Gethen’s eyes.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Sandor said, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder. “If this is too much—”
“No!” she interrupted. “I can handle it.”
If she couldn’t face an imaginary Gethen, how would she ever face the real one again?
“I’m going to trust you to know your limits,” Sandor told her, and she nodded, grateful he wasn’t going to baby her.
She took another long breath and forced herself to stare back at the dummy until her pulse steadied.
“For the record,” Sandor told her, leaning close to whisper, “the next time I see him—he’s mine.”
She wasn’t going to argue with that.
“Sooooo,” she said, drawing out the word for another calming exhale. “Where do we start?”
“With the most basic element. Before I teach you any fighting techniques, it’s important for you to get the feel for what we’re really doing here—what actually happens when you utilize a weapon.”
“You mean . . . what it’s like to kill someone,” Sophie clarified, feeling her mouth turn very dry when Sandor nodded.
“It’s a different experience with every weapon,” he told her. “Daggers are for close-range fights, where every blow comes at tremendous risk. So you need to learn how hard to slash, and which spots to aim for to make it count. Where do you think the ideal strike point is?”
“The heart?” Sophie guessed, her voice cracklier than she wanted it to be.
Sandor shook his head. “The heart’s important. But the fastest, most effective attack is to the throat.”
The world swam behind Sophie’s eyes.
“Yes, it’s incredibly unpleasant,” Sandor told her. “The thing you must remember is that your goal must always be a quick end. The longer your enemy lives, the more chances they have to finish you. So if you only have one strike, it’s best to aim like this.”
He thrust his arm toward the dummy, stopping just short of making contact as he demonstrated the ideal motion—a quick, decisive slash.
No hesitation.
No remorse.
Then he stepped aside.
Her turn.
And it became a lot harder to breathe.
Moving wasn’t any easier.
But she let her memory of Umber’s cruel laugh carry her forward.
“Wrong,” Sandor told her when she’d barely taken a step. “You’re forgetting which arm is holding the weapon.”
She was.
Even with her right arm strapped in a sling, her brain still defaulted to it.
This was so much harder than she’d thought it would be.
“Okay,” she said, squaring her shoulders and tightening her grip on the dagger as she shifted her weight the other way.
In the same motion, she lunged forward, reached up, and slashed her dagger. “Like that?”
“You were supposed to strike the dummy,” Sandor noted.
“You didn’t,” she argued.
“That’s because I want you to make the first slice. It will feel very close to reality.”
When he put it like that, she really, really, really didn’t want to do it. But that was exactly the kind of weakness the Neverseen were always calling her out on.
So she focused on the painted eyes, channeling her hate and fury into her lunge as she slashed across the dummy’s neck, feeling a sickening squish as the blade sank into the cloth—followed by a burst of horrifying red.
The dagger slipped from her grasp and she screamed and stumbled back. But she couldn’t stop the splatter from hitting her hand. Her face. Her lips.
Her stomach heaved and she gagged, but somewhere deep in the back of her consciousness, the rational part of her was shouting that something didn’t fit.
She’d stabbed a dummy.
There couldn’t be blood.
That realization helped her focus past the bile coating her tongue, picking up a sweet, familiar flavor.
“YOU RIGGED IT WITH LUSHBERRY JUICE?” she shouted as her vision cleared enough to note the look on Sandor’s face.
His eyes shone with guilt—but his jaw was set with determination.
“Like I said,” he told her, “I made sure these lessons felt real.”
“WHY WOULD YOU—”
“Because this isn’t a game!” he snapped.
“You think I don’t know that?” She pointed to her sling. “You think I’m doing this for fun?”
“No. But I think you’ve lost sight of what you’re truly attempting. You’re stepping into uncharted territory, both for you and for your species. And you seem to think you’ll be able to handle it because you’re angry. But emotion won’t overrule your instincts—and the battlefield isn’t the place to discover that violence is too much for you.”
“The battle is coming for me whether I want to fight or not!” Sophie argued.
“I know. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be training. But I need you to truly understand the reality of what you’re attempting, both so you treat it with the respect and responsibility it requires, and so you’re mentally prepared for the ugliness involved with what you’re learning. And this was the only way I could think to truly get through to you.”
Tarina whistled. “Brutal. But effective.”
It was.
Sophie wanted to hate Sandor for it. But . . . she hadn’t even managed to hold on to her weapon.
If she’d freaked out like that in the middle of a real fight, she’d probably be dead.
She bent to retrieve the tiny dagger—which didn’t look so wimpy anymore—wishing her hand wasn’t shaking.
“Are you okay?” Sandor asked, his eyes scanning her from head to toe.
She tried to decide.
The monster was awake now—she could feel that. But it hadn’t dragged her under.
And with each deep breath, she forced it to back off.
Maybe it was good to know that—to know her limits actually stretched pretty far.
“I’ll be fine,” she told him. “I just need a couple of minutes.”
Sandor nodded, heading to his satchel and returning with a clean towel. He held it out to her like a white flag. “I’m sorry. I hate having to upset you. But if I don’t properly prepare you for the complexities of this new challenge, I’m failing you as your protector. And I won’t fail you again. Even if it means making you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” she said quietly, wiping the sticky red off her skin, reminding herself it was only juice.
