“It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like?”
Adeline sighed. “I can honestly say I don’t know. It’s strange. Itisstrange, right?”
“It’s strange,” Ger agreed. “Great as you are - and you are great, Ade, you make an excellent sparring partner - Master Ellis should be overseeing his training. That’s what makes sense. He’s a King, and soon to be a Commander.”
“Thank you!” Adeline kicked up a shower of snow. “My mother doesn’t want to hear it. I can’t get her to see sense.”
“Do youwanther to see sense?”
“What do you mean?”
Ger pressed his lips together, flattening a smirk. “I think you know what I mean.”
Adeline snatched the flask from him and took a deep swig of tea. Stalling, very obviously stalling, but Daughters help her, what could she say to that?
Had she enjoyed her morning with the King? Surprisingly.
Did she relish the sight of him rumpled and panting? Maybe.
Had she felt a savage thrill to see him flushed and distracted in that odd, electric moment when his eyes had landed on her lips? Immensely, yes.
But even so, her conscience bristled when she thought of stringing him along, misinformed about her abilities and disastrously ill-prepared for some future battle to come. Because there wasalwayssome future battle, whether it came months or years from now.
Adeline went to take another swig, and Ger pried the flask away from her.
“Stalling,” he tutted.
Adeline wiped a trickle of tea from her chin, scowling.
“Fine! I had fun. I like riling him up.”
Ger chuckled. “Of course you do.”
“But I don’t think that’s reason enough to impede his training. It’s important. I don’t want to be the reason he gets himself speared on the sword of a properly trained soldier.”
“Fair,” Ger allowed.
The woods around them were thinning, the Shrine of the Sorceress coming into view between rough dark tree trunks, and the vast lake glittering beyond. They weaved through the last of the trees in a pensive silence broken only by Ger’s chewing.
“I think I’m going to have to corner Master Ellis. I’ll catch him after his training with Mareda, see if I can get him to talk to my mother.”
Ger shuddered. “Better you than me. Hateful old codger.”
Adeline gave him a funny look. “Sweet little slightly-crabby Master Ellis?”
“If you say so,” he snorted.
Adeline stopped dead in her tracks. Her voice was a hoarse gasp on the breeze.
“Ger.”
Ger rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m sure for the Princess of Eisalaan he’s sweetness and light itself, but that fact is that I know him to be a bigoted little raisin of a –”
“Ger!”
She jabbed a finger impatiently at the Shrine ahead of them. The Sorceress was usually surrounded by a few offerings, her upraised arms trailing garlands of flowers, baskets of fruit and tiny icicle charms laid at her feet. Occasionally you might come across someone bent in prayer to her, with many believing her to be Daughter Aera herself.
