A Throne for Sisters

“Every man we can get,” the veteran said. “The regiments are no place for girls. Especially not ones barely old enough to be away from their mothers.”

Kate could feel her expression hardening as her anger rose. “Shut your mouth. You know nothing about my mother.”

She saw the veteran shrug. “Oh, are you going to make me? Dancing around with your wooden sword as if you have a clue what you’re doing with it? Will was being soft with you, girl. Do you want to know what a real fight feels like?”

Kate could feel herself getting angry now. “I know what a fight feels like.”

That got another laugh from the assembled men, and there was a kind of cruelty behind it. Kate caught thoughts of battles, of moments when men had come at them with blades. They weren’t taking her seriously. Even Will looked more as though he wanted to get Kate out of there than like he wanted to support her.

“I don’t think you do,” the veteran said. He gestured toward one of the younger recruits, a boy who had more fat than muscle, but even so was bigger than Kate. “You, get out there with a practice blade. Let’s show the little girl why she isn’t cut out for war.”

The boy stepped forward, looking nervous as he took a wooden sword. Even so, he stood out in front of Kate, adjusting his grip as he raised his weapon, as if trying to remember what he was doing.

“This isn’t a good idea,” Will said. “Why don’t we just – ”

“You brought her here,” the veteran snapped. “Now remember where you stand in this company and get out of the way. If the girl wants to fight, she can fight.”

Kate reached out to put a hand on Will’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Will.”

She stepped out to face up to her opponent, raising her weapon the way she had when training with Will. The men around her laughed, or joked to one another, or made bets on exactly how long she would last.

“The fight keeps going until one of you gives in,” the veteran said. “You want to be one of us, girl? You have to show us that you’re not weak. Begin!”

Her powers gave her plenty of warning of the first couple of attacks, letting her dodge back out of range so that they cut through the air. But her powers weren’t a perfect guide, and Kate still had to rely on her reflexes and her reactions, parrying on instinct, trying to get her sword in the way.

When she did, the impact jarred down her arm. The recruit she was facing might have weight to lose, but he still hit with all the power that his size gave him. Kate’s sword shivered with each blow, and she knew that this boy wanted to hurt her then. He wanted to prove to the men there that he was one of them; that he had the same toughness, the same ruthlessness. Kate gave way under the attacks.

Kate could see then just how much Will had been holding back when he’d been fencing with her. There hadn’t been this relentless impact, or this level of aggression behind the blows. Despite it, Kate gritted her teeth and tried to fight back. She guessed that she would at least have greater speed than the boy, although the weight of the practice blade made even that difficult.

Kate cut and thrust, only to find her blows blocked with as much violence as there had been in the boy’s attacks before. Kate stepped back, trying to think, working out if she could manage to feint past the boy’s parries, perhaps, or slip around him with her smaller size and agility.

“Don’t stand there!” the veteran yelled. “Attack her! Close her down!”

Kate wanted to complain about the boy being coached from the sidelines, but there was no time for it. The boy charged at her, pressing in, forcing his blade against hers as he pushed closer. Like that, there was no space for Kate to use her speed, while he could bring his full size and strength to bear.

He hit out with the hilt of his wooden training sword, the rounded basket of it catching Kate across the jaw. She felt the clunk of wood meeting bone with a jarring thud, and for a moment, the world seemed to spin. The boy hit her again, and she fell to one knee.

“Don’t stop,” the veteran called. “If a foe is down, you finish them!”

Kate tried to raise her sword to block the next blow, but the impact of it was enough to jar the weapon from her hand this time, sending it spinning into the muddy grass. The boy struck her once, then again, with the wooden blade. He didn’t hold back, as if to do so would be to show weakness in front of the others. Instead, his face reddened with the effort of swinging it, as if the fact that Kate was still there was only making him angrier.

Kate had been beaten before. She knew that the art of it was to absorb the blows, to never show pain, to just accept what you couldn’t change. She couldn’t give in to that, though. Instead, she threw herself forward, trying to tackle the boy and keep the fight going.

The hilt of the wooden sword struck her across the jaw again and she fell full length to the grass. The boy brought the sword down across her shoulders, then her back, obviously determined not to stop until he was told.

Will was there then, wrenching the blade from his hands with ease. Kate guessed that she should have been grateful that he was stepping in, but right then, it just felt like a demonstration of how unskilled the opponent had been who had just beaten her. Will went to help her up, and Kate brushed away his help, forcing herself back to her feet.

“I can do it,” she said.

“About all you can do,” the veteran snapped from the sidelines. “Will, get this girl out of our camp. I don’t want to see her again. The only place for women in the army is as wives and whores.”

Kate wanted to spit in his face, but she suspected that would just earn her another beating, and right then, she could barely stand from the one she’d just had. This time, when Will took her arm, she let him.

“Come on,” Will said, “we need to get out of here before they decide to do something worse.”

Kate nodded, letting him help her from the training field. She had never felt as humiliated as she did then. She’d thought that she could fight, but one bigger boy had been enough to beat her. She would have added his name to the list of those she wanted revenge on, but that was a problem in itself.

How could she ever hope to take revenge if she couldn’t even win a fight on a practice field? How could she do it when she was this weak, this helpless?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Sophia felt strange, slipping out of the castle grounds and into the city. One of the guards on the gates fell into step with her, and she turned, staring at him, not knowing what he wanted.

The prince will have our posts if we let anything happen.

“You’re following me because you think it’s what Prince Sebastian wants?” Sophia asked.

“Yes, my lady,” the guard said.

A part of her wanted to tell him that it wasn’t what she wanted, because there were places she needed to go today that were better visited unobserved. She didn’t, though, and not just because it would have been suspicious for a noblewoman to turn down that kind of protection.

The truth was that Ashton was a dangerous place. Just the thought of having to go down into it filled Sophia with a sense of fear at all the things that might happen. She’d seen the darker side of the city in her brief time on the street, and worse, she knew there might still be hunters out there.

“Very well,” Sophia said, trying to think how a noble would put it, “but some of this is… a delicate matter. I can trust your discretion?”

“Absolutely, my lady. Would you like me to carry your bag?”

Sophia clutched the leather sack she’d had a servant bring closer. The contents could get her into too much trouble.

“It’s fine,” she said. “There is a gift for Sebastian involved.” The lie came easily enough. It was the only thing Sophia could think of that might ensure the prince didn’t hear every detail.

“He will not hear about it from me,” the guard promised.

First, though, she had a message to send.

Kate? Can you hear me?

She didn’t get an answer, of course. It was too much to ask that their power would operate as smoothly across a city as across a room. Even so, Sophia summoned up an image of one of the squares below the palace, hoping that her sister would get it and be able to come.

It was impossible to know if Kate had gotten the message, so Sophia set about her other task in the town. She asked around the square, being discreet, lifting thoughts where she needed to until she found what she was looking for. It was hard to do it with the presence of the guard just a few paces behind, but to his credit, he didn’t comment or try to dissuade her. She could see why from his thoughts.

Nobles do strange things. It’s not my place.

When she reached the pawnbroker’s shop, Sophia did her best to look the part of a nervous young noblewoman. It didn’t take a lot of acting, just a few thoughts about what might happen if the wrong people saw her here. It was bad enough that there was still the guard near her, watching her every move.

“Wait here for me,” Sophia ordered, and then plunged into the shop.

Inside, a man in an expensive suit of clothes that had obviously been patched many times regarded her warily.