.”
“Just cuts and bruises?”
He retrieved a pot from one of the cupboards and applied it. “No. It comes in lots of versions – cuts, bruises, bone-setting.” He screwed his face up as his lip healed.
“You guys never think to put some anaesthetic in that stuff?” I said.
“What’s that?” He squinted at me, still gasping from the healing.
“Pain killer.”
He eyed me as if I was ragging him. “I’ll mention it to the healers. I’m sure they will have been deliberately omitting it so far. Okay. Again.”
By late afternoon, I was running on empty, but pleased that I was mostly holding my own against him. Then again, I knew he was pulling his punches, and I had plenty of padding on for any that landed with full weight.
Faran glanced up at the clock hanging high above the door. “First bell for dinner will ring soon. Let me help you with the protection.”
He helped me out of the padded vest and I took off the head-guard. I poked my nose into my top. “Hm. I need to shower again before eating.”
He laughed. “Yes. You do!”
***
Dinner was almost identical to lunch. Faran led me over to a corner, away from the hard stares and mutters from the rest of the Guardians. We stood next to a sanded wooden table with benches for four people around it. I went to sit on his left, but Faran motioned for me to sit opposite, instead.
“Otherwise we’ll clash elbows all meal,” he said.
I frowned.
“I’m left-handed,” he said, as if I was an idiot.
Right enough, the punch had definitely come from his left.
We sat, leaving the two spaces closer to the wall free. I hoped his father wasn’t going to join us again.
Faran tapped his fingers against his thumb, his eyes watchful. We waited for one of the serving staff to arrive. It wasn’t long before a girl came over and put two plates in front of us along with two cups of water and a basket of bread. I peered at the blobs of meat in gravy and prodded at them with my fork, none the wiser.
“Lamb,” said Faran, tucking in with gusto.
“Does everyone eat meat here?” I picked at the food, not a fan of lamb.
He frowned. “Why would people not eat meat?”
“If they thought it was cruel or something.”
Still incomprehension. “The animals live in fields and are killed quickly. What’s cruel?”
“What if people didn’t like the taste?” I pursued.
“Then they’d starve and might realise that they did like the taste.”
It was simple when you put it like that. He cleared his plate while I pushed my food around.
“You don’t like it?” He pointed at my half-full plate with his fork.
I speared a piece of greasy meat, trying not to gag. “I don’t have a choice.”
Like everything else here. Do as you’re told. Fit in. Wear the dress code. Be married to someone you don’t love.
I abandoned the lamb and ate some bread, needing calories. The serving girl came to tidy away and bring bowls of fruit and some kind of custard.
“How big is The Realm?” I tried to imagine the geography of the equivalent land Outside, stretching away from the rock face.
“How big? I don’t know. Large.”
“How big is the city?”
Faran chewed for a moment. “What units do you remember?”
“Miles. Kilometres.”
“Vika?” he said, brow wrinkling.
“Nope.”
He puffed his cheeks out. “It would take a day’s walk – all day – to go from this hall to the furthest gates. The city isn’t a circle though. Some gates are closer. And of course, the main portal is only down there.” He pointed with his spoon towards the hallway I’d emerged into, on the far side of the Great Hall. Several guards and two Guardians stood on sentry duty.
“Did you not think it might have been better to put the Great Hall a bit further from the portal?” I asked, poking at the fruit and custard.
“Why?” His brow puckered. “It’s been breached twice in history. Outsiders are no threat – they can’t cross the portal. When the city was built, only some groups from The Realm ever crossed.”
“Is all the city under glass?”
He shook his head. “The centre is. Once you get out to some of the outer residential quarters through the inner gates – where the cooks and technicians and so on live – it’s not covered.”
“Who lives in the city?” So far, I’d seen a few different groups of people, but I didn’t know if they were all Guardians or whether some had been from other classes.
“Everyone not involved in agriculture or industry. They live in the countryside.”
From the food I’d experienced so far, The Realm must have a similar climate to Northern Europe. I wondered how far the countryside went. Maybe thousands of miles and there were other cities like this that ate mangoes and sweet potatoes instead of turnip and apples?
“Is The Realm an island?” I said.
“A large one, yes. All the boundaries are ocean. Apart from the portals to Outside.”
“Are there portals to anywhere else?”
He arched a brow. “No. Just to Outside.”
I ate some of my custard and fruit, listening to the surrounding hubbub. “Are there other cities?”
“No. Some towns, lots of villages. No other glass cities, no.”
“And wha
t lies beyond the oceans? Other islands?”
