Their sword master was a quarter-valco swordsman from Fedria, middle-aged, imported as a gift to the caudillo by one of his vassals. He was an impassive man with the technique to best Javier, who was half valco and was expected to surpass them all. The sword master cut and bruised Reina anytime it was her turn to demonstrate her quickness of foot or the strength in the muscles knotting around her arm. Reina endured it all, even as Javier laughed when she fell and jeered when her blunt sword feigned a strike that made her a victor. She did it despite feeling Celeste’s quiet gaze on her, for no matter how Reina tried to ignore it, it was always a distraction.
Steely clouds shrouded ?guila Manor after their practice one afternoon. The grounds were enveloped by chilly air smelling of rainwater, which would likely descend from the mountains as soon as nighttime fell. The laundress and her children bustled to and fro, bringing the dried linens back into the manor. A delicious scent of charred meats wafted from the kitchens, and Reina’s stomach rumbled in protest, for she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to have any of it.
Despite the precarious relationship she had managed to secure with her grandmother, the help still viewed her as one of them, which suited Reina just fine. Except when they expected her to be an assistant to the cook or the laundress or the scullery maid and then denied her food when she didn’t perform her tasks, which, with her combat lessons, was nearly every day.
She slumped against the moss-covered walls of the yard. The backs of her heels were chafed, and her wrist throbbed from a blow she’d received earlier. A wayward chicken from a nearby flock scurried past her, shooed by Javier, who approached with his signature scowl.
“Every day I wonder, is this the day Laurel’s pet nozariel is going to stop showing up? And every day you prove me wrong.”
Reina matched his gaze with equal animosity. “You should stop thinking I’m going to give up.”
He kicked a loose pebble at the chicken, who clucked miserably as it ran away. “Why do you need to learn to use a sword? Is your grandmother going to send you to die for Brother’s wars?” He pointed at her with his left-handed sword, the tip of the metal getting uncomfortably close to Reina’s eyes.
“She can go hunt tinieblas with us,” Celeste said, returning from the armory after putting away the sword she used exclusively for training.
“Do you really think I would entrust my life to a nozariel?”
Reina rose to her feet with her dull sword tight in her grip, meeting him face-to-face.
“Why don’t you prove you’re even worth bringing to a tiniebla raid?” His gaze landed on her chest, his valco eyes seeing the iridio pulsing in her transplant heart. He knew the anger he inspired in her. “Why don’t you show me what beating that little dummy over and over has taught you, or are you scared?”
“She’s not ready to fight you,” Celeste said.
But Reina didn’t want Celeste’s defense. “No, it’s all right—let’s do it.”
He smirked and lunged at her a split second later. His sword sliced her neck, or at least it would have, if she hadn’t ducked and swiveled out of the way, returning a strike of her own. Javier blocked it, the impact sending a vibration down her injured wrist. She hissed but pushed him off. He swung again. Her sword whistled in the air before parrying him. Each of his steps and swings were an invasion on her defenses. All Reina could do was block and step farther back, the yard ringing with the clash of steel. He slashed upward, and she blocked, but the impact pushed her to the wall behind her, where her head banged against the ragged wall, her tail slamming against the stone. She angled her weapon badly, so she couldn’t stop the tip of his sword from cutting her thigh. Flames licked her leg. Her blood ran in warm rivulets, then pooled in her boot. Reina bit the insides of her cheeks to stop herself from voicing her pain and giving him the satisfaction. He lifted his sword again, and without her defenses, Reina knew she was at his mercy.
“Enough, Javier!” Celeste said behind them.
He stopped with the blade close to Reina’s neck. “If this were a real battle, you’d be dead,” he purred. His breath smelled like a stale, dirty rag.
Up close Javier reminded Reina of the dead, with his blueish lips and skin so pale she could see the veins branching down his temples. It was hard to breathe, imprisoned by the blood-red madness in his eyes.
He rammed his pommel against Reina’s wrist, making her lose grip, and kicked her useless sword aside. In his proximity he felt the ragged edges of the iridio ore underneath her shirt and flinched.
“What—” he said, pushing off her.
It was the opportunity Reina needed to sprint out of his reach, even if it would be a futile escape, for each of his valco strides were twice as fast as hers. But Celeste stepped between them. An undercurrent of emotions sparked the air between the two valcos. Javier’s scowl turned into a smirk as he faced his niece. He raised his sword to her instead, a challenge that Celeste accepted.
Celeste slapped her hands together, her bracelet containing an iridio solution jingling from the movement. When she pulled her hands apart in a wide arc, a glowing red scythe materialized between her palms: The handle solidified into ebony etched with flowing rivers of iridio red, and the curved blade manifested from the air, which rippled like a heat mirage.
“Are you done with your theatrics?” Javier asked her. Celeste merely tilted her head, and Javier lunged.
The pain of her bleeding thigh was forgotten as Reina watched Javier and Celeste exchanging blows. One left swipe, one right parry.
“He’s… not threatening her, is he?” a gentle voice said beside Reina, emerging from the archway to the manor.
Reina saw Do?a Laurel and attempted to straighten up in respect. Instead, she earned herself a lick of lightning from her wounded thigh. She sucked in a breath.
“Oh—Reina.” Do?a Laurel took her arm to give her support.
Reina pulled herself free. She couldn’t be a burden to Do?a Laurel, especially as her growing belly attested that she held the most precious thing in the household.
“I’m all right, mi se?ora. This is part of our training,” Reina said, stretching the truth.
“You must have Do?a Ursulina tend to you at once.”
Reina could only offer her a tight smile in return. As far as Reina was concerned, the sort of spells Do?a Ursulina bothered with had nothing to do with healing.
“So… is Javier being gentle?” Do?a Laurel asked again. “They—they move too fast for my eyes to see properly,” she admitted with a little laugh. “I can’t tell if he’s being sportsmanlike.”
Reina’s immediate inclination was to lie a reassurance. Her gaze traveled to the sparring valcos, and her heart jumped in a concerned pirouette as Javier sliced the air over Celeste, each time getting closer to drawing blood. “Y-yeah. He’s not being too rough.”
She picked up her dull sword in case she needed to intervene, even if she was wounded, and was nozariel, and could never measure up to the speed of a valco.
A pained cry filled the yard when Celeste miscalculated one of Javier’s strikes and his sword sliced the side of her arm. Celeste collapsed to her knees, releasing her scythe to nurse her wound. And Reina couldn’t understand why she would lower her guard just as Javier spun around to strike a second time.