Dragon Blood

13—WARDWICK

Action is the best cure for despair.

"I thought you swore you'd never fight another war, Orvidin," said someone just beyond my view.

Holding a pair of horses, I paused inside the stable to hear what Orvidin would reply. With most of the Council leaving at the same time, my stable master had seen me standing around and handed the horses to me with orders to find their owners who were wandering around in the bailey.

"A man says a lot of things in summer he doesn't mean in winter," Orvidin said. "Winters are a good time to make war. The fields are barren, so the crops can't be burnt out. And there's nothing else to do for fun."

Laughing inwardly, because I knew he was serious, I led my charges out, nodded to Orvidin and his man, and finally ran down the men the horses belonged to.

For a while longer the noise and confusion pervaded my home, and then they were all gone. I shivered in the cold air and glanced at the new green timbers that were being fitted to bar the curtain gate. In his smithy, I knew our blacksmith was working on yet another set of brackets.

The bailey hardly felt empty, with the extra people from Iftahar filling the keep and its surroundings to capacity, but with the Shavig lords gone, it was certainly quieter.

"I didn't get a chance to thank you," Tisala said, breaking my reverie. Her breath rose in the cold morning air, and I caught a faint whiff of flowers from her hair.

"For what?" I asked, inhaling deeply, as if I could breathe the scent of her into my soul—then hoped she hadn't noticed me doing that. It wasn't polite to sniff people, even people who smelled good.

"For not rushing to my rescue last night."

My brows went up in honest surprise. "You were doing fine by yourself," I said. "Although I think Orvidin was brighter than either of us for grabbing a pike. For the most part it was after Garranon, so I guarded him and let you take the offensive."

"But he's a man," she said.

I stared at her and she gri

I pictured what she would have done if I had abandoned Garranon to protect her and laughed. "So, did you reduce the last man who tried to protect you to a pile of humility with your tongue? Or did you just run him through with your sword?"

She raised an eyebrow. "What do you think?"

I shook my head. "Poor misguided fool."

"Ward, did you hear Kellen this morning at breakfast? He's really upset with Rosem for holding him back."

" 'A girl and an old man fought it off, and you think it was too dangerous for me, I believe is what he said, though fortunately he and Rosem ate rather later than most of the Council," I replied.

"I've never seen Kellen this angry," she said.

"Rosem was right," I said. "We can't afford to lose Kellen. He's not ready to go fight monsters. He doesn't have the stamina yet."

"I was hoping you could do something about him." She stepped closer to me as she talked, and I took another deep breath before I caught myself; lilac, that's what she smelled like. "It's not just the physical danger he put himself in—but the time in the Asylum has left him suspicious and wary. If he quits trusting Rosem, who can he trust? A king who trusts no man is weak."

I asked, "Why come to me? He's more likely to listen to my uncle—and Beckram was close to him once, too. Or Garranon."

"I haven't seen Garranon this morning—but I don't think talking will do. Someone is going to have to show him that he is not ready for a serious fight."

"You want me to attack my future king?" I asked incredulously. "In the hopes that proving Rosem was right will make Kellen trust Rosem's judgment?"

She flushed the same color she'd turned when I'd taken off my shirt last week when she'd joined us in Stala's daily training. It had been cold fighting without a shirt—but seeing Tisala's blush had been worth it. This time it wasn't discomposure but anger that heated her face.

"Beckram could beat him—I could beat him," she snapped, bringing my attention back to the matter at hand. "But that would only humiliate him. Being beaten by a man of your reputation and size humiliates no one—but it might humble him enough to listen to what you have to say."

Put like that it made more sense.

"I'll do what I can," I said.

What I could do was hunt down my aunt. Stala would know when and where Kellen practiced. If I found him, then it would be away from the people who might try and stop me—like my uncle.

I found Stala in her rooms in the newly constructed housing for the Blue Guard. The hide-covered windows made her rooms cooler in the early winter morning, but the fire in the stone fireplace was warm.

"What do you think you can do about him?" my aunt asked me without looking up from her needlework.

"Teach him the same kind of lesson you'd teach me," I said. "I'd let you do it, but his ego is flattened enough. Being beaten by someone a head taller and several stones heavier won't hurt him much—being beaten by a woman half his size who's old enough to be his mother might."

She gri

I didn't ask how she knew. "But he didn't fight this morning."

She shook her head.

"Thank you," I said, and impulsively took her hand in mine and kissed it as if we were at court.

She stood up, pulled my head down, and kissed my cheek. "For that I'll give you a word of advice you won't like. You have to beat him quickly and mercilessly. Make him understand that it would have been his death to fight that thing you faced last night. Then you pick apart his fighting style … " She told me some things to look for.

"That's not much."

"Tell him that, too. His problem is that he sat in a box for a year and didn't move. Kellen's fault—he was in good shape until then, from what Rosem told me."

"Rosem talked to you?" That surprised me; from what little I'd seen of him, I'd heard even less.

"Rosem started in the Blue Guard," she said. "He fought in Oranstone under your father—one of the reasons he doesn't like you much. Kellen is well-schooled, he knows both Shavig and Oranstone style in sword and hand-to-hand. Try fighting him with Axiel's dwarven moves."

"They're really better for someone a little shorter than I am," I said.

She snorted. "Maybe so—but you still managed to set me on my butt with them a time or two. Now go find him. I think he's still sulking in the east wall tower."

The east wall tower was the only place in Hurog you could see the sea. Other people spent time there, staring at the waves where the White River met the ocean, but Kellen was alone when I found him. From the look he turned on me, I thought he preferred it that way.

"Come practice with me," I said.

"No." He returned his gaze to the open window. "Thank you all the same."

Since we'd left Estian, his face had ta

But inside … I knew how deceptive the outer coverings could be. If he weren't strong and we weren't careful, we'd have nothing to put upon the throne. Tisala was right, Rosem was the crutch that would let him survive. Kellen needed someone who cared for him because he was Kellen and not their only hope to defeat Jakoven.