Page 24

JAX

I do need my horse, as well as my gear, but I have time. Sephran needs to fetch Kutter from the mess hall, and they’re going to meet me in the stable yard. At least I think that’s what our plan is, after I parsed out the important words like need horse and meet here and half hour . But it gives me time to fetch my bow and bracer and to swipe an apple and a warm cheese biscuit from the Shield House.

But once I’m in Teddy’s stall, I’m less confident with the tack. I haven’t ridden since the night Tycho showed me around the grounds, and due to the days of rain, I haven’t had a lesson yet. I’ve only seen Master Hugh once, when he needed a tool from the forge, but the stable master finds me struggling with the girth while an endlessly patient Teddy chews at some hay. Hugh is older, well past sixty, with sun-weathered skin and a trim gray beard. He’s not very tall, but he’s lean and wiry.

“Sephran brought you the bench?” he says to me in heavily accented Syssalah, and it takes me by surprise. I’ve grown so used to everyone treating me like a complete fool that I started to forget that anyone else here actually speaks my language.

“Oh,” I say. “Yes.” Of course Hugh would know. Sephran said he got it from the stables. “Thank you.”

“If you need,” he says, “you should ask.”

I nod. “I will.” But I think of the soldiers knocking my tools into the dirt and I don’t want to ask for anything at all.

“Recruits will ride tonight,” Hugh says. “Will you return in time?”

His voice is a little stern, like I’m a schoolboy trying to skip out on lessons. “Yes,” I say. “How soon?”

“Two hours.”

I nod quickly.

“Good.” The sternness dissipates. “You need it.” Master Hugh steps into the stall beside me and unbuckles the girth, adjusting my saddle placement.

“Thank you,” I say sheepishly.

He pats me on the shoulder kindly, and it’s so unexpected that I’m not sure how to react. “Teddy will take care of you. Do not hurt yourself.”

“All right.”

He steps back like he’s going to exit the stall, but then he surveys me more critically. I’ve left one crutch against the wall to leave my hands free, but I still have the right one. Hugh’s eyes go from the crutch to the bottom of my right leg and then back to my face, and I find myself automatically bristling.

But he says, “Crutches around horses are no good. You should see the armorer. Maybe she can fashion a new foot.”

I stare at him like he’s speaking an entirely new language. “What?”

“Captain Ammax. I have seen her do it once or twice before. After the war.” He frowns. “She does not speak Syssalah. I will ask for you. It may have been too long. But I will ask.”

I shake my head, thinking of my attempts over the years to fashion something that would support my weight, wouldn’t be painful, and would allow me to move around the forge more efficiently than the crutches and ropes I used at home. Nothing ever worked very well—and half the time my father would snort at my efforts and toss them in the fire himself. “I’ve tried. Nothing stays on. It’s too hard to pivot around the forge—”

“Hush.” He waves a hand, tsking . “Let fate provide. Ammax does good work. I will ask.”

Let fate provide. There are just too many surprises in this conversation.

While I’m staring at him, he moves close to me again, until we’re standing side by side. “Where does your leg end? Match to mine. Show me so I can take measure.”

I’m so stunned that I can’t do anything but obey. He touches the same height on his own leg, measuring the distance from the ground.

“I will remember,” he says.

My thoughts are so rattled that I nod and say the word back to him in Emberish. “ Remember. ”

His eyes light up just like Sephran’s did. “You’re learning!”

I flush. Learning a lot more than I expected to.

He pats me on the shoulder again, then steps back out of the way. “Have a good ride.” His expression turns stern again. “Two hours. I make soldiers muck stalls if they turn up late.”

I nod. “Yes, Master Hugh.”

But he’s already shifted to move down the aisle, so I lead Teddy out of the stall to wait for the soldiers.

Sephran and Kutter don’t come alone. Three other men arrive in the stable yard, all laden with bows and quivers and various other weapons. Between the journey here and my work in the forge, I’ve seen too many soldiers, and I can’t remember if I’ve met them before. They have varying skin tones, but in armor, they’ve all begun to look the same: short hair, broad shoulders, muscled arms.

Cool eyes when they regard me.

I’m immediately wary. I didn’t realize Sephran was bringing others.

Kutter’s face breaks into a smile when he draws close, though. “Jax! How do you say hello in Syssalah?” His smile turns mischievous, and he reaches out to knock Sephran in the shoulder, then switches languages. He carefully pronounces the words to say, “ Suck a piece of horseshit ?” and looks back at me. “Is that right?”

That bursts through my tension and makes me laugh. I can’t believe he remembered the whole phrase, but then the soldiers never lacked for profanity. “Hello and goodbye,” I say.

Sephran rolls his eyes, but he smiles. “Jax.” He points to the three young men who’ve accompanied him and Kutter. “Trapp, Fowler, and Leo.”

Trapp and Fowler exchange a glance as if they’re as uncertain as I am. They must respect Sephran and Kutter, though, because when they look back at me, their expressions aren’t hostile. They each lift a hand and say, “Well met.”

“Well met,” I echo, equally reserved.

Leo is the youngest, possibly younger than I am, because he’s lacking some of the breadth and muscle of the others. He glances at Kutter, then back at me. He gives me a nod, followed by an uncertain smile. “Ah . . . suck a piece of horse— ”

“No!” Sephran snaps. He gives a withering look at Kutter, and I have no idea what he says, but the tone sounds a lot like, See what you’ve started?

Kutter just laughs. “Let’s go.”

It’s a few hours from sunset, so the fields surrounding Ironrose Castle are still filled with sunlight and the scents of cut grass and wildflowers. There’s a breeze out here that I was missing in the forge, and days of tension slip out of my shoulders. I’d been worried that the others would want to go tearing off at a gallop, but the ground is still soft from all the rain and they seem content to amble along.

