Page 1 of Enchanted Shadows (The Enchanted Kingdom #6)

A smarter man wouldn’t have used a real sword, but “smart” wasn’t exactly a word strung along with my name very often.

Brave? Maybe.

Foolish? More than likely.

Devastatingly handsome? No doubt.

I swung upward with force, shoulder blades screaming under the speed and depth of the motion.

The thing with practice swords was that they gave you a false sense of security, even the ones Miles and I typically used, which were weighted to be as heavy as the real thing.

With those, you forgot to fear the sting the real sword could leave.

I’d rather meet that fear head on now and remember it well.

There was a big difference in being comfortable with a weapon and being complacent.

Maybe it said more about me than fear that I no longer dreaded the taste of it. I rather welcomed it.

I jumped back, my power lighting up my veins with the close call Miles had just delivered. It wasn’t entirely his fault. I was still working out some lingering anger .

He took one look at my face. “Oh, damn.”

He was one of my protégés. For now. As much as I hated to admit it, he was close to surpassing me in skill.

I wasn’t as fast as I had been a few years ago.

Which had absolutely nothing to do with my age and everything to do with Jorah’s cinnamon oat cookies.

But I wasn’t about to admit any of that out loud, so I moved.

Pivoting, throwing, swinging the blade in my hand like it was my Enchantment, an extension of my thoughts.

The seconds bled into minutes. Sweat gathered at the back of my neck, clinging to my shirt as we trained. I wasn’t a terrible dancer, but this was a dance my body and mind longed for often. The grind of a hard-fought battle, no matter the victor.

I felt her before I saw her. The queen of Wylan.

But I wasn’t done being angry just yet.

My sword clanged against Miles’s. A sharp slicing sound pierced the air as our swords slid against each other in the downward motion of deflecting. I quickly spun on my feet and elbowed him in the middle of the back before he could get set for another advance.

“Tell me those are not real swords.”

Her Royal Highness, Jorah Collette Demir Valanova.

I loved her like she was another of my sisters.

I wasn’t sure at this point you could convince me she wasn’t my sister.

I would walk through fire and happily take a sword for that woman.

Had even taken a lashing for her once. But right now?

Right now, I wanted to flip her upside down and give her a little shake.

I had been freezing her out of our telepathic connection for the past three days while I cooled off, but I dropped it now to respond, Don’t ask a question you know you don’t want the answer to.

Starting the day out belligerent, I see, she responded back, a phrase I had once used on her. Out loud, she added, “If I would’ve tried training with a real sword with my emotions running high like this, you would have knocked the weapon right out of my hand. ”

In the blink of an eye, our swords were gone, riding on her silver magic to her.

Sweating, panting, I looked to Miles. Things had just been getting good.

He shifted his weight forward and I grinned.

Sure enough, he charged for me. Arms swinging, we used good old-fashioned fists in place of our swords.

“Would you two knock it off?” the queen groaned, though she didn’t sound altogether surprised.

“Is that an order?” I asked as we rolled.

Miles snagged the corner of my mouth while I was talking. A cheap shot.

So I rolled us again and rammed a knee into the middle of his back, knocking the breath out of him.

“No,” Krew clarified. To his wife he added, “Want to bet on who lets up first? One of these days Miles will get him.”

“Miles is more levelheaded,” was Jorah’s response.

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to take that as a compliment or not, but life was too short to not stock up on pleasantries, so compliment it was. I let Miles free and got to my feet, ready for whatever he threw at me next.

For a few minutes more, we advanced on one another weaponless. Something that I trained my own teams to do. Without weapons or Enchantments, how fast were their feet? How capable were they of defending themselves?

I willingly took a punch to the ribs to be able to sweep Miles’s feet out from under him. He landed face down into the dirt.

Only after I was sure he was okay did I laugh a little. I took a step toward him to pin him down, but he tapped the ground three times. His surrender.

I might be getting old as hell, a few pounds heavier than I once was, but I still had it.

