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“Good,” Memnon says, and I hate how, despite how spooked I still am by him, I preen under his praise. “Now sight your target and aim for the chest. That will be the easiest mark to hit.”

I do as he asks, pulling back on the bow string.

“Once you’re ready, shoot.”

I take a deep breath and focus on the target. My power sifts out of me, coiling along the arrow’s shaft.

“Wait,” Memnon says, pressing a hand to my bow and forcing the weapon down. He shakes his head. “No magic for this,” he says.

I glance at him questioningly. During our travels, he hadn’t minded that I used it when I trained.

Memnon must hear my unspoken question because he explains, “In battle, you cannot solely rely on magic to save you. As you saw days ago, it can run dry.” He steps in behind me once more, his body heat warm against my own. “This, my queen, you must learn from practice and repetition alone.”

So it’s going to be like reading, he means. I try not to get dispirited by that because I know this means it will take a long time to master.

“Know your weapon,” Memnon continues. “Like your horse, it is another limb. Find your target, and this time, when you release your arrow, let your heart go with it.”

I close my eyes for a moment. When I open them, I focus on nothing but the tautness of my bowstring, my grip on the fletching, and the target.

I release the arrow and watch it fly across the field, then sink into the stuffed dummy’s low belly.

“Good, my queen. Very good,” Memnon says, and again, his praise feels like a stroke across my skin. “Like sex, the point where arrow meets flesh is another sort of intimacy,” he says. “If your essence is in that arrow, then when it finds its mark, a part of you is there, with your victim, as they die. It’s a holy moment.”

He speaks of the act with such reverence that, for a breath, I almost believe him. But then, I have my own opinion of that moment, one that’s been tormenting me since the night of the attack.

“It’s murder,” I state softly. I’ve seen my share of it in callous Rome, and now I have done it myself. There is nothing holy about the act of taking a life. Memnon should know this even better than me, considering how he so recently invoked a curse to kill his enemies.

“Itisdeath,” Memnon agrees. “An end point and a beginning, a crossing over from this land to another. It deserves respect.”

I stare at the straw dummy, my arrow still sticking out of it.

Memnon clasps my shoulder. “Let’s do this again, only this time, we’ll try it on horseback.”

We train for hours: on the ground, on an idle horse, and then on a moving one. I’m terrible at it all, but especially on the moving horse. I’d have better luck hitting my target blindfolded than actually aiming at this rate.

Unfortunately, I’ve also gained an audience, one that has laughed intermittently throughout my training today. Unlike me, most of them have practiced their fighting skills since they were children. Watching their queen fumble at what they can so easily do is apparently quite amusing.

After retrieving the latest round of spent arrows, Memnon rides up to me. Without preamble, he reaches out, wraps an arm around my midsection, and drags me off my horse and onto his. I yelp as I’m weightless for a moment, before my backside hits Memnon’s thighs.

I look quizzically up at him as I sit sidesaddle on the beast, but my warlord husband is busy directing his horse into a tight turn.

“The queen’s training is over,” he calls over his shoulder to the lingering onlookers.

Thank the gods. The day was starting to feel endless.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“You made me a vow back on the battlefield.”

My brows rise at his unexpected response even as my stomach twists at the reminder of that night. It takes me a moment to recall this vow.

I’ll do whatever you want, I had promised him.

And now he’s collecting on that promise.

Despite my exhaustion, a thrill runs through me. My own pounding desire for Memnon began today when I first caught sight of him on horseback. It’s only been building since, and not even my recent skittishness around him can quell it.

Behind us, the other warriors whoop and whistle, like Memnon is racing away with some war prize, rather than his wife.