The soldiers chatter as we ride, but I’ve grown used to the way Emberish rolls over me without too much comprehension. That said, I can pick out a few phrases. They’re complaining about someone I don’t know, something about more hours on patrol. Then I lose the thread and the words are nonsense again.

I look at the sky, at the clouds that have shifted west, and think of Tycho. Hopefully he’s reached the Crystal Palace by now. I wonder how quickly the king will allow him to return. I also wonder if there have been more scraver attacks—though the soldiers don’t seem concerned. Then again, maybe that’s the reason for more hours on patrol. Maybe it’s selfish of me to hope Tycho might return in less than a week. He risks his life for the safety of the kingdom. I’m just . . . ?me.

I think of our night together in the hayloft, the way he talked about the soldiers. The way he stopped me. He doesn’t talk much about what happened when he was young, but I know it weighs on him. He hides it well, but now that I know his past, I can see it in every interaction. His trust—his loyalty —is like a gift.

As I consider the way it’s tearing him apart, I have another thought.

Maybe it’s a curse.

“Jax.”

I realize the others have stopped, and I was letting Teddy meander along. My cheeks flare with warmth, and I jerk the horse to a stop, then look over at Sephran. “Yeah.”

He looks vaguely amused. “We’re here.”

We’ve reached the archery fields. Trapp and Fowler have dismounted, and they’re already tethering the horses. Leo is definitely the youngest, and possibly the lowest in rank, because there seems to be some good-natured ribbing going on. I tether Teddy and untie my crutches, and this generates a few more exchanged glances, but at least no one is spitting at me.

Back in the woods in Briarlock, I’d created an archery course of my own, made of leather squares nailed to trees and a few rings I hung from branches. Here on the grounds of Ironrose, there are dozens of targets set at varying heights and distances along the field, from wide panels of painted wood to tiny rounds of stuffed muslin that must require impeccable aim. Some are even strung from above, bearing targets that swing in the breeze.

I don’t know the rules here, whether we’re to take turns or what. I’m on the outskirts of this easy soldier camaraderie. I hang back a bit, adjusting Teddy’s tack, re-buckling my bracer, smoothing my thumb along my bow. Kutter shoots first, and after hearing his lesson on fletching lengths during our journey, I’m not surprised to find that he’s a skilled archer, quick and accurate. Every arrow hits near the center of the target, even a smaller circle that’s at least seventy yards away. He shoots four, then steps aside.

Trapp is good, too, but not quite as accurate. He hits the targets, but far from center. Fowler is accurate on anything close, but at a distance, his shots miss, and there’s some teasing from the others. I try to tuck their words away, to parse them out, to understand.

Careful, you might hit the castle.

Those wildflowers had it coming.

“Yeah, yeah,” Fowler says, rolling his eyes. “It’s windy.”

Sephran sees me looking between them, and he lifts a hand, running his fingers through the air. “Windy,” he says, then blows out a breath, mimicking the wind.

I know this one, because they taught me about wind before. I tap my temple and smile. “I remember.”

He grins in response. “Good.”

Leo steps up next. He nocks an arrow, aiming for a closer target. Kutter speaks to him, and there’s no teasing in his voice now. It’s all instruction. The youngest soldier hits three targets of the four he attempts, only one skipping off the edge of a wooden plank. The others whistle and clap, and Leo waves a hand, shrugging them off, but I can tell he’s pleased.

I expect Sephran to go next, but he looks at me. “Your turn,” he says. “Shoot.” He points at me, then mimes drawing a bow and releasing an arrow. There’s a note of militaristic challenge in his voice that’s similar to what I hear from Tycho.

The others are quiet now. Watching. I have no idea what Sephran said about why I was joining them, whether he truly meant it as a mark of kindness or friendship or even just plain pity, but this feels so dramatically far from my life in Briarlock that I almost falter.

But then I think of something Tycho once said to me, and it gives me courage.

What are you afraid of?

I take my spot, then drop my crutches to kneel in the grass for better stability. It is a bit windy, so I feel for a few arrows with short fletching from my quiver. I nock an arrow and aim for a target no one has used.

The first shot snaps hard off my bow, and I’m glad for my bracer. I haven’t shot in days. The arrow strikes the target a few inches left of center. I wince and nock another, aiming farther down the range. This one hits closer to center, sticking hard. Better.

At my back, the soldiers are silent.

I take a slow breath. My third target is long range, but I take my time, and I’m rewarded when the arrow hits the bull’s-eye. For the fourth, I choose one of the hanging panels, waving gently in the wind, easily as far as Kutter’s shots. The arrow cracks right into the center.

I turn to find the soldiers staring at me. Kutter gives a low whistle and claps three times. Sephran punches me in the shoulder. “Nice shooting, Archer.”

That makes me blush.

Trapp looks at Sephran. “Was he a soldier?” he asks, as if I’m not right there and can’t attempt to understand these simple words. “In Syhl Shallow?”

“No,” I say. I hook my bow over my shoulder, then take my crutches and push to standing. “Blacksmith.”

Fowler is still staring at me, like I’ve tricked them all somehow. “But—but how ?” he demands.

Lord Tycho , I want to say, but that feels too heavy, too personal. Too much of an attachment to someone who is far above my station.

Instead, I pull another arrow out of my quiver and run a finger along the fletching, then nod at Kutter and Sephran. “Short,” I say, repeating their lesson from last week. I smile, then shrug. “Good in wind.”

Sephran laughs. “I like you, Jax.”

My blush goes nowhere. I like them, too.