07

Braeden pinned the Chaser to the ground, and watched with mild interest as the dragonfly struggled against the thin blade. He felt little sympathy for the three-winged anomaly; its four-winged brethren would never have found themselves in such a predicament. He removed the stylet from its wing, but before it could launch itself into the air, he slit the dragonfly from abdomen to thorax.

Braeden scowled at the insect carcass. With his one pathetic enemy now dead, he was insufferably bored.

He propped up his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his hands, watching the other trainees trade blows. Paladin Shen, a thin, wiry man with sallow skin, wove between the fighting pairs, murmuring encouragements and chastisements in tandem. From afar, the Paladin’s catlike grace reminded Braeden of his former master. But the similarities ended there.

Braeden didn’t know why he’d expected the Paladins to be different from anyone else. The Paladins listed neither virtue nor tolerance among their prerequisites; all a man needed was a weapon and the ability to use it.

“Demon!” Paladin Shen had hissed the moment his eyes landed on him. The Paladin had gone so far as to draw his knives.

Braeden showed empty palms and backed away slowly, as if from a rabid dog. “You mistake me, Paladin. I’m naught but a trainee.” Paladin Shen paused, but did not lower his weapons.

“Perhaps you know of my Paladin? Tristan Lyons?” Braeden asked. He looked around at the other trainees, half-hoping one of them would verify his story, but they either avoided his gaze or stared at him with revulsion. It wasn’t surprising, but it annoyed him just the same.

He tried again. “I was originally assigned to Paladin Moreau. I’m sure you’ve heard by now that he…left.”

Finally, comprehension dawned. The Paladin slid his daggers back into his sleeves. “So you’re the reason Moreau quit,” he snarled, his hatred unabated. “They should’ve tossed you out instead.”

Braeden inclined his head. “It would appear the High Commander does not agree.”

“That may be, demon,” said Paladin Shen, “but in the practice yard, I am the law. And I will not teach you.”

Braeden gritted his teeth. “Fine. I’ll see that the High Commander is informed.”

Paladin Shen didn’t much like that. “I will permit you to observe the training as a spectator.” His mouth twisted around the concessionary words.

And so here he was, two hours into training, alone and a good ten yards away from the training yard. The black cloth of his robes soaked in the heat of the sun like a sponge, and the warmth made him drowsy. His eyelids drooped, and he began lightly pricking the tips of his fingers with his stylet, watching the small dots of red form at the surface. Wasteful, his old master would scold. Braeden ignored the imaginary rebuke, wiping his fingers clean on the grass.

His grasp on consciousness continued to slip. He hadn’t slept well; he’d spent the better part of last night trying to figure out what it was that bothered him about his new roommate. Something was off about Sam. His behavior was…odd, that was for certain. Odd, but friendly. A combination that made Braeden wary, as he generally categorized people into one of two buckets: those who feared him, and those who wanted him dead. But that Sam didn’t fit neatly into either bucket wasn’t what set off Braeden’s internal alarms. Something about the boy made his skin itch. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant sensation. And, inexplicably, Braeden felt drawn to him.

“Hullo,” said a voice, in an almost girlish tenor.

Braeden opened lids he didn’t remember closing and found himself staring into a pair of vivid green eyes. His skin itched again. “Why aren’t you with Paladin Lyons?” he asked, rubbing at his arm.

“Training ended ages ago,” Sam said, sitting down in the grass directly across from him. “You don’t mind, do you?” Bewildered, Braeden shook his head. “Thanks,” said Sam, shoving a small wrapped bundle between them. “I didn’t see you at the midday meal, so I came to find you. Thought you might be hungry so I nicked a few extra pastries from the kitchens.” He nodded at the bundle.

Braeden was startled by Sam’s thoughtful consideration; he didn’t know what to make of it. “Thank you,” he said awkwardly. He unraveled the neatly tied handkerchief, revealing three miniature fig pies and a half dozen crispels basted in honey. His nose twitched at the sweet, fruity smell and his mouth watered; his master hadn’t approved of sweets.

Sam laughed, a soft husky sound at odds with his boyish manner. “You’re drooling.” Braeden responded by shoving a crispel into the boy’s mouth and then wolfed down three himself.

Once Sam finished licking the last of the honey off his fingers, he asked, “Can I tell you something?” Between bites, Braeden nodded, his curiosity piqued.

Sam looked down at his lap, his face slowly flaming to red. “I lost to Tristan today,”

“You do that a lot,” Braeden observed.

Sam’s brow furrowed. “Do what?”

