“It’s too heavy,” she said when she saw Joslyn approaching out of the corner of her eye. “I can’t do it.”
“You can do it. Bend your knees. Push up through your legs and hips instead of trying to lift it with your arms. That’s where real strength comes from — ” she touched a finger to Tasia’s side “ — your center.”
“I said I can’t! It’s too much.”
Joslyn said nothing, crossed her arms against her chest.
“I’m tired and I’m hungry. I’m joining Mylla for my midday meal,” Tasia said, letting go of the boulder and turning her back on the rock pile.
“You can eat when you’ve moved the final three stones,” said Joslyn.
Tasia whipped around, gave Joslyn an incredulous look. “You forget your station. You are my servant, not the other way around. I give the orders.”
“I am the servant of the Empire,” Joslyn said. “Are you? Or do you serve only yourself?”
Tasia’s head jerked back as if the guard had hit her. No one spoke to her that way. No one except her father.
“How dare you,” the Princess hissed through clenched teeth at the insolent guard. “What do you know about serving the Empire? You’re nothing but a nomad from Terinto who happened to get lucky enough in a battle to find yourself with the cushy job of being my sword-wielding wet nurse.” She took a step closer to Joslyn. Tasia was shorter than the guard by half a head but stood on her tiptoes to be at eye-level. “I’ve known what it means to serve the Empire since before you knew what an Empire even was. I’ve known it since before I knew my alphabet. Since before I could dress myself.”
Joslyn’s eyes darted up the beach to where Mylla sat. The handmaid squinted at the Princess and her guard with a slight frown, obviously trying but failing to listen in on their conversation.
“You still don’t dress yourself, Princess,” said the guard.
Tasia slapped Joslyn hard across the face, leaving a red imprint of her hand against the tawny skin.
But the guard only blinked.
“I’m reporting you to my father.”
“And what do you think he will say when I tell him you gave up your training to indulge your stomach?”
Tasia narrowed her eyes. “My father wanted me to study rudimentary self-defense in case someone attacked me again. But this…” She waved her arm at the pile of stones. “This isn’t self-defense.”
“What your father wants is for you to become the true ruler of the realms after his time is over,” Joslyn said. “Which means you will order soldiers into battle one day, soldiers who will bleed and starve and die in your name. You will negotiate treaties and political alliances, upon which the lives of hundreds of thousands will depend. And yet you are already prepared to surrender to an enemy no greater than a pile of stones and sore hands. How will you be master of others when you cannot even master yourself?”
Pure shock overrode the Princess’s anger, rendering her mute. Joslyn had never spoken that many words in her presence at once. And all of them were disrespectful — practically treasonous. As if the unprecedented disrespect wasn’t enough, there was also the small, insistent voice in the back of Tasia’s mind that whispered,
She’s right. You know she is.
“Finish moving the stones before your midday meal, Princess,” Joslyn concluded.
Tasia shook a finger in front of the guard’s face. “I will tell my father what you just said. How you spoke to me. I will make sure you pay for this.”
“I spoke harshly to a member of the House of Dorsa, you’re right,” Joslyn said, though there was no hint of apology in her voice. “And it is quite possible I will be held to account for it later. But no one will know I said what I did until these stones have been moved, because you are not leaving this beach until they are.”
The Princess glared at her guard. Joslyn did not look away. Finally, Tasia ended the standoff with a sigh. She bent her knees, pushed through her legs and hips, and lifted the rock before her from its pile.
#
Some twenty minutes later, Tasia collapsed on the blanket next to Mylla.
The handmaid glanced at Joslyn, who stood a few yards off, her back to the young women.
“I thought you were never going to finish,” Mylla said quietly.
“I thought I wasn’t, either. Tell me you were a good girl and saved some food for me?”
Mylla lifted the lid of the basket. Inside was a fine porcelain plate with a cut of roast upon it; cold, congealed gravy formed a grayish sponge around it. A bowl held a few grapes, but they were wrinkled and wilted from the heat of the beach.
Tasia, too hungry to care, reached for the grapes anyway, managing to knock sand all over the cold roast.
“Oh, pig shite,” she grumbled. She stuffed three grapes into her mouth at once, and they tasted as bad as they had looked.
“Three grapes at a time?” said Mylla. “A rare display of coarseness from our well-mannered Princess. What would the Empress have said?”
Tasia stopped chewing long enough to give the handmaid a withering glare.
Mylla tittered. “Someone is in a foul mood.”
“You know I don’t like it when you bring up my mother. Especially not like that.”
Tasia swallowed her mouthful of desiccated grapes, coughing when they caught in her throat. She gestured for the canteen, and closed her eyes in relief when the cool water crossed into her parched mouth.
“I was only trying to make you smile,” Mylla said while Tasia drank. “I didn’t realize you were going to insist upon acting the grouch.”
Tasia wiped her mouth with the back of one hand. “You would be in a foul mood, too, if you’d been made to carry stones all morning. After an unexpected, two hour, early morning session with Remington catching me up on the politics of the Kingdom of Persopos.” She blew a strand of hair from her face. “Persopos. Who even cares about those hermits? Norix says the Kingdom’s involvement is Remington’s fantasy, designed as an excuse for the fact that the war lingers on.” She shook her head, annoyed to be caught between the rivalries of her father’s two favorite advisors. “All I know is that being heir so far means I always miss breakfast and end up covered in sand by midday.”
Mylla grinned and recapped the canteen. She sighed dramatically. “Oh, the difficulties of being a princess.”
Tasia flicked some of the sand that had dried on her palm onto the handmaid.
Mylla squealed. “This is a brand new dress!”
Tasia leaned over her, brushed even more sand onto the light blue silk.
Mylla swatted at Tasia’s arm. “Stop, you brat! You’ll stain it!”
Her handmaid’s irritation finally broke the spell of gloom that had settled over Tasia. She laughed merrily, hunger forgotten for a moment as she rolled towards Mylla, pinning the girl on her back. Tasia’s rough, boy-style tunic and trousers were still covered with sand, and she wriggled on top of Mylla, delighting in the girl’s high-pitched protests as she tried to get away.
Something snagged beneath Tasia’s knee, and both girls stilled when they heard the sound of ripping fabric.