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Damn it, I thought, angry at myself. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about. I shouldn’t miss Valek; I should try harder to escape. I shouldn’t figure out the bean puzzle; I should sabotage it. I shouldn’t admire and respect him; I should vilify him. Shouldn’t, should, shouldn’t, should. So easy to say but so hard to believe.
“Exactly how do you deal with a magician?” I asked.
He turned around in his seat and looked at me. “I’ve told you before.”
“But their powers…”
“Have no effect on me. When I get close, I can feel their power pressing and vibrating on my skin, and moving toward them is like walking through thick syrup. It takes effort, but I always win in the end. Always.”
“How close?” Valek had been in the castle both times I had unknowingly used magic. Did Valek suspect?
“I have to be in the same room,” Valek said.
Relief washed through me. He didn’t know. At least, not yet. “Why didn’t you kill the southern magician at the festival?” I asked.
“Yelena, I’m not invincible. Fighting four men while she threw every ounce of her power at me was exhausting. Chasing her down would have been a fruitless endeavor.”
I thought about what he said. “Is being resistant to magic a form of magic?” I asked.
“No.” Valek’s face hardened.
“What about the knife?” I pointed to the long blade hanging on the wall. The crimson blood gleamed in the lantern light. In the three weeks I’d lived in Valek’s suite, it hadn’t dried.
Valek laughed. “That was the knife I used to kill the King. He was a magician. When his magic couldn’t stop me from plunging that knife into his heart, he cursed me with his dying breath. It was rather melodramatic. He willed that I should be plagued with guilt over his murder and have his blood stain my hands forever. With my peculiar immunity to magic, the curse attached to the knife instead of me.” Valek looked at the weapons wall thoughtfully. “It was a shame to lose my favorite blade, but it does make for a nice trophy.”
18
MY LUNGS BLAZED. Flushed and sweat-soaked, I lagged behind the main group of soldiers, my throat burning with every gasp. It was my fourth lap around the castle complex. One more to go.
I had hovered by the northeast barracks right after tasting the Commander’s breakfast. When a large clump of soldiers ran past, I spotted Ari, who waved me to join in. I worried that the other guards would resent my presence, but there were servants, stable boys and other castle workers mixed in with the soldiers.
The first two laps quickened my pulse and shortened my breath. Pain began in my feet during the third lap and traveled up my legs by the fourth. My surroundings blurred until all I saw was the small patch of ground right in front of me. When I limped to my finishing point, ending my agony, I found a thick row of hedges and threw up my breakfast of sweet cakes. Straightening, I saw a grinning Janco give me a thumbs-up as he jogged by. He didn’t even have the decency to look winded, and his shirt was still dry.
As I wiped vomit off my lip, Ari paused beside me. “Training yard, two o’clock. See you then,” he said.
“But…” I said to nobody as Ari jogged away. I could hardly stand, I couldn’t imagine doing anything more strenuous.
In the training yard that afternoon, Ari and Janco leaned against the fence watching two men sparring with swords. The loud ring of metal striking metal echoed. The fighters had drawn the attention of every soldier. I realized with surprise that one of the men was Valek. I hadn’t seen him since early that morning, and I had assumed he was resting after being up late the night before.
Valek was liquid in motion. As I watched him, one word came to my mind: beautiful. His movements had the speed and cadence of a complex dance performance. In comparison, his adversary resembled a newborn colt, lurching and jerking his arms and legs as if this were his first time on his feet. Valek’s smooth lunges and graceful parries disarmed his opponent in no time.
Pointing with his sword, he sent his beaten foe to a small group of men, and motioned for another to attack.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Valek’s challenge,” Janco said.
“What’s that?”
“Valek has declared a challenge to anyone in Ixia. Beat him in a fight with the weapon of your choice, or hand to hand, and you can be promoted to his second-in-command.” Ari gestured to Valek, now engaged in combat with a third man. “It’s become a sort of graduation from basic training for the soldiers to fight Valek at least once, although you can try as many times as you like. The Captains watch the matches and recruit the more promising soldiers. And if you manage to impress Valek with your skills, he may offer you a post in his elite intelligence corps.”
“How did you guys do?” I asked.
“Okay,” Ari demurred.
“Okay!” Janco snorted. “Ari came close to beating him. Valek was pleased. But Ari would rather be a scout than a spy.”
“I want all or nothing,” Ari said with a quiet intensity.
We continued to watch. Ari and Janco made technical comments about the different fights, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from Valek. With the sunlight glinting off his sword, he dispatched two more men. He tapped them with the flat of his weapon, just to let them know he had broken through their defenses without shedding any blood. The next opponent approached with a knife.
“Bad choice,” Ari said.
Valek put down his sword and unsheathed his blade. The match was over in two moves.
“Valek excels in knife fighting,” Janco commented.
The last challenger was a woman. Tall and agile, she wielded a long wooden staff. Ari called it a bow. She held her own against Valek, and their sparring lasted longer than any of the previous six fights. With a loud crack, her bow snapped in two, ending the match. As the
crowd dispersed, Valek spoke with the woman.
“That’s Maren,” Ari said. “If she doesn’t disappear into Valek’s corps, you should ask her to teach you the bow. With your smaller size, it would extend your reach against a taller attacker.”
“But you can’t conceal a bow,” I said.
“Not around the castle. But if you’re hiking through the woods, you wouldn’t look out of place holding a walking stick.”
I looked at Maren and considered the possibilities. Would she agree to help me? Probably not. What would she stand to gain?
As if reading my thoughts, Ari said, “Maren’s aggressive and encouraging. Every new female recruit gets her personal attention whether they want it or not. Since so many women fail due to the rigors of training, she tries to coach them through. We’ve more women in the guard now than ever because of her. We tried to get her to teach us—a bow would make a good weapon for a scout—but she has no interest in training men.”
“But I’m not a new recruit, I’m the food taster. Why would she waste her time with me? I might be dead by tomorrow.”
“Aren’t we grumpy today,” Janco said cheerfully. “Too much exercise this morning?”
“Shut up,” I said. Unfazed, his grin only widened.
“All right, that’s enough. Let’s get started,” Ari said.
I spent the rest of the afternoon learning to punch someone without breaking my hand and practicing the proper technique of kicking. The first two knuckles of both hands turned bright red as I punched into a training bag over and over. Mastering the front kick was a challenge since my stiff thigh muscles hindered my flexibility.
When Ari finally dismissed me, I aimed my battered body toward the castle.
“See you in the morning,” Janco said with a gleeful sound in his voice.