I moved to walk toward Jorah and Krew. My newest assignment wasn’t one I was fond of, but since it started in the morning, it was safe to say there was no getting out of it now. So it was time I stop avoiding them and get this bothersome conversation over with.

Two strides in, I landed on my back. Hard.

“Next time,” Miles promised from where he still lounged on the ground.

Why had I turned my back on him and assumed he wouldn’t take a cheap shot? I should have known better by now. “When you do, it will be fair. ”

He gave me a little salute from where we both laid, lungs heaving. Having already gone for a run that morning, I suspected I might be sore tomorrow. Which was just fine with me.

A dainty hand reached down for mine.

I might currently be pissed at her, but Jorah was Jorah. So, I took her hand and mostly hauled myself to my feet.

“We need to talk,” she said gently. “And you’re bleeding.”

I wiped at my mouth, my brown facial hair rough against the palm of my hand. I kept my stubble a bit longer these days, more so because of time management than laziness. I still trimmed it, but only every few days. “About my Assemblage, you mean?”

Krew sent me a glare while he helped Miles to his feet.

“It’s not an Assemblage,” Jorah defended.

“You did threaten me with one once. And now here we are.”

She took a deep breath and clenched her jaw.

“It has been four years , Owen. Four years since we removed Theon from the throne. Dra Skor allows their women to train. Their women to fight. Wylan is behind the times. I am not trying to throw you an Assemblage, I am trying to reverse some deeply rooted sexism here. Trying to allow some women who would like to train the opportunity to.” Her chest heaved.

“And call me a fool, but I thought the man who trained me might just be fit for the job.”

I masked my face from all traces of emotion, but internally I winced at her words. “While secretly hoping I fall madly in love with one of them, find my soulmate, and achieve the happy ending?”

She hesitated. Our bond wasn’t as strong as hers with Krew, but if I focused on it like I was now, I could tell when she was lying to me. And she knew it.

I added, “Every time a new soul bound pairing happens, you give me a sad look like you’re just waiting for me to fall madly in love at any given moment. I am more than happy you and Krew found one another, but I don’t think you realize that it doesn’t happen for us all!”

“I just want to see you happy,” she defended.

There were more soul bound pairings happening since the healing of Wylan and the other countries.

Sprinkling in at a rate that made them not as absurdly rare as they used to be.

That didn’t mean there was one for me, though.

“I am happy! A soul bound pairing is rare.” I gestured with my fingers between her and Krew.

“What the two of you have is rare , remember? I might never have a soulmate. Did you ever consider that in all your scheming?”

Krew and Miles were just standing there, a part of the conversation and also not.

Krew always seemed to know when Jorah and I needed to bicker like siblings, and when he should intervene.

Apparently, this was the latter, as he finally interjected, “And did you ever consider in this that your sister might want to learn to defend herself? Like you taught Jorah to do?”

I took a step back. He’d delivered quite the damn blow.

“If you do not fall madly in love, that is fine,” Jorah insisted, her voice going quiet.

“But I am asking you to do this because there is no one else I trust as much as you to do it. This first training group will have a rough road ahead of them in proving themselves. And I know for a fact that you are capable of bringing out the best in people.” Strands of her power licked along her jaw and neck.

She continued, “If I wanted you to have an Assemblage in the traditional sense, I would have just called one, as your queen. I am asking you to do this, not as a queen, but as a woman. A woman who knows what it’s like to be manipulated and trapped under the power of someone else’s motives.

” Her eyes went glassy at the end, and I couldn’t feel like more of a prick for being the cause of it.

For causing those ghosts to resurface. “Your nephews have been asking for you nonstop the past few days. So please stop wallowing and show your face for dinner.” She turned to head back to the castle.

“Jorah,” I called to her retreating back.

She didn’t stop, just kept going.

“Give her a moment,” Krew told me. “She doesn’t feel all that well today.”

I was one of the few who knew that Jorah was pregnant.

Again. She and Krew had a two-year-old son, Arden, and had just found out they were expecting again.

Warrick was nearing twelve now and in the middle of a massive growth spurt, in that strange not-yet-a-man-but-looking-more-like-it-every-day stage.

