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“Is she alone?” Scarlett asked.

“I do not know, but we do not have much time. Drake and the other men are out hunting, and they will return soon,” Tava answered.

Scarlett uncoiled from the chair, tucking her book under her arm. “Lead the way.”

The girls walked silently from the parlor, nodding to a couple of passing servants in the hallway. They slipped out the back terrace doors and crossed the grounds to the training quarters.

The Tyndell Manor resided on a sprawling estate, complete with its own stables, garden, training quarters, and archery grounds. The manor itself was two stories with a dozen suites, several studies, sitting rooms and the like. Lord Tyndell was the noble of the manor, residing there with his two children, Drake and Tava. His wife, she had been told, had passed from a wasting disease when the children were young.

While Scarlett currently resided with nobility, she was not noble by blood. Not this type of nobility anyway. She had plenty of wealth thanks to her mother, who had been a highly sought after healer in the capital city until her death when Scarlett was nine. She had never known her father. When her mother died, she was taken in by the Fellowship across the street from the Healer’s Compound her mother had run. She had resided at the Fellowship until she had been sent to live with the Tyndells a year ago when she was eighteen.

Scarlett’s long dress swished across the grass as they hurried the final few feet and pushed open the doors to the training barracks. The main room was empty, and Scarlett glanced at Tava. The girl shrugged her shoulders, biting her bottom lip nervously. Scarlett huffed a loud sigh, then snarled to the empty room, “While I certainly have all the time in the world these days, I don’t particularly enjoy being summoned like a godsdamned dog.”

“So temperamental lately. Although, I guess that is nothing new,” a female voice drawled, flipping a dagger in her hand as she came into view from the darkest corner of the room. “For the love of Arius, did you take a stroll around the grounds before you came to see me?”

Scarlett rolled her eyes, throwing the woman a vulgar gesture as she meandered to the wall of weapons. Swords gleamed, their hilts varying from large and intricate to basic and dull. Hunting knives, bows and quivers full of arrows, daggers, and hatchets all adorned the wall.

“You’ve been living here nearly a year now, and you still haven’t learned how to act like a Lady?” the woman asked, coming up beside her. Two scimitars hung at her waist while a sword was strapped to her back.

“It would appear not,” Scarlett replied, picking up a basic sword. There was nothing special about it as she checked its balance. Deciding it would do for today, she turned to face the other. She was slightly taller than Scarlett and had pale skin with ashy blonde hair. Her eyes were the color of honey.

“Good,” she replied, a feral smile spreading across her face. “I’d hate to have to break in a new partner. The guys at the Fellowship just aren’t the same.”

“You mean none of them are as pretty to look at?” Scarlett asked, leading the way to one of the training rings.

“I mean,” the woman said, getting into a defensive sparring position, “that none of them are as wonderful as myself; and they bore me to no end, despite being plenty pretty to look at.”

“The self-love in this room is truly astounding,” Tava mused from her position by the building’s entrance, keeping watch.

Scarlett and the woman both laughed as they entered into a dance of thrusts, side steps, twirls, and lunges. Their swords sang as they whipped through the air. They were blurs, moving so fast you couldn’t tell where one stopped and the other began. Scarlett cursed as she realized a mistake too late, and the woman brought her sword down in a winning maneuver. The other woman snickered, lowering her sword. “You’re out of practice.”

“Unlike you, I don’t live in a keep full of thieves and assassins who can spar with me at all hours of the day,” Scarlett scowled.

“Now, now,” she chided, “we could have you gone from here tonight. You know what is required of you.”

“I have no desire to go from one prison to another,” Scarlett scoffed.

“He wants you to come home,” the woman said softly, closing the small distance between them so that Tava could not hear.

“That is no longer my home, Nuri.”

“And this place is?” she asked, her brows rising.

“No, but for now I am protected here, I suppose. Until I figure out…something else. Until I can disappear.”

“Please don’t do anything stupid.”

“You’re one to talk,” Scarlett replied with a pointed look.

“We’re not talking about me,” Nuri said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Come home, Scarlett. You want to disappear? No one knew you were alive for years there.”

“Yes, but again, I have a measure of protection here…from all of them.”

“You would be just as protected there. He has said so more than once. You just need to give in on this one thing,” Nuri insisted.

“I will not be shoved back into a cage of hiding,” Scarlett snarled.

“You’re in a cage now,” Nuri bit back, readying herself in the training ring again.