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  They’re going to make me learn to fight? Was Tabita in charge of that?

  Shironne had learned a few tricks while working in the army offices, tips passed on by various young women who’d once lived in this Fortress as Hanna did now. She knew what to do if someone grabbed her from behind, or if someone held onto her arm. She explained that to Gabriel as she heard more movements from the square, followed by another body hitting the padding with an oof.

  “Good. What she’s teaching Hanna right now is something you could do,” he said. “It relies on leverage rather than size or strength. Most of Tabita’s tricks use momentum and leverage, because she’s small.” His whisper had an admiring shade to it, like the bright lining of a cloud.

  “Um . . . What is Tabita doing?”

  “She’s flipping the other girl over her hip and onto the mat.”

  “Is she a fighter like. . . ?” She couldn’t invoke Mikael as an example, could she?

  “If you mean does Tabita fight in the melee, yes,” Gabriel answered anyway. “She’s smaller and light and has to worry about her opponent’s reach and weight. She has to worry that someone my size will simply sit on her.”

  That last bit was said as a joke. Or perhaps not. “Have you done that?”

  “Yes,” he said, “but only after she dumped me on the mats as if I were Hanna’s size.” There was affection behind those whispered words, telling Shironne that Gabriel respected Tabita, maybe more. He likes her. Shironne tucked away that bit of information. “I’ll be working with you,” he added, a topic that had nothing to do with the other girls on this practice square. “In the infirmary, I mean. Not on the sparring floor. So will Hedda.”

  She did recall that he was a runner for the infirmary. That meant he carried messages about, fetched, and carried—essentially whatever the infirmarians needed of him. Since she would be spending time in the infirmary learning to reshape her powers to aid the infirmarians, she would likely see more of Gabriel and Hedda than the others.

  Hanna clapped her hands together in response to a different voice—a male one—grunting in response to hitting the mats. “Well done!”

  Gabriel chuckled, but almost immediately stifled that response. He leaned closer to Shironne. “Tabita just dumped Eli on the mat. Eli’s mother is a Fightmaster, and it’s a good thing she didn’t see him fall for that trick.”

  Eli’s mother was a Fightmaster? Surprised, she asked herself if Mikael knew that, and discovered that he did. In fact, Eli’s mother had been the one to ask Mikael to teach Eli to fight with a long sword, an effort to keep Eli at a distance from his opponent. Getting close enough that Tabita could throw him—over her hip, as Gabriel said—meant he’d done exactly what his mother wanted him not to do. “Both of you came over to watch Tabita?”

  “Well, Eli wanted to try what she was doing. He thinks he can outwrestle her, but she uses her brain better than he does.”

  And yet he was First of the yeargroup? Shironne felt her brows draw together. “What do you mean?”

  “Eli’s so busy with his overall strategy that he loses perspective . . .”

  “. . . when he closes with an opponent,” she finished.

  “It’s very strange when you do that,” Gabriel said softly. “Try not to.”

  “What?”

  “You finished that sentence using Mikael Lee’s words.”

  Her cheeks burned. Fortunately, Hanna was no longer sitting nearby. Shironne was, more or less, alone with Gabriel. Among Larossans, men and women didn’t mingle much unless they were related, but the Families were different, so that was permitted. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m fairly certain I know what’s happening between you and Mr. Lee, and that you can no more stop it than you can stop breathing. I’m not going to tell anyone. I don’t need to, because the elders already know . . . or at least Elder Deborah must know, and she’s your sponsor. So if someone in the yeargroup questions you, send them to talk to me.”

  Ah, this is why he’s sitting with me. A month before, her cousin Kai had used her like a tracking dog to follow Mikael through the city. Gabriel had been in the infirmary with her when Kai came and dragged her away. He must have figured it out from what Kai said to her that day. “What about Eli?” she asked. “And Tabita? I told her I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

  “I’ll talk with her after this,” Gabriel promised. “I won’t give her specifics, just let her know that I have some idea what’s going on and that the elders are permitting it. If you need to talk . . . make sure it’s to me. I won’t tell anyone else.”

