Page 17 of Enchanted Shadows (The Enchanted Kingdom #6)

W e got the obstacle course taken down. We were increasing the self-defense training, having them fight each other one-on-one, and in a few weeks would be the maze, their final big test before the end of training.

I was allowing them to use their Enchantments for sparring today, pairing up the non-Enchanted amongst themselves.

Miles and I were going first, showing them how it was done. Except about five minutes into it, I realized that neither one of us wanted to lose in front of the women.

At least this time we had the weighted practice swords instead of real ones.

Miles struck at my side, and I spun outward, ready for his upward attack.

I used my magic to slide him away from me, and he barely deflected my attempt to smack him in the head with a small log I had been slowly dropping from above him.

“That would’ve hurt,” he commented.

“Was counting on it.” I spun around him.

At one point we both used our power to make it seem like ice beneath us, spinning and turning around trying to get one another faster than the eye could normally process.

I glanced over at the women, thinking by this point they had to be bored, but instead I found them all watching intently. A few whispered and looked as if they needed snacks to properly keep enjoying what they were witnessing.

I managed to advance on Miles, and then dropped my shoulder and launched him over my back.

Unfortunately, I had trained him well, so he rolled and used his magic to land himself back on his feet a few yards away.

On and on we went, until we were both glistening in sweat. I was about to just call it a draw when Miles swung at my feet, suspecting which direction I would spin away from him, and caught my arm with the sword, bending it backward.

He had my arm in a lock.

“Drop it,” Miles panted. “Drop it and we can be done.”

I looked at the women before me, their eyes wide. They were surprised I could be beat. And that made me smile.

I wasn’t beat yet. It wasn’t in me to yield to anything. I was merely taking a little break.

My arm muscles were screaming at me from my wrist all the way up to my shoulder, but I allowed him to lock me down, using his stability over my body while I kicked out and threw my body over his, ripping my arm out of his grip when I did.

In three quick moves, I had my weapon to his neck.

“Dammit, Raikes. I didn’t want to dislocate your arm or break your collar bone again,” Miles explained. “You okay?”

The pain in my arm wasn’t done yet. Likely meant I pulled a muscle somewhere. “I will be?”

Just then a strong breeze knocked me into Miles, our heads colliding.

“You’re both knuckleheads, you know that?” the queen of Wylan stated .

I knew she was on the way, had felt it while we were sparring.

The women were all scrambling to bow to her, but Jorah stopped them before saying to Miles and me, “Please don’t almost break each other’s arms because you’re stubborn.”

I gestured for the women to start their own matches and headed over to Jorah. I had asked her to check in today.

“Do you need to see a healer?” she snapped.

“I’m fine,” I lied. It still hurt like hell, but I’d learned with most injuries, the most it ever hurt was immediately following. It eased up after the initial pain.

She rolled her eyes in annoyance.

I put up a sound barrier around the three of us. “Look. I will make this short and sweet. With the end of this first session of training coming up in a few weeks, I just wanted to see what you wanted to do for the celebration.”

She thought on it. By this point she’d been to dozens of similar training events for the other classes I’d trained.

Normally the trainees and their families were invited to the castle to celebrate the end of the first round.

It was one of my favorite parts of training.

Watching people put in the hard work and then allowing them to see their loved ones after some time away.

Miles offered, “We’re going to need multiple teams present to make all loyalists behave. A damn heavy presence in the castle. Do you really think it’s worth it to even attempt to do it?”

Jorah opened her mouth to respond, but I was already snapping, “Yes. You got to celebrate your training, so why shouldn’t they?”

Jorah smiled at me with approval. “Precisely what I was thinking.”

“And what about their attire?” I asked.

Jorah tilted her head to the side.

“I assume that you have Flora making a female variation of formal guard gear? Because the end of the first round of training is when we normally get that. Typically, we wear our formal wear on the night of the dinner.”

“I haven’t yet, but I will get on it,” she said with a nod. “Flora might need a team to help her pull it off, but we’ll manage.”

I looked to the women sparring and back to Jorah.

“What is it?” she asked, never missing a thing.

“They’ve worked their asses off for me. You might want to ask them. They might want to even wear a dress or something?”

She smirked. “The opportunity to dress up for a night and not have sweat on their sweat?”