Meanwhile the king and queen of Wylan had opened the walls, weeded out the advisors, and helped heal the other four countries in the realm, forming peace treaties with three of the four.

We’d all been busy these last few years.

Far too busy. Life was careening past us with little time to really do anything other than watch it flicker by.

Though I knew there was a part of Jorah that had put me in charge of training this group of women just because she wanted me to find the love of my life, I also knew she was right.

It was time. I guessed I could be thoroughly annoyed and also do a damn fine job of it.

I felt a bit like a prick for frustrating not only my queen, but also a pregnant lady.

I let out a sigh of defeat.

“It won’t be easy,” Krew said to me. “Not because your training class is all women, but more so because of the public perception and eyes on them. Not to mention those stuck in the old ways which will not be in favor of this.”

I slapped him on the shoulder. “When has that ever stopped us from doing what’s right?”

“Never.” Determination was clear on Miles’s tone. “And I’m to be your go between, General Raikes. I’ll fully take over Team One and Team Two. We will be on wall duty and on standby the next ninety days for whatever you need us for.”

My chin went backward. “And you were going to tell me this when?”

“I was hoping for after I bested you, you know, proved my worth, with you writhing on the ground beneath my boot.” He shrugged.

I rolled my eyes and turned back to Krew. “The barracks have been emptied?” Normally they wouldn’t be totally emptied for a new training class, but they would be for this one. The first training class of all women that Wylan had ever seen.

Over the years we had dealt with a handful of the loyalists to Theon Valanova who fought against our improvements.

A team consisting of not just one woman, but of entirely women?

Yeah. Their very existence would be an affront to that bunch.

I suspected it was going to bring the loyalists out of the woodwork.

The other teams were moving to the Savaryn base to give this training class space to train, also keeping everyone who didn’t need to be in Kavan Keep out.

A greater presence in Savaryn for this wasn’t a bad thing.

The women would probably appreciate a testosterone-free space to train in too.

Particularly since pranks were common among the teams.

“Wren moves in tonight,” Krew said with a nod.

How was my little sister old enough to be a part of this? But knowing her, rambunctious as she was, I was not surprised at all she had jumped at this chance. Our mother and father had probably just wanted her out of the house for the rest of the summer .

I still visited my family, though admittedly not as often as I should.

I wasn’t the same Owen who had left for training.

I’d done a lot these past years to grab ahold of this newfound peace, and not all of it I was proud of.

Sometimes being around my parents and sisters reminded me of how much I had changed.

How fast I’d grown up. Theon was gone, so I didn’t hold many regrets, but that didn’t erase the dark things I’d had to endure along the way.

“Do you want to stay in one of the cabins or do you want to stay at your room at the castle?” Krew asked me.

I thought about it for a moment. For all the other training groups I’d led, I’d kept my room at the castle. But this was different. “I’ll do a little of both. I’ll take a cabin to start with. Might need my room at the castle for sanity purposes.”

His eyes on mine told me he understood entirely. We both would make sure this group of women was able to train without interference of any kind. In jest or otherwise. “I have a file on each of the women. Shower up, come have a whiskey, and look over them with me.”

I dipped my chin in a nod. “Okay.”

“If you are done pouting, that is,” he said with a sly grin. “Because Jorah also made you a fresh batch of cookies as a peace offering.”

I began striding for the castle. “Why didn’t you lead with that? I would’ve stopped pouting hours ago.”

“I’m coming too,” Miles butted in. “As proxy to him being general, I also need to go over these files.”

I looked him over, thinking he didn’t look half as innocent as he sounded. “You just want some of my cookies.”

“That too,” he admitted.

I shoved him toward a nearby tree, but unfortunately, he spun around it.

“Is there anything special you need or want for this first week?” Krew asked me .

Miles choked on a laugh as he fell back into step with us. “Puke buckets. He trained me. All we did the first week was run.”

I hoped the women came ready in the morning. Because Miles was exactly right. The first thing up on the agenda? Learning to run.