“Blush.”

Sam groaned, slapping his hands to his cheeks. “I know, it’s horrible. It’s the curse of my gods-forsaken skin. My father says I take after my moth--” He stopped mid-sentence. “Never you mind. Anyway, as I was saying, I’m steamed about losing. I could have won if I hadn’t been distracted.”

“Distracted?”

Sam pouted. “All the trainees were watching our fight. I got nervous.”

“You shouldn’t have let them distract you,” said Braeden matter-of-factly.

Sam glared at him and then sighed. “I know. The man I trained under back home would have said the same.”

“You do know Paladin Lyons is considered the best swordsman among the Paladins, if not the whole of Thule, do you not? It’s no shame to lose to a man like that.”

Sam leaned forward conspiratorially. “But the man is such a jackanapes, is he not?”

Braeden snorted at the insult. “Aye, he is a bit of that.”

“The next time we fight, I’m going to win. I’ll defeat him if it kills me,” Sam said determinedly. “In the meantime, I shall have to live vicariously through you.”

“Whatever would you want to do that for?” asked Braeden, genuinely confused. He wouldn't wish his life on anyone.

Sam looked at him as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “You won against Tristan.”

“I did?”

Sam nodded. “Yesterday, with the knives. He even said you won.” He flung himself backward onto the grass. “Gods, what I would give to take him down a notch myself.”

Sam made quite the picture, a white palm face-up over his forehead and the other clutched over his heart. He looked ridiculous, Braeden thought, rubbing at his arm again. “I have come to the conclusion,” he drawled, “that you are an even stranger duck than I.”

Sam sat up quickly at that. “Oh no,” he said, once he regained his composure. “No one would ever mistake you for a duck. A cat maybe, with those eyes, but never a duck.” He grinned, the pink of his tongue peeking out between his teeth.

Braeden was taken aback, at first, by Sam’s blatant dig at his appearance. But before he could stop it, a low rumble grew in the pit of his stomach until it burst out of him in a deep, belly laugh. He threw his head back, and the rich sound of his mirth carried across the bailey.

“I take it back. You are a strange duck,” Sam said. He stood up, brushing remnants of crispel and grass from his breeches. “Come. Tristan said you and I were to polish weaponry in the armory until supper.” He offered Braeden a hand up. The hand in question was slender and delicate, despite a thick layer of calluses. Braeden allowed Sam to pull him to his feet, ignoring the tingling sensation that traveled up his entire arm.

He wondered if he’d made a mistake coming here.

***

Sam couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t for lack of exhaustion; five hours of training and twenty polished swords later, her body ached in places it had never ached before. She’d thought, as she lay in the dark for the first hour, that the excitement of the day was responsible for the quickness of her heart. Or maybe the reason was Braeden; she was unaccustomed to sharing a room and was acutely conscious of his nearness.

But now her heart raced in uncomfortably fast beats; she could feel her pulse leap in the base of her throat. Sweat matted her hair, trickling down her neck and back, and her hands were clammy. Something was wrong.

“Braeden,” she whispered. “Braeden, are you awake?”

“Aye.”

“Do you feel that? It feels…not right, somehow.”

Braeden lit a candle by his bedside, the soft glow casting shadows across his face, highlighting the otherworldliness of his eyes. No part of him looked human.

She gulped. “Braeden?”

“Aye, I feel it, too,” he said. He was fully dressed in his Yemaran black robes, two wickedly spiked knives in either hand. He gave her bedclothes a cursory glance. “Get dressed.”

Sam didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the closest pair of breeches and a tunic and ran into their private privy. She spent a moment to ensure that her binding was in place and then dressed hurriedly.

“I don’t have a sword,” she said. She’d been outfitted with a few different swords from the armory, but Tristan had held onto them.

“Do you know how to use a knife?” asked Braeden.

“Well enough, I suppose,” she said. “What’s going on? Why do I need a knife?”

“No time to explain. Here, catch.” Braeden retrieved another small dagger from the folds of his robes and tossed it across the room. The dagger sunk into the floor with a resounding thunk, missing Sam’s toe by a scant inch.

“Are you mad?” she gasped.

Braeden shrugged. “Thought you would catch it.” He crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed her by the wrist. “Come on, they’re almost at the keep.”

“Who’s almost at the keep?”

Braeden’s slit pupils spun counterclockwise until they ran horizontally, a black dash across the clear white of his irises. “Demons,” he said. He shivered, his pupils elongating, the skin on his forearms rippling and bubbling as if diseased. “They’re inside.”