“Yeah. That.” I crossed my arms. “Though it might be considered special treatment.”

“They are women,” Jorah stated smoothly. “We haven’t ever asked for them not to be. So why would we start now?”

“I will let you fine tune the details then. You know more about dresses.”

“Do I?” she challenged.

I pinned her with a glare.

She carried on, “I’m going to need a day for trying on dresses. Maybe two or three for fittings.”

“Just let me know what days work for whatever team you organize for this,” I told her. I’d do my best not to grumble about it too. The women deserved a day off, a day to celebrate at the end of this.

Miles and I discussed the security for the event a bit more and then we dropped the sound barrier.

“Owen?” Jorah watched the women sparring intently. Proudly. As she should be. She was the reason they were learning and growing like they were. The reason there was an all-woman team in Wylan. Because she’d been brave enough and stubborn enough to fight for it.

“Jorah.”

“What do you say, when they finish up here, let’s do an orb field. For old time’s sake. ”

I laughed. “All right.”

“I want to try,” Miles agreed.

Jorah stayed and walked around speaking encouragements to the women. When I was content with their efforts for the day, I called them to circle around.

“I know we are done soon, but Her Royal Highness Queen Jorah?—”

Jorah shot me an annoyed glare. She still hated the necessity of using her full title.

I knew that, of course. The reason why I used it often. “Has decided to bring out an old training trick that we used for her training. I know how you like fun names for everything, but we don’t have one for this.”

I had the women all move to the side and then I put out a field of orbs, all shapes and sizes, and even set a few rows of them moving. The maze challenge was different for every training group, but I was making a mental note to be sure to suggest more orbs for the one this year.

“You have one minute to get through it,” I told them.

“Can I go first?” Jorah asked.

I snorted. “Yeah.”

She made it in fifty seconds. Not bad for a pregnant lady. Not bad at all.

“Your turn,” she said, a bit out of breath.

“Can we up the ante?”

She placed a hand over her heart. “How unlike you. Wanting to up the stakes.”

I sensed sarcasm. “If I beat your time, you owe us all cookies.”

She gave her head a nod, smiling. “Deal.”

I took off. Halfway through, silver orbs joined my green ones. Which was cheating, yes. But I was on a mission. All the nights spent at the cabin near the barracks had significantly cut back on my cookie intake. I’d already lost some weight. I was practically withering away.

As I crossed the finish line in ten seconds faster than she had, a silver orb came out of nowhere. I stopped it immediately, only for another to smack into my face on the other side.

“Rude,” I told her as the women laughed.

“I’ll make the cookies,” she told me with a grin. “You won fair and square.”

The women lined up to go next.

“General Raikes,” Sam called.

“What?”

“Can we just go ahead and call this the orbstacle?”

I laughed despite myself. “Sure.”

Later that evening, I walked Jorah back to the castle. I had to make sure the cookies were going to be made. Sample a few just to be sure they were up to par.

On my way back to my cabin, I took the long way and went to The Dead Lake, wanting to take in the sunset at the lake. As it finally came within view, I saw a shape near the lake. With a blonde braid.

Zara.

She was out here alone. Again. I wanted to be mad. But considering she had to hide away from her own damn family, I decided to try to dial it back and be understanding. There was a darkness to this woman. A reason she longed to be alone. If only I could get her to explain it to me.

She sat taking in the lake, throwing rocks at the surface of it. And she looked peaceful. Happy. Most men would kill to find a woman who looked at them the way Zara was currently looking at the sunset.

“Don’t say it,” she said to me without turning.

I hadn’t even made a sound, yet she knew I was there? That awareness training was really kicking in, it seemed. “Don’t tell you that it pisses me off you are here alone again?”

“Yeah. That.”

I walked over to where she was and dropped down to sit with her.

“No whiskey this time?” She sounded a little disappointed.

“No, but I have something even better.” I opened the small container in my hands and handed her over a still somewhat warm cinnamon oat cookie.

Her sharp inhale was all the confirmation I needed. These things could solve a lot of the realm’s problems.

“Look. I know being with the team all hours of the day is a lot to handle. Can you at least tell me when you take these trips so that I can either tag along or send Miles or another of Team One?”

“Kind of defeats the purpose of alone time if you aren’t alone,” she argued.

“I’ll do my best to make sure I’m scarce,” I promised.