  This must be why the others thought he would be a chaplain. He would keep her secret, and it was a relief to know she could talk to someone in the yeargroup about Mikael.

  “Good one!” he said loudly, dragging Shironne’s attention back to the combat that she couldn’t see.

  She sensed more people around the square now, as if some had stopped their own practice to come watch Tabita. Excitement was growing in that crowd, an ambient, an emotional response that could swallow all the sensitives in the room. Shironne pushed it away, not willing to give in to someone else’s emotions. “What just happened?”

  “Hedda’s turn to throw Eli,” Gabriel said, no longer whispering. “I think every girl in the yeargroup should learn that trick and take turns dumping Eli onto the mat. It would be good for all of us.”

  “I heard that,” Eli’s deep voice returned testily from several feet away.

  “I know you did,” Gabriel said more loudly.

  Eli wouldn’t be able to feel the ambient that was making Shironne’s fingers itch to do something, nor would Hanna. They were deaf to it. She wasn’t sure about the other girls or the young men from the yeargroup she could feel standing nearby. “Which ones are sensitives?”

  “Theo, Hedda, and Norah,” Gabriel said, back to his whisper. “And you and Tabita. Are you ready to take your turn on the mat?”

  None of the sensitives would have missed her quick panic at that suggestion, but she wasn’t going to refuse. If nothing else, her years of working with the army’s investigations office had taught her that neither her blindness nor her diminutive size would deter an attacker. “Yes.”

  “Good. Take off your shoes and socks.”

  Shironne froze.

  “I can’t,” she protested softly. Her bare feet weren’t as sensitive as her hands and face, but she would still sense the feet of everyone else who’d been on that mat. And their sweat and dirt and saliva, for that matter. None of those were particularly shocking in themselves, but there would simply be too much in this communal area. Her mind would be overwhelmed. “Can . . . can I leave the socks on?”

  “Hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted. “Sure, leave the socks.” As she removed her boots, she heard Gabriel get to his feet, a movement that sounded far more graceful than his bulk suggested. “Give me your hand.”

  She held out her gloved hand. He grasped it firmly and helped her up, then waited while she got her footing on the mat. It wasn’t an even surface, and her socks created an added level of unpredictability, but she sensed Gabriel’s approval at her willingness to try.

  “You said you know what to do if I come up behind you,” he said.

  An elbow to the solar plexus and a stomp on the instep. Lieutenant Kassannan—Captain Kassannan’s late wife—had taught her that, and it had proven useful once. “Yes.”

  “This is for a frontal attack instead,” Tabita said, caution in her tone.

  She’s not sure I can do this. Shironne swallowed. It was a test, a way for them to gauge how hard she was going to work to fit in. How hard she was going to try to learn their ways. How cooperative she was, and how well she learned.

  “I’m going to wrap my arms around you,” Tabita went on.

  Tabita did just that, her worry swarming around Shironne as she did so. Shironne responded instinctively, using her own arms to try to break the other girl’s hold. One of Tabita’s arms brushed the side of her
face, and Shironne knew what she was supposed to do, before Tabita even spoke the words. She stepped one foot across, twisted abruptly so that her back came up against Tabita’s chest, and used the momentum of that move to drag Tabita off her feet.

  It didn’t work as intended. Shironne nearly lost her footing due to her socks slipping on the mat. And Tabita managed to get her feet under her again, although she lost her grip on Shironne in the process. No, she must have let me go.

  Tabita stepped back, away from Shironne, her worry taking on a different cast. She suppressed it well, but it lurked under the edge of her control. “That was good for a first try,” Tabita said. “The socks are a definite problem.”

  Shironne pressed her lips together. She could feel Eli’s annoyance, no longer with Gabriel’s joking, but with her. I should have let Tabita explain aloud before trying it myself.

  “Not bad,” Gabriel said in the same loud voice he’d used to tease Eli. “Just like I told you.”