He ran his tongue around his teeth, frowning. “Nothing. Just ocean. Why?”
“Just curious. I’m trying to imagine what it’s like. Presumably self-sufficient? I don’t get the impression there’s much trade going on with the Outside.”
“No. None now. There was, many years ago.”
I blinked. “Yeah? When?”
He thought for a moment. “My father’s youth.”
“Why did people from The Realm stop going Outside?”
“Too many wars there. In the end, The Realm felt it was better to be self-sufficient.”
We drifted into silence. Faran’s shoulders hunched and his jaw ticked as he clenched and unclenched his teeth.
“What’s up?” I asked. “Was I really dreadful at fighting?”
He stuck his lip out. “You weren’t anything like as good as you used to be, but you were better than I expected after you told me you were an artist.”
“Why are you so stressed? I mean, I’m assuming today hasn’t been a normal day for you, what with your banished wife rocking up unannounced and everything, but you seem worried. Is it Aegyir? What’s going to happen about him?”
He stirred his fruit and custard, taking his time to reply. “You’ve been here eight hours. That’s twenty days Outside. We don’t know how long The Realm has before we’re at risk from Aegyir. Maybe a few days. Maybe more. Possibly less. That’s what the Council was discussing earlier. Either a group of Guardians goes Outside and fetches Aegyir, or we wait and see if he attacks The Realm. Neither option is especially appealing. Lord Father advocates waiting; I wonder whether we would have more control if we fetched him. The problem is, no Guardian has been Outside in a long time and we don’t know their customs.”
“No one apart from me, you mean?” A penny dropped. “Faran, did you support me because I know Outside? You want intelligence from me to help you to bring Aegyir here to defeat him?”
He drew a long breath. “I supported you because you’re my wife and I didn’t want you hanged or tortured, but your knowledge of Outside is also invaluable. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to successfully find and retrieve Aegyir if we sent a group Outside.”
Was this my chance to go home and get my revenge? With Aegyir destroyed, I could go back to my old life. Minus Finn, of course. But still better than here. “Would I be in any party that goes to retrieve Aegyir?”
“No.”
My spirits crashed. “Why?”
Leaf-green eyes met mine. “Because you and Aegyir have history. He’ll want revenge on you and you couldn’t protect yourself against an attack from him. That’s what I was testing this afternoon. I need to tell Father that you can’t defend yourself well enough.”
I tilted my head, puffing out a breath. “In case you’ve forgotten, I managed to defend myself against him this morning.”
Faran sighed. “When he’d been killing and feeding for three weeks. It’s already been three weeks Outside since you left. By the time we’ve finished dinner, it will be another few days.” He took a long gulp of water. “If what Kristen said was true, Aegyir will still be dispersed, but if not… Aeron, if Aegyir attacks The Realm and you’re in our rooms, stay there. If you’re anywhere else, find a position you can defend and stay in it. I’ll try to find you.”
My eyes widened. “You really don’t rate my skills, do you?”
“No. Not yet.”
His words stung, but he was right. “You said the Guardians haven’t been Outside in a long time. Does anyone from here go Outside?”
“The Scouts go out daily. They’re going out three times a day currently.”
“What do the Scouts do?”
“They monitor what’s happening Outside. See if the death rates are rising.”
“Didn’t they tell you Aegyir was back? Before I arrived.”
He didn’t answer for a moment, his expression neutral. “No. The Scouts said everything was fine.”
“Aegyir was killing people! How is that fine?”
“Yesterday’s report was from sixty days ago Outside. Was Aegyir killing then?”
“No.”
I pushed my food around in my dish. Three weeks ago Outside was the middle of the night here. No wonder no one had come out to help.
“How are the Scouts monitoring things?” I asked.
Faran shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not a Scout.”
“So how do you know if their intelligence is right? When did a Guardian last go Outside?”
“I don’t know.” He scooped up a piece of fruit on his spoon.
“Who was ruling Outside?”
He screwed up his face. “I don’t remember the name. Give me some options?”
“Elizabeth?”
He looked at me as if I’d lost my head. “It wasn’t a woman!”
I swallowed my irritation at his male-centred attitude. “George? Edward? William? James? Charles? Henry?”
I kept heading backwards as well as I could, but his face was blank throughout. Eventually, he flicked his hand at me. “No, none of these.”
“I hope you’re just rotten at names. History is about the only thing I’m good at other than art, and I’ve now listed all the kings for the last thousand years. You need me Outside.”
He held my gaze, waiting until several people had left the table next to us before speaking. “Then you need to learn how to fight a lot better.” He pushed his empty bowl away. “What will have happened Outside after you left?”
