Joslyn gave Tasia a weak grin. “The Empire has odd notions of service and protection.”
“Then what do they say about service in Terinto?”
“Slaves serve masters; free people serve those they deem to be worthy.”
“Do you deem me worthy, Joslyn of Terinto?” She’d meant the question lightly, playfully, but somehow it didn’t come out that way. She found herself hoping that the guard would say yes despite everything.
Joslyn turned her head, dark eyes meeting the Princess’s. Tasia’s heart seemed to leap of its own accord, as if the guard’s gaze had transferred an unexpected energy.
The guard searched Tasia’s face for a moment, then she smiled. “I believe you have greater potential than anyone yet realizes. Including yourself.”
“And what potential is that?”
“That is for you to discover.” Joslyn held out her hand, and Tasia placed the whiskey-soaked rag and the needle in it. “It’s late,” the guard said. “We should both sleep.”
“We should.” Tasia rose from the stool and moved to leave. But then she stopped, turning back to face the guard. “Joslyn?”
“Yes?”
But once the guard met her eyes, Tasia was no longer sure what she wanted to say.
“Tomorrow, instead of sneaking out, let’s play Castles and Knights again,” she said at last. “I’m irritated that you keep beating me.”
Joslyn smiled. “That sounds like an excellent idea.”
20
Non-stop training.
The week leading up to Tasia’s fact-finding mission to the eastern front was filled with non-stop training.
Mornings began before dawn with Joslyn, with Tasia creeping out of bed while Mylla still slumbered. After the night at the Speckled Dog, the Princess had apologized to her handmaid through tears for being such a spoiled brat; through her own tears, Mylla apologized to Tasia for not telling the Princess of her engagement to Umfrey sooner. With each of them set to leave the capital in a matter of days, Tasia forgave all. She cherished Mylla more than she ever had before, loved her more than she ever had before, and it seemed that Mylla did the same. And though they both promised that they would write long letters to one another every single week, Tasia suspected something was ending between them. Ending forever.
Tasia might’ve felt more sorrow over it if not for the fact that she was so busy. On the beach, as soon as the first orange-and-pink rays of sun bounced across the waves, she ran barefoot from one pile of stones to the next, transporting the rocks one by one until each pile disappeared from one side and reappeared on the other three times. Next came grappling, followed by parrying, thrusting, parrying, dodging with a dagger in each hand as Joslyn tried to find an opening with the heavy wooden practice sword.
Tasia had wanted to learn the sword, too, wanted to mimic the way that the guard could weave the long steel blade through the air like a snake, but it was still too heavy for her to wield easily, despite all the carrying of rocks.
“Besides,” Joslyn said, hands on her hips while she caught her breath, “a dagger is easier to hide than a sword.”
After the training session on the beach, Tasia broke her fast in the kitchens, sandy and sweaty, with the guard at her side. She slurped down her hot oats and milk with more appetite than she could ever remember having, but no matter how much she ate, the ropey muscles growing down her arms, around her middle, through her legs never seemed to soften. Some days, Tasia felt embarrassed for the new muscles; it seemed that every morning she looked less like a princess and more like the washer woman.
Or like a guard.
Joslyn didn’t eat breakfast. She never ate until the noontide meal, though she didn’t explain why. She took tea in the morning as Tasia ate, but not the tea Tasia was used to. Joslyn’s tea was particularly strong, with a smoky scent to it that lingered around the guard for hours afterward.
“You’re still breaking the line of your wrist on the forward thrust,” the guard said one morning while Tasia helped herself to a second helping of hot oats.
Ever since the night Tasia sewed her wound closed, Joslyn was slightly more open and relaxed with the Princess, but her primary topic of conversation remained self-defense.
“It’s a good way to have the knife taken from you,” Joslyn continued, “or to shatter your arm upon the blow.” She tapped Tasia’s forearm with one long finger.
The Princess looked down at the finger upon her arm. She swallowed her oats too quickly, scalding the back of her throat. “Can’t you stop teaching long enough for me to eat my meal?”
It looked for a moment as if the guard might smile. But she didn’t.
Tasia shook her head. “It’s bad enough that Norix and old One-Leg drill me through two bottles of lamp oil on military operations every evening. ‘How many men in a battalion?’ ‘How many in a division?’ ‘Describe how to execute a flanking maneuver.’” Tasia took another bite of oats.
“You really shouldn’t call General Remington ‘old One-Leg,’ Tasia,” was all Joslyn said in response.
Tasia waved her hand impatiently. “I know, I know. He was the greatest war hero of his generation. The difference between the Empire losing the Western Rebellion and winning it. Someone I should deeply respect, blah blah blah.”
Joslyn chuckled, but she seemed pensive.
“What?”
The guard shook her head.
“I didn’t think it was possible for you to grow more serious than you usually are anyway, but every day that we get closer to leaving for the front, your face becomes more stone-like than the day before,” Tasia said. “What troubles you?”
Joslyn sipped her tea, let out a rare sigh. “We are headed to the Sunrise Mountains in less than a week, Princess,” she said. “The tribes east of the mountains have been pouring over in such quantities that they overran an Imperial outpost and destroyed an entire battalion, razing villages along the way.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“I’ve fought in the East. The barbarians have never had enough men to route a battalion,” Joslyn said. She took another sip of tea. “Perhaps I am troubled because we ride into a danger that makes little sense.”
Tasia grinned. “Scared of a few mountain men? Or is it Lord M’Tongliss’s talk of demons that has you upset?”
Joslyn shrugged, eyes taking on a far-away glaze.
Tasia glanced around the kitchen. She and Joslyn sat on tall stools at a rough-hewn table in the center of the hot, steam-filled room. A fire crackled in a large hearth to their right a few yards away, and one of the cooks, plump from sampling her own work for too many years, waddled over to it. She pulled a long-handled wooden spoon from a peg next to the fire and stirred one of the large cooking pots. The smell of the noontide meal — lamb in a citrus sauce — wafted towards them.
Besides the cook, who was occupied enough and far away enough that she wouldn’t overhear them, Tasia and Joslyn were alone. Nevertheless, Tasia lowered her voice as she said to Joslyn, “I haven’t felt safe since the night I was attacked. I think a part of me… I’m sure it sounds strange to you, seeing as how you’ve seen the horrors of battlefields first-hand, but… I think a part of me wants to go East to get away from whoever is trying to get me killed here.”