by Megan Hart
"I told you, my feelings for you haven't changed, no matter what clothes you wear. Don't you understand how it feels for me to look at the marks on your skin and know how much they hurt you? I wasn't able to protect you there, and I vowed I'd never let anything like that happen to you again. Just because we're in Elitan doesn't mean you can wander all over the place."
"And just because we've fucked doesn't give you the right to treat me like you own me."
His jaw tightened. "Is that all it was to you?"
"Is that all it was to you?" I shot back, challenging.
"You know better," he replied in a low voice.
"I don't know anything." I pushed past him, went to the dresser and pulled out a shirt and tunic and pants. I dressed quickly, grateful to have something familiar to put on, even if it was too large.
"Aeris –"
"Maybe you'd be better off with Mara," I interrupted.
I hated the grin that spread across his face. "Is that what all of this is about? Mara? You're jealous."
"That's not what all of this is about. If you think it is, then you're an even more vainglorious cockswain than I ever thought."
"You don't mean that."
I forced my voice to remain calm, though inside I felt like crying. "All I know is that everything I ever believed about myself has been turned upside down. I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, or how to act, or who I'm supposed to love."
"I can help you."
"By treating me like a porcelain doll that will shatter if she's handled with too rough a hand? No, thank you."
"Do you think it's any easier for me?" He asked angrily.
I met his eyes. "Yes, I do. In Elitan, you have everything you ever wanted. You can be yourself. You can follow your heart. I think it is easier for you."
He nodded, after a moment. "So, what do we do now?"
"I'm going to ask Carinda for my own room. I think that's best, for now."
It clearly wasn't the answer he expected or wanted. "If that's what you want."
He had stiffened like a man who's been kicked in the balls, and my heart twisted. I went to the door but paused with my hand on the knob.
"I want to know who I am, Lir. Not as Daelyn's fetchencarry, and not as your folly. I want to know who I am."
He said nothing, and I took that as my cue to leave.
Chapter Fifty-One
Elitan had no formal fight field, but I found the glass-enclosed garden a wonderful place to practice on my own. The warmth of the sun and the fragrance of the flowers could make me forget the winter outside, if not the winter in my heart. I trained hard every morning, perfecting moves I would soon have to teach others.
In the afternoons I went to Carinda's library to learn of Elitan's history and how it connected with Alyria's, or I went to the palace gymnasium where Lir was once again teaching the Art. I knew my presence wasn't welcome there but couldn't seem to stay away. On the field, at least, we were once again student and master.
The evenings I spent sometimes with Daelyn so Galya could have time to bathe and eat without worrying. Sometimes I spent the time with Carinda, Gerard, Lir and the other members of her security council, talking about how we were going to attack Alyria. Sometimes I caught Lir looking at me, his face a careful mask, his eyes blank. I avoided looking at him. I didn't like to see the face of the man I loved looking at me as though I didn't exist.
The nights I spent alone in my bed. I had offers of company. It seemed I was something of an oddity in Elitan. Men wanted me because I wasn't like the other women. Women wanted me for the same reason. I refused all offers, no matter how persistent, until they began to dwindle.
I carved out a place for myself. An existence, if not a life. I tried not to dwell overmuch on my happiness or unhappiness, as that no longer seemed to matter. Instead, I concentrated on the problem of going to war with Alyria.
"We just don't have the numbers," I said at last, one evening when we all discussed endlessly the logistics of moving an army over the mountains without alerting Rosten's troops. "Even if we could get in unnoticed, what would we do when we got there?"
"We need information." Carinda sipped from her mug of warmed wine and reached out to toy idly with Gerard's short hair.
I watched them surreptitiously, still fascinated at the free and easy interplay between men and women. Carinda sighed and tapped her teeth with one long, shaped fingernail. Gerard filled her mug again. The smile she gave him was so full of warmth it made me look away.
"Daelyn would have an idea of what to do." Lir spoke from his corner. It had been so long since I'd seen his smile I wasn't sure any longer if he had one.
"Too bad Daelyn can't help us, then," I snapped.
Carinda's gaze flickered from me to Lir. "Indeed. Would that my sister came out of her funk, but since it doesn't seem as though she's going to, we can't rely on her assistance. How are the forces coming along?"
"Your men are eager to learn Alyrian variations on the Art. And some of your women, too." Lir's voice was cold. "Some have an innate talent we can use, Carinda. Others will be more useless in the fight than not."
"How can you say that?" I retorted hotly. "Don't discount them just because they're female!"
He fixed me with a solid glare. "Don't put words in my mouth."
I turned to Carinda. "It's true a lot of them are still too timid with their weapons and with the positions. They're better at defense than offense, but can you blame them? They've spent their lives unable to do more than expect to be attacked without being able to defend themselves!"
