Alex Lidell - The Cadet of Tildor

Shaking her head, she withdrew and sheathed the blade. “Master Nino.” She turned to him. “If we may leave now.”

He blinked twice, then wheeled around on his fellows. “ Out of the way, you sods!” The bodies partied and he turned to her, his knuckles touching his forehead. “Will that do, m’lady?”

“It will do just fine.” She nodded to him, and walked past. Once out of earshot of the crowd, Renee looked down at Diam, her heart pounding once more. “You promised to stay at the inn.”

The boy shrugged with no shred of remorse and Renee sucked in a long, slow breath, the image of what could have been turning her stomach.

At the mouth of the alley, beyond reach of the recent fighting ground, Alec’s mage friends, Jasper and Ivan, feigned invisibility. The latter had turned her practice blade into a torch. Renee eyed him suspiciously.

Alec crossed his arms. “What happened to you two?” His large body dwarfed the two twig-like mages. “You claimed to stay behind me.”

They both looked down, shuffling their feet.

“Well?” Alec leaned against the wall.

Ivan said nothing. Jasper pushed his glasses higher on his nose and pulled off his jacket, offering it to Renee. “Please take it,” he said when she made no move toward it. “It’s the one useful thing I would have done all day.”

“Coward,” Alec confirmed, and Jasper shrank like a kicked puppy.

Renee took the coat still dangling from his hand and slipped it on. “Why didn’t you two turn them all into charcoal?”

“Control in the midst of that mess?” Jasper shook his head. “One knock on the nose like you got and Ivan’d be useless.”

“Can’t you stay far away and . . . ” Renee made a vague motion with her hand.

Jasper snorted. “He might if he were battle trained. But Ivan here’s studying mostly thermal work—can help forge any weapon you want, so long as he doesn’t have to be around when you use it.”

“Didn’t see you rush in either, Jasper,” Ivan shot back.

“I’m a Healer!”

“So am I,” Alec countered. Anger flashed in his dark eyes. “What’s your point?”

“The point”—Renee stepped between Alec and the boys—“is that they are not fighters, and I am not a mage. You’re the only one who wants to be both. Live with it, Alec.” She turned to Jasper. “Thank you for the coat. I just realized I’m freezing.”

He smiled and stood straighter, spirit returning to his crimson face.

“Archers keep their distance too,” she continued in a voice her broken nose muffled. “And my old roommate, she couldn’t fight off a mosquito, but I’m sure she’ll preside over half of Atham one day. And I really could use a Healer more now than ten minutes ago.”

It was Alec’s turn to blush. “You want Jasper.” He cleared his throat. “When I called myself a Healer . . . I meant that’s what I decided to study. Right now, your nose is better off without my help.”

She turned to the quiet boy. “Would you mind?”

He nodded and stepped forward. Blue flame danced about his hand.

“Don’t worry, blinder.” Ivan made the title sound affectionate. “Jasper’s good. And he wants to show off anyway.”

Jasper put a hand on her shoulder, nipped nimbly through the Keraldi Barrier and poured his energy into her, urging the tissues to heal. It was nothing like Grovener’s magic, but the pain did lessen and air started to trickle through the passage. She thanked him sincerely and the boy seemed to grow from the praise.

“I’m hungry,” Diam announced, his fingers brushing Khavi’s fur.

Jasper sighed, adjusting his glasses. “It grows late. I need to get home before Mother gets furious, and I’ve got pups to feed besides.”

They walked him home, or at least close enough to hear his mother shout for Jasper to get his useless ass into the house. The boy sagged.

“Jasper . . . ” Renee let the words trail off. A pigeon or courier with a message from Sasha if not yet Seaborn might have arrived at Hunter’s Inn by now. Doubtful, but she couldn’t help longing to check. Pressing her lips together, she looked from her new friend to the mansion looming behind him. In the open doorway, a tall, slender woman with striking blond hair puffed a tobacco stick. The smoke snaked around her like a living shroud.

“Mother is . . . Mother.” Jasper forced a smile. “I’ll fare all right.”

Renee raised her hand in a guilty farewell. “Feels wrong to just leave him.”

The odd stare Ivan gave her chilled her chest.

Savoy braced his palms on his thighs and gasped for breath, staring at Jasper’s receding back until the closing door cut him off from view. It took the mage longer to tear through the barrier each time he tried. But Savoy’s attempts at defense carried their own consequences.

Rubbing a new spidery black line on his chest, Savoy frowned at the barracks’ door. Around him, the men debated the lineup for an upcoming fight, the first since Savoy’s arrival and his first chance at contact with the outside world. Unfortunately, their discussion offered in obscenities what it lacked in information.

The outside world. De Winter. The girl’s image invaded his mind again, vying for a place beside Diam and Connor. He saw her meeting him glare for glare in the snow-filled forest, then striding across the ballroom floor as if the Vipers crawling upon it were nothing of consequence. She was a good kid. No, not just a kid, a rising fighter and ally, a younger sister who had somehow snuck into his life. His fist clenched. Being a part of his life was not a safe place to be.

“Dreaming of the Freedom Fight, Cat?” Farmer’s voice shook him from his thoughts.

“There is no Freedom Fight, Farm. It’s an illusion to maintain order.” Savoy rose to his feet to check the door. “No one is letting anyone go.”

“It exists. Den used to be one of us.”

Den won his freedom? Savoy turned.

Farmer chuckled bitterly. “Might as well not exist, right? Would need to train a dozen years to get as good as him.”

Savoy offered a noncommittal grunt, but it was not the dozen training years that bothered him. It was the question as to why someone supposedly free would choose to stay. Frowning, he twisted the handle and felt his heart contract. “It’s open.”

Instead of rustling excitement, he heard only Pretty’s chuckle. “Shall you escape for a bath?”

Shrugging, Savoy stepped into the hallway and learned at once what the others already knew. Beyond the bathing room and the salle, all other doors in the small corridor had the blue glow of mage locks. He memorized the passageway regardless.

The door to the salle hung partially ajar, and lantern light spilled out. Savoy halted by the doorframe and slowed his breath, his body falling into the trained rhythm of surveillance.

At the far end of the room, Den stood with his back to the door. In his right hand, he clutched a sword as if it were a club, and stumbled around the floor. Every few steps he stopped to examine a book lying open on the ground. It took several minutes before Savoy recognized the crude movements as a torturous imitation of a beginner swordsmanship pattern. What kind of fighter doesn’t know one end of the sword from another?

Den paused, perspiration soaking his shirt, and cursed under his breath. When he put down his blade and bent over the book, Savoy slid into the room. A glance at the text confirmed the pattern Den was butchering that evening. Savoy picked up the discarded blade.

“Step north, block, lunge,” Savoy said, summoning the form drilled into him in childhood. His crisp words filled the salle. “Turn south, block, lunge.” The sword swooshed, slicing the air. “East. Same thing. Then west. If you don’t finish where you started, your stances are off.”