Honestly, she wasn’t sure what she was feeling.
Humiliation burned her cheeks. But there was something else—something cold and sour and shuddery.
“You don’t think I can do this.” She wasn’t sure if she was speaking to herself or Sandor at that point.
He answered her anyway. “Wrong. I’m positive you can. I just dread the toll it’s going to take on you—and your friends.”
“Did they get splattered at the beginning of their training too?” she wondered.
“I don’t believe so. But I’ll make sure they do. It’s essential that you’re all physically and mentally ready for battle. So plan on further surprises to your own lessons as well.”
“More fake blood,” Sophie mumbled. “Noted.”
“Blood is only part of the horror. Battles have their own sounds. Their own smells. Their own pace. You’ve experienced pieces of it at times. But I fear someday you’ll face it on a much larger, much more overwhelming scale. And while I’ll be right there at your side, I do agree that it’s best for you to be able to fight back as much as you can. So how about we spend the remaining thirty-six minutes of today’s lesson on a skill that should feel a bit more comfortable for you. I promise no more surprises today.”
Thirty-six minutes sounded like a very long time.
But Sophie let Sandor lead her away from the now red-stained dummy.
“So what are we working on?” she asked, after several
long beats of silence.
“This.” Sandor spun around and flicked his arm.
The tiny dagger flew out of his hand, blurring through the air and stabbing straight between the dummy’s painted eyes.
“The first rule of dagger throwing,” Sandor told her, “is: Never throw a dagger if you know you’re going to need it. That’s another reason I gave you such a small weapon to train with. You’ll be able to hide several of them in the clothes Flori’s designing for you.”
Sophie blinked. “Flori’s designing clothes for me?”
“With lots of hidden pockets,” Sandor agreed. “That way you can always have a few daggers and throwing stars with you—and likely a few of Dex’s inventions as well. And you’ll need to get in the habit of checking your arsenal and knowing exactly what you’re carrying and where to reach it all. That way you’ll know if you can afford to lose the weapon. If you’re down to your last dagger, it’s generally best to hold on to it.”
“Even if I can take out an enemy?” Sophie asked.
Sandor nodded. “A dagger in hand can cut down many enemies. A throw just finishes one—and only if they don’t duck or dodge.”
“But what if throwing it saves someone?” Sophie countered.
“Then you’ll have to decide if their life is worth more than your own,” Bo jumped in. “Battles are not for heroics, contrary to what many foolishly believe. They’re for winning. That must always be your overall goal. If you manage to save anyone in the process, that’s a bonus. But your endgame must be victory. And the best chance you have of that is by staying alive, because you’re far more useful when you’re fighting than when you’re dead.”
Sophie hated every single word of that.
Sandor rested his hand on her shoulder. “There are no easy choices in battle.”
“There aren’t,” Tarina agreed. “That’s why our soldiers are trained to fight on instinct. Then there’s no looking back and wondering ‘what if.’ There’s simply what happened and who lived.”
“I’m . . . not sure my brain can work like that,” Sophie admitted.
“Mine doesn’t either,” Tarina admitted. “At least not anymore. That’s why the bulk of my army’s ranks are Stage Twos. Those at my stage think too much. Makes us useful for specialized missions like this, but less so for major combat. Battles are surprisingly mindless.”
Sophie had no idea how to respond to that.
“We’re wasting your training time,” Sandor realized. “You should be learning to throw a dagger.”
“What’s the point, if I’m supposed to hold on to it?” Sophie countered.
“You’re supposed to hold on to your last weapon,” Sandor corrected. “And even then, there may be moments when it’s better to let it go. Either way, throwing is still a vital, lifesaving skill to acquire. If you’re looking for absolutes or clear black-and-white rules, you won’t find them on a battlefield. It’s moment by moment. The best you can do is give yourself as many defenses as possible.”
He pointed to the target. “Aim for between the eyes.”
“Are you going to give me any pointers?” Sophie asked.
“It’s all in the wrist,” he told her, which wasn’t necessarily helpful.
Sophie did her best—but she quickly discovered that daggers were much trickier than goblin throwing stars. The slightest error and the weapon didn’t just miss the place she’d been aiming for—it bounced harmlessly off the dummy.
Aiming with her left arm was also more challenging than she would’ve expected, and she completely overcompensated on her first several throws. But by the time her lesson was finished, she’d found a rhythm and could hit exactly where Sandor told her to aim every single time.
“Are all elves this quick a study?” Bo wondered when Sophie nailed the dummy between its horrible eyes for the third toss in a row.
“No,” Sandor assured him. “Sophie is very special.”
“I suspect that’s why they call her the moonlark,” Tarina said quietly. “Why she’s valuable enough to require more guards than even her Councillors. And why it’s far better to be on her side.”
Her eyes locked with Sophie’s, and Sophie could almost feel the words Tarina wasn’t saying.
The reminder that the trolls were offering so much more than protection.
“I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” Tarina told her. “I’m in charge of the lesson.”