"Regrettable, but of no use to us in war." Lir helped himself to some of the wine and gestured to the queen. "Your soldiers are well fit and eager to battle. The women –"
"Can be trained more," I finished and fixed him with a hot stare. "They can. They can do this. More importantly, they want to do this."
"No woman will ever be as strong as a man," Lir replied with a casual shrug I knew he gave to set my teeth on edge. It worked. "No matter how much she trains. It's physical nature. It's just the way it is."
Carinda looked back and forth again, her mouth quirked into a half-smile. "How interesting to see the dove go after the hawk, instead of the other way around."
"Are you saying no woman can beat a man in a fair fight?" I challenged.
"That's what I'm saying."
"You know that's not true," I told him. "I've beaten men."
"Against a man woozy with herb and worm, yes. Against soldiers already flustered from an attack, yes. But in a battle? One to one? I'm sorry, Aeris, you've got more skill than most students I've trained. And you're strong, I'll grant you that. But you've been training much longer than these women have, longer than we have time to give them. Even with that, when it comes to a one to one fight with a soldier trained for war, you'd lose."
I shook my head. My heart twisted at his words, which I thought he spoke not from belief, but from desire to wound me. "I can beat you, one to one."
He laughed in my face. Maybe his reaction stemmed from his own hurt feelings, but it could not have hurt me more had he spat in my face. "I'd like to see you try."
"Is that a challenge?"
I wanted him to say no. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to close my eyes and open them to his smile instead of his scowl, but I could have none of those things, and of my own doing.
Again, he laughed, and again, my heart was stabbed like with a knife. "No challenge. I don't want to hurt you."
"Don't you?" I asked quietly.
"Oh, don't fight," Carinda said in a voice so much like Daelyn's it made me want to weep. "You two should be friends."
I don't know if the queen knew what had passed between us. Her words, I'm sure, were meant to placate. Instead, they moved me to close in on him, to stand toe to toe, to challenge him again.
"Now's your chance," I told him.
Lir took a deep breath, his face serious. "Don't do this."
"I can fight you, and
I can beat you, in a fair fight. With a sword if I have one. Hand to hand, if I have to. I can beat you, Lir."
He shook his head and spoke without a trace of self-conscious braggery. "I am the greatest Master of the Art in Alyria and Elitan combined. Don't challenge me."
"You know I can do it. I've done it before."
"Beaten me? You haven't."
Coming close didn't count, and I knew it. Still, his laughter had hurt me, and I needed to prove something to him, to Carinda. Most of all, to myself. "Fight me."
"Now?"
I nodded, slowly. "Now. In the garden."
"I won't allow it." Carinda spoke firmly. "This is ludicrous."
I made a leg to her. "Begging your pardon, my queen. If you wish to move on Alyria, you need more than the three hundred men in your army. You need the women, too. You need to see that a woman, properly trained and with the right amount of desire, can best a man. Even one who is better trained."
She sighed. "Very well. Go to it. But try not to kill each other. Please."
Silently, I left the room, aware of Lir behind me. One of the servants in the room must have spread the story, because it flew around the palace like an out-of-control blaze. By the time we got to the inner garden, we had an audience.
It didn't matter how many people watched us. I only had eyes for Lir. He stripped out of his vest and shirt, down to bare skin. I kept my shirt on, more conscious of how my unbound breasts would get in the way than any sense of false modesty. We faced each other on the forced-green grass, our hands our only weapons.
I breathed deeply, as he'd taught me. I focused on the beat of my heart, the rush of blood in my veins. I let the Art fill me, and when he came at me, I was ready.
We had moved together so many times like this, in the dance of battle, but something had changed. I could not strike him without remembering how his hands had felt caressing my flesh. Every breath he spent against my cheek reminded me of how we'd slept face to face. Lir had long been my teacher, not so long my friend, and an even shorter time my lover. Why, then was it his love that made me falter in my steps and pull the punch I'd meant for his jaw?
I fought hard, but he fought harder, and I hated him for not allowing what had passed between us to soften him toward me. I hated myself for not being able to forget his kiss long enough to take him down when he stumbled on a soft patch of ground and gave me the chance. He rose up and kicked my shoulder hard enough to knock me flat on my back.
I got up, faster than I had thought I could. I watched his eyes flicker, but couldn't tell if it was in admiration or anger. He moved through a series of complicated positions that built on ones he'd taught me, and though I hadn't ever practiced them myself I had others to counter them.
The crowd around us gasped and murmured as we continued to fight. Sweat blinded me, and I swiped it away. Grass and blood stained our clothes. I let the Art take me, fill me, keep me from feeling the pain I knew would wrack my body when this was through.
"Give it up," he said at last, when another kick knocked me down. "You can't win."
With a grunt I got back to my feet. I was failing. I might have been as fast and as determined, but I simply was not as strong.
He looked down at his hands, where a bright ribbon of my blood had painted the palm and fingers. "Give up. Please."