  Shironne turned her head in his direction. That last bit had been directed at her. She’d stolen the idea from Tabita’s head, and Tabita suspected that, but Gabriel was offering her a way to explain away her mistake. Or to set Tabita at ease.

  “Thank you,” she said in his direction. It was good to know he was willing to help cover for her slips.

  “We’ll go talk to the quartermasters again and see if they can make some special shoes for the mats,” Tabita said in a milder tone, worry submerged under efficiency. “After your other assignment today. Infirmary, right after breakfast.”

  Finally, something Shironne thought she could do.

  Chapter 14

  * * *

  MIKAEL SAT ALONE in the office of the Daujom, reorganizing the files he’d ignored the day before to go hunting with Ensign Pamini. Morning light streamed in from the tall windows that looked out over the courtyard, shafts of light illuminating the fine dust in the air. It wasn’t as if cleaners came and went daily from this office. Instead, Dahar scheduled that only when he could have a dozen sentries watching over the staff. He didn’t like having servants in a place with so many sensitive files, so the dust built up.

  Mikael didn’t complain. If he did, Dahar would likely order Mikael to clean everything himself.

  He was distracted, though, his attention only halfway on the files. He’d forwarded Kassannan’s request for Shironne to come down to the army headquarters to Deborah himself the previous evening. Sooner or later, he should receive word from Kassannan about Shironne’s evaluation of Jusid’s body. Until then, he had to stew over it.

  He took several deep breaths, pushing calm through his mind in the hope of not annoying any sensitives nearby, a regular morning exercise. This hall was kept mostly free of sensitive sentries, but a few worked in the attached offices of the Daujom farther down the hallway.

  The desk across from his still stood empty. The month before, when Kai nearly died, it had caused Dahar’s son to reconsider his life. Once released by the infirmary, Kai had gone out to the countryside to one of the rarely visited Valaren estates near the border with Horn Province, taking his guard contingent with him. Three weeks later he returned and promptly withdrew himself from consideration as the king’s heir, then resigned his position with the Daujom as well.

  Unfortunately, those actions had spawned waves of difficulties for everyone else.

  First, with Kai no longer the heir apparent, that responsibility automatically devolved onto Dahar, who was not pleased. He loved his privacy, but now had to be accompanied everywhere by a team of guards. He desperately wanted to find another heir to take his place, but his time was occupied settling his half-sister’s affairs.

  Since Kai had left the Daujom as well, that meant Mikael was handling all the paperwork forwarded by the second office. Before, it had been split between the two of them.

  So Mikael settled at his own desk, quickly sorting through one pile left under a large stone paperweight. This was the pile sent up from the second office that concerned the squabbling of the various Anvarrid houses via the senior-most member of the Daujom, Anna Lucas. Mikael sorted through those to find the ones concerning the House of Hedraya, the house that most frequently made trouble for the Valaren. In his letters, Lord Hedraya often intimated to other members of the senate that the country would be better served if the throne was wrested from the Valaren and returned to the House of Anaracin, the family of King Imkhandrion, who’d ruled before the Valaren took the throne.

  Mikael gave no credence to the idea that it would be better for the country. The king made decisions regarding the foreign affairs and relationships of Larossa, but the bulk of the day-to-day government of the country was handled by the Larossan authorities of each province and city. A king could use his power to enrich his coffers, though, which was what Mikael suspected Hedraya wanted.

  Unfortunately, the sudden change of heir made the House of Valaren vulnerable in the senate, and Hedraya would be the first to point out that there was an Anaracin heir—his younger child, the grandson of King Imkhandrion. If the Daujom’s sources were correct, the boy had lived most of his life in the countryside, but a few months past his father had brought him to Noikinos to polish him, whatever that meant.

  If Hedraya could muster enough votes in the senate, he could conceivably maneuver that son onto the throne. So Hedraya’s correspondences were regularly intercepted by the Daujom, decrypted if necessary, copied, and then sent on their way. Most of Hedraya’s letters ended up on Mikael’s desk, leaving it to him whether to inform Dahar of their contents. The majority weren’t worth Dahar’s, and subsequently the king’s, time.