“What do you mean?”
Serving boys cleared the table at our side and wiped the crumbs away.
“In the Council meeting, you said there should have been police at the portal when a guard went to check,” said Faran when they’d gone. “What are they?”
“Oh. Law enforcers.”
He raised a brow. “Guardians?”
“Um. Kind of. I hadn’t realised there was a time difference. I suppose it would have been a few hours since I’d been at the rock in Outside time. The police were on their way when I left – I’d seen them while I was fighting with Aegyir. They’ll have found my finger, and a sword covered in my blood, and my step-brother Stephen. Adopted step-brother. He was the one who held me down while Aegyir sliced off my finger.”
His hand paused on the way to his mouth with his cup of water. “Your brother did that to you?”
Behind me, three Guardians laughed raucously at something. When I turned my head to them, they sneered back.
I looked back at Faran. “He’s not my brother. It’s complicated. And I think Aegyir had control of his mind. Not that he’d have needed to for Stephen to want to hurt me.”
Faran’s eyes widened, his mouth falling open.
“Anyway,” I hurried on. “Given that Stephen had hurt me before and Aegyir had been turned to smoke and vanished, I suspect that Stephen will have been arrested. Though without a body, they couldn’t charge him with my murder.”
“He hurt you before?” Faran’s gaze settled on my broken nose.
“Yeah.”
“Will the law enforcers Outside be trying to capture Aegyir if he reforms?”
“I don’t know. It’ll be hard for them if he keeps shape-shifting. Before today, he was mostly taking people’s energy slowly, so they appeared to be ill, rather than ripping it out quickly. Less suspicious I suppose.”
He nodded slowly. “But he’d gain strength much more slowly that way. And it seeps out all the time – his form isn’t designed to be able to keep the energy he steals.”
The loud table behind me finished their meal and left. Faran’s eyes narrowed as he watched them.
“Then maybe Aegyir won’t be able to attack The Realm for a while?” I said, bringing his attention back to me.
“Maybe. Tell me about your life Outside?”
I rubbed my brow. “Not now. It’s been a difficult day.” I realised he only knew half of it. I’d still to tell him about Finn.
“After di
nner, I have to go and see my father and hear the latest reports from the Scouts. Do you want me to find you some company?”
I thought for a moment. “Is there someone called Lilja here?”
Surprise lit his face. “You remember her? You’re good friends. She’s a Seer so it might be difficult to meet tonight – the Seer quarters are the other side of the gardens – but I’ll have a message sent to her to say you wish to meet. Did you want me to call anyone else?”
“No. I’d prefer to be on my own, thanks.”
“Okay. I’ll walk you back to our rooms.”
***
Alone in Faran’s rooms, I explored what little there was. The bedroom contained only a bed, a closet, a chest of drawers, and a small bedside cupboard. In the closet hung several sets of clothes for Faran, alongside my woollen trousers and tunic. All of his outer clothes were leather and there only appeared to be two styles. Most of the clothes were exactly the same as I’d seen him wearing so far: hip-length jackets and straight-leg trousers. The other style of jacket was longer – it would probably end mid-thigh on him – and there were only two of these jackets. Almost all of his clothes were black. The only colour in the wardrobe came from the two longer jackets. One of them was oxblood; the other bottle-green. I closed the door and poked through the chest of drawers.
“Well, you’re a fan of black, so maybe we do have something in common,” I said. All of his woollen tops, socks and shorts were in jet-black, without exception.
The bedside cupboard contained one book and a small wooden box. I opened the cover of the book. Inside was what I took to be a library mark. The book was a novel, as far as I could tell. Maybe I’d try to read it later, see what passed for fiction in this place. I turned to the box, then wished I hadn’t. It held what could only be a contraceptive cap. I closed the lid and put it back. Had that been here for two years? Or had the maid brought it earlier?
In the outer room, the only thing to investigate was the desk. It sat against the side wall, with a simple wooden chair in front of it. The top of it had a row of small drawers along the back edge, making a raised area. I rummaged through the drawers. Sealing wax, a metal seal, some bits of paper, a candle, and what were possibly matches.
Under the writing area was a larger, shallow drawer, almost the full width of the desk. I opened it. A box with a board and pieces for a game, though I didn’t recognise which game. More paper, but what seemed to be empty forms rather than writing paper. I squinted at the runes. They appeared to be request forms, and I thought back over something Faran had said earlier – The Realm will provide what I needed. Presumably, if I needed something, I filled in a request form and The Realm decided on whether I needed it or not.