“Assuming Elwin thinks she’s up for more training,” Sandor reminded them, studying Sophie from head to toe again. “I know I pushed you pretty hard. On several levels.”
He had.
But when Elwin came to check on her, he didn’t see any sign of setbacks.
The monster was still stirring, but Sophie had kept it at bay.
“Excellent,” Tarina said. “Then tomorrow we’ll get to see how brilliantly you and I work together.”
• • •
“So here’s the thing,” Keefe said by way of greeting when he hailed Sophie on her Imparter later that evening, while she was sitting on the floor of her bedroom polishing the giant stack of goblin throwing stars that Sandor had given her. “I wanted to stop by today, since I didn’t have time yesterday, and I know it makes your imagination shift into mega worry mode when I disappear. But Ro’s being a royal pain. She says as soon as I set foot at Havenfield it ends our latest bet, and since I’m assuming you haven’t gotten the dirt on Bo-Ro yet, that’s not going to be good for me. Any chance you could get on that?”
“I can try again,” Sophie told him, cleaning something crusty off one of the blades—which wasn’t easy to do with only one hand. “But I doubt it’s going to work.”
“Not with that attitude! Come on, Foster—you know you’re just as curious to hear the saga of Bo and Ro as I am! Time to put those powers of persuasion to use! Or you could take a tiny peek inside his head. . . .”
“Uh, you realize if he catches me, I’d end up in an ogre work camp, right?”
“Nah, Ro would never let that happen—especially if you dug out a couple embarrassing Bo secrets to trade with her.”
Sophie shook her head, moving on to the next throwing star. “Not happening.”
“Fine. Then how about you use that fancy telekinesis of yours to dangle him upside down by his ankles. Maybe threaten him with a few of those weapons you’re cleaning until he cracks. Or—”
“Goodbye, Keefe.”
“Hang on! You’re not going to demand to know what I’ve been doing the last couple of days?” he asked. “You’re slipping, Foster. It almost feels like you forgot to worry about me.”
She angled her face away from the Imparter because . . . honestly?
Between visiting Tinker and finally coming home and meeting her bodyguards and having Tarina propose an alliance and Sandor’s disturbing lesson that morning—plus a long afternoon of trying on different outfits so Flori could take measurements—she hadn’t had time to think about a whole lot else.
“I see how it is.” Keefe’s words were teasing—just like his smile. But his eyes weren’t quite as convincing.
Shame burned Sophie’s cheeks. “Sorry. It’s been a little overwhelming.”
He nodded. “I’m sure it has.”
“So . . . what have you been doing?” she asked, shoving the throwing stars aside. Giving him her full attention.
“Nothing exciting. Mostly just school. Are you ever coming back to Foxfire, by the way, or have you decided you’re too good for us now that you have your own multispeciesial army?”
“I don’t know when the Council will let me come back,” she admitted. “They might want me to wait until my arm’s not in a sling.”
She’d have to ask Magnate Leto the next time she saw him.
And she should probably make some progress on the mountain of assignments that had been piling up while she was stuck in the Healing Center.
But more important: “So that’s all you’ve been doing? Just school? No more memory exercises with Tiergan
?”
“Nah. It felt like we went as far as we were going to go, and it led to a whole lot of nowhere. Plus, my dad’s keeping me busy with his little Empath lessons.”
Her stomach twisted. “How are those going?”
“Super fun. It’s like, ‘Wow—I knew my daddy loved me, but I never realized he was such a big old ball of mush until I got to spend the day soaking up all his fuzzy feelings.’ ”
“And now the real answer?” Sophie pressed.
Keefe reached up to sweep back his hair—which said a whole lot more than his “It’s fine.”
Sophie sighed. “Need me to send Krakie to you?”
Half his smile returned. “Nah, he likes you better than me. Everyone does.”
“No they don’t.”
“Oh really? Tell me this: Have you heard from the Fitzster since he went home for the happy family reunion?”
Before she could figure out a way to soften her answer, he said, “Exactly. And I get it—why would he hail the best friend who spent a little too much quality time with his creepy brother after running off to join the Neverseen, when he can have a secret Fitzphie convo with his cute little Cognate?”
“Keefe—”
“Relax, I’m just giving you a hard time. It’s my greatest joy in life.”
It did seem to be.
But their current conversation had also made Sophie feel like a terrible friend. Which was probably why she found herself promising, “I’ll get the Bo-Ro story.”
“WOO—now you’re talking! Make sure you push for the really juicy details, too—especially if kissing’s involved. Actually, scratch that—I’ll need to claw out my brain if I have to picture Ro in a slobbery lip-lock.”
“Yeah, let’s not go there,” Sophie agreed.
“But find out everything else. I’m counting on you, Foster.”
“I’ll do my best.”
She was about to click the Imparter off when Keefe asked, “How’s Fitz doing?”
She picked up another throwing star, turning it over in her hand. “Pretty much what you’d expect. He and Biana both agreed to play nice for ten days if it means their parents will leave them alone about Alvar after that. But it sounds like it’s killing Fitz, having to spend all that time with his brother.”
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