  A fist banging on the office door provoked him to set the letters aside and pin them underneath his stone paperweight. Mikael unlocked the door and opened it enough to peer into the hallway. Eli stood outside, his face perfectly calm, but impatience lurking in his mind.

  “May I talk to you, sir?” Eli asked.

  Mikael let the younger man into the office, wondering if somehow his thoughts about the Hedraya and Anaracin had somehow summoned his student.

  Eli had been in this office dozens of times, so he ignored his surroundings, sparing only a glance at Kai’s empty desk. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to put off our next lesson for a day or two. We’ve got our hands full with the new girl.”

  Mikael suspected it was Tabita who had her hands full, but Eli was probably picking up slack where Tabita fell behind on other duties. “That’s fine, Eli. Send me a note when you have time, and I’ll see if I can schedule around it.”

  “I suspect this is going to be a regular issue,” Eli said. “Our new yeargroup member is in high demand.”

  “Yes, I understood that the army wanted her to come out to their headquarters today.”

  If he hadn’t known to look, Mikael would have missed the quick line that appeared between Eli’s brows, then vanished. “No sir,” Eli said. “She’s with the infirmary today.”

  No mention of the army at all? “I misunderstood, I suppose,” Mikael said quickly.

  Eli nodded once. “I will send you a note with a time,” he suggested. “And we can try to set up another session then?”

  “That would be fine.” Mikael didn’t want to miss his swordsmanship lessons with the young man. He and Eli often chatted for a while after their lessons. Despite the difference between their ages, they got on well.

  And even though he was forbidden to ask, it would give Mikael some clue as to how Shironne was getting along among the sixteens.

  Eli went on back to his duty post, and Mikael left the office as well, locking the door behind him. If Shironne wasn’t going to visit the army’s headquarters, then he would.

  * * *

  Shironne walked down the hallways of the Fortress Below, her gloved hand trailing along the smooth wall.

  She knew now where to expect to feel a breeze touching her face. She knew where she should hear voices. As long as she stayed out of the large rooms, she could negotiate her w
ay back and forth to her barracks. The mess hall confounded her with its echoing cavernous roof, but she could avoid it. She followed the carved indicators along the hallway wall, away from the refuge and toward the center stairwells.

  The wells always had warmer air coming up. Voices drifted up on it, sometimes sounding like two lone climbers, and sometimes sounding like thousands. This time she heard a group of men approaching from a lower level. The voices sounded older, adults, so if they passed her, they would ignore her, the proper reaction for most adults coming across a brown. She came out of the stairwell onto One Down before they caught up to her, though, making it moot.

  On all the other levels of Below, the upper row of chevrons pointed toward the main stairwells in the center of the Fortress, and the lower toward the refuge. On One Down, the top floor of Below, the upper chevrons pointed toward the grand stair that led up into the palace above. Therefore, on this floor the two chevrons pointed in opposite directions at all times, providing the least guidance. For a moment Shironne stood still, trying to sense if anyone was near her. No, she was sure there was no one nearby. “Where am I?” she asked herself in a whisper, trying to recall whether the infirmary was to the left or the right.

  “One Down, Hall One, Junction Seven.”

  Shironne jumped, startled. The Fortress had answered silently, whispering into her mind in its strange tongue. She might not understand the words it said, but she understood its meaning.

  She borrowed the map of the Fortress that Mikael kept in his mind. Junction Seven, to her left, was the seventh one to split off from the main central hallway. The infirmary was located on Hall Eight, one hall closer to the refuge and chapel. Shironne resumed walking, her fingers trailing against the chevrons.

  Another person approached along the main hallway. His footfalls were solid on the hard floor, a long stride, so a tall man probably, but she couldn’t catch any sense of him other than mild curiosity. Coming as he was from the direction of the chapel, he was probably a chaplain.