Over his shoulder, I saw a smirking Mara, and knew I couldn't. I shook myself all over until my vision blurred, then bit my tongue to clear my head. I snapped myself back into a fight position and gestured. "Come on."
He could've refused, but it seemed Lir couldn't stop himself from fighting any more than I could. He came at me. Everything slowed. I moved. He caught me.
His fist connected with my jaw and sent me backward, to the grass. All at once I was looking up at the sky, which had grown dark above the glass. Stars twinkled. I rolled to my side, then to my belly, but could go no further. I pushed with my arms and fell back. Grass filled my mouth, and the taste of blood and earth made me cough.
I felt his hand on my shoulder. He pulled me onto my back and bent close to me. Concern filled his eyes. His mouth moved, but the ringing in my ears kept me from hearing what he said.
There was only one way I could beat him. Coiled Serpent to Springing Tiger, and I was on my feet, my stiffened fingers to his throat, my leg hooked behind his knee. He hit the ground with a thud, and I put my knee on his chest. My hand never moved from his neck. I could have killed him then, had I wanted to, with nothing more than an extra burst of pressure.
"A woman can beat a man," I managed to gasp. "If she has the determination, motivation and desire. And if she can take the man by surprise."
Chapter Fifty-Two
I'd beaten him, but at a price. What earlier welcome, however misguided, I'd received from the lords and ladies of Carinda's court now dwindled to nothing. After what I'd done to Mara, and then to Lir, I'm sure the women feared me. The men were intimidated by me. Maybe they feared me, too.
Lir himself made it a point to leave the room if I entered it, and no amount of cajoling or pleading from the queen could get him to change his attitude. As she didn't care to throw him in prison for disobeying a direct order from her to tolerate my presence, she didn't demand it. She didn't ask me to stop going to the army's training drills, but I did, unable to face the humiliation day after day as he left the field when I came on it. They were training harder, the men and women learning to fight together as a team, but I no longer felt I had a place in it. Lir had other students, now.
Galya wanted to join the army, so I took to sitting with Dae so she could join the daily drills. We sat together, two women who'd lived so long as something else, and neither of us spoke.
"You've grown too thin," I told her one day. She'd turned her face to the winter sunshine streaming through the windows. Spring had never seemed so far away. "You need to eat, Dae."
She didn't answer, of course. She never did. She only sat and stared, elegant and lovely in her fine clothes. Her skin had become so pale, so translucent, almost like porcelain. I fancied I could see the light shine through it. Her hair had begun to grow, as had mine, though while mine was still straight as straw, Dae's had turned to soft ringlets that framed her face.
I offered some broth, but she didn't open her mouth. The liquid spilled down the front of her fancy gown and made a stain. I wiped at it with a napkin, but the damage had been done.
"Look what you made me do!" I cried, suddenly far angrier with her than I ever had been or had a right to be. "Damn you, Daelyn! Open your mouth and eat!"
She didn't move. She pressed her fingertips to the glass of the window, her gaze still vacant and faraway. The same soft smile played on her lips.
"Stop that insipid smiling!" I sent the dishes crashing to the floor, hoping the noise would startle her into looking at me. "Wake up!"
I grabbed her by the front of her dress and shook her until her teeth rattled, and still she wouldn't meet my eyes. It had become all too much for me. The two people I loved most in the world had worse than abandoned me. I'd ceased to exist in their eyes.
"Look at me!" I demanded with a sob that filled my throat with shards of glass. "Daelyn, please..."
I pulled her upright, and like a puppet, she allowed me to do it. Moving her was like moving a doll. She didn't resist me, but she didn't help either, and when I let her go she sank down again onto her seat by the window. I pulled her up again.
"Please, Dae. Please see me. It's Aeris. Your fetchencarry." My voice broke, as I had broken. "Remember me?"
Her body seemed to have grown softer, somehow. I touched her face. "Daelyn, please."
It didn't matter what I said. She stood without moving, her stare pointed at a spot beyond me. I pulled her so close our noses touched. Even then her gaze stayed far away. I was furious and bleak, without hope but unable not to try.
"You have to wake up. This is not the Daelyn I know. Please, my prince, don't let Rosten win. If you can't do it for love of me, do it for
hatred of him. I know what he did to you was awful, because he did it to me, too, but you can't let him win!"
I thought I saw a glimmer in her gaze but it snuffed quickly. I softened my tone but kept my grip. "Rosten has control of Alyria. His armies are sleeping in your rooms. He might even be sleeping in your bed! Everything you fought for will be lost if we can't march on Alyria and win. We need you, Dae. Please, my prince. I need you."
I couldn't even sob any longer, for my tears had long spent themselves. "I don't know what to do any more. I don't fit in here. I don't know how to act. I've pushed Lir far away from me, even though I didn't mean or want to. Please, Dae. I'm drowning and I don't know who to turn to. You took me out of the market and you lifted me up to be someone important. How can you leave me like this now?"