Only a day in Kaelyn’s new life at Angwyn had passed when someone rapped on the door to their shared room.
“Jillyn, Kaelyn,” said a voice, the words whispered through the crack in the door. “Are you awake?”
“I am now.” Kaelyn rubbed her eyes against the glimmer of candlelight that struck her face. The door cracked open farther, revealing Gerid as their early morning visitor.
Jillyn was already up and in her dress, pulling on her boots.
“What’s going on?” asked Kaelyn.
“Get dressed and come on.” Jillyn tugged on Kaelyn’s blankets.
“I’ll wait outside,” said Gerid, leaving them in the gray pre-dawn light.
Kaelyn hugged her blankets tighter, not wanting to leave the warmth of her bed.
“Dress warm, it’s cold outside.”
Kaelyn sighed. Her new friends were crazy for wanting to go into the cold, but her curiosity had been piqued.
“Fine.” She pushed back the layer of blankets and stumbled across the room to the chair she’d laid her dresses out on the night before.
They’d arrived late last night in a flurry of snow. After an arduous tour of the keep, they were outfitted with even warmer winter clothes and sent to bed. She shrugged into two dresses and a coat, laced on her boots, and slipped into the hall with Jillyn.
“Took long enough,” said Gerid with a grin.
“And we’re going out in the cold because. . . ?” asked Kaelyn.
“You’ll see.” Jillyn and Gerid rushed her down the hall to the stairs and a side door leading to the inner ward.
Cold air stung her cheeks and noise as they emerged in the gray drawn. As they headed across the snow-covered yard, she pulled her coat collar closer about her, thankful for the loan. The coat, made from two or three old blankets quilted together, was heavy and warm, but still only offered partial protection against the crisp chill. She didn’t care that the clansmen laughed at how many layers she put on to go outside. She couldn’t remember ever being so cold. Of course, that might be due to her not having much of a memory, but she’d been sure the very experience of being cold would have awakened other memories.
They followed a well-worn path across the inner and outer wards, out a sheepherder’s gate and into the mountains behind the fortress.
“All right, spill it,” she said, after they started climbing the sheep path.
“Just one more. . . .” Gerid shuffled around an outcropping into a field sheltered from the wind and snow. Aric stood by the entrance with a pile of sticks at his feet.
“This is perfect,” said Jillyn, twirling in the ankle deep snow. The pink and white tipped mountains were a backdrop worthy of a master painter, but no art supplies were present.
Kaelyn’s stomach roiled. “Perfect for what?”
Aric smiled and tossed a smoothed stick with one end wrapped suspiciously like a sword hilt at Kaelyn who caught it smoothly without thinking.
“Aric seems to think that his very presence isn’t enough to protect me,” said Jillyn.
“No, it’s in case I’m no longer around to take care of you.”
“What? The Great Aric no longer around?”
“Aric started teaching Jillyn basic sword fighting as soon as she learned about the assignment to Angwyn,” said Gerid, kicking at a small drift. “We thought you should join in.”
“But, isn’t that–” She wanted to protest that women didn’t learn sword fighting. She hadn’t thought she’d given herself away. Perhaps there was something they recognized that she didn’t know how to hide. Something so ingrained in her being that it happened without conscious thought.
“I know. Not very lady-like,” said Jillyn. “That’s why we keep it quiet. But he’s right. There are a lot of dangers out here, especially for travelers.”
Kaelyn wanted to argue with that, but she couldn’t. Whatever illicit knowledge she had, it had already saved her life. If she joined in, she was definitely going to give herself away. But if she alienated her new friends by protesting too much, she’d be alone, again.
“I’ll watch.” She tossed the stick to Gerid, who tossed it back to her. She caught it, realized the action made her look too experienced, and let it fall out of her hands.
“See, I’m too clumsy.”
“Which is the very reason you need these lessons,” said Aric.
“It’s really not a good idea.” Why couldn’t they just leave her alone about it?
“We’re not going to tell anyone.” Gerid picked up the stick and pushed it into her hand. “We won’t laugh. I promise.”
Did she really have a choice?
“I guess so.” The lessons probably wouldn’t last that long. All she had to do was wait for Jillyn to feel safe and she could go back to being the new softer, proper Kaelyn.
Aric began with simple moves similar to the ones Mac had started Kaelyn with–ones she’d quickly advanced through.
It was more difficult to act clumsy than perform the action. And it felt so good to move and swing and fall into the patterns. She’d forgotten how at home, how natural, it felt. She could let her body take over and forget about who she was and who she wasn’t and the dark fog in her mind.
“Hey! You’ve done this before,” said Jillyn, breaking Kaelyn’s trance.
“No I haven’t.” Kaelyn dropped the stick and offered a weak smile.
“You must have. It took me forever to learn that transition,” said Jillyn.
“Maybe it’s like a dance I know.”
Gerid snickered. “Jillyn was never good at dancing.”
“No, you have done this before,” said Aric. “You toss that stick around as if it doesn’t weigh a thing.”
“Well, it doesn’t,” she said, thinking back on the monstrous sword that Mac had given her. “Our . . . ah . . . broom at home was heavier.”
“Confess,” said Jillyn.
“There’s nothing to tell.” How had fate conspired to ruin her life again? Her throat tightened. It just wasn’t fair.
“There’s no shame in it,” said Gerid.
“Really. I’ve never–”
“Now you’re just lying.” Aric crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.
Kaelyn bit her lip. “Some things are better left unsaid.”
Jillyn squeezed her stick between her hands. “Who are you?”
“No one. I’m no one.” Kaelyn couldn’t be anyone if she couldn’t remember who she was.
“That story you told us in the pub. That wasn’t true,” said Aric. “Was it?”
Kaelyn shrugged, her gut churning. “What does it matter? It’s close enough to the truth.”
“You lied.” Jillyn’s mouth pinched into a tight line.
“Oh, and you’ve never told a lie.” The urge to scream at fate bubbled within Kaelyn. They looked at her as if she was deformed and although repulsed, they couldn’t bring themselves to look away. And it was true. She was a social failure. Her only option was to flee, be alone, and never, ever pick up a sword again.
She spun on her heel. Someone grabbed her shoulder. Before she realized what she was doing she’d seized his hand, jerked around, and tossed him to the ground.
Gerid stared up at her, his expression stunned.
“How–?” asked Aric, his eyes wide.
“How did you do that?” Gerid scrambled to his feet and brushed snow from his coat.
Jillyn clutched her stick to her chest. “He’s twice your size.”
She didn’t know. She hadn’t been thinking, it had just happened, as if she’d always known how to do that.
“I’ve never seen anyone that small throw someone that large before,” said Aric.
“I don’t know,” said Kaelyn. “I don’t– Just– Just leave me alone.”
She bolted around Gerid to the steep path off the plateau. Tears burned her eyes. She’d ruined everything again, and so soon. Would she never be able to rid herself of the creature within that knew things she wasn’t supposed to? She’d tried so hard since leaving Mythnar to keep her mouth shut and not say anything and she was sure that everyone thought she was shy, or worse: sullen. But better that than risk the chance of doing something wrong. Even keeping to herself hadn’t worked. This time her instincts had betrayed her. She didn’t know what she would do now. What could she do? She couldn’t possibly stay.
