Chapter 21: How to Hold a Sword
I woke when the sky was still gray, my heartbeat pounding in my throat.
I had dreamed of the flowers beneath my mother's window, that particular shade of black spreading from the petals to the branches, extending all the way down into the soil, as if something beneath the surface was slowly devouring all life.
The dream shifted to the palace corridors. I stood outside my mother's chamber, and on the bed lay a figure covered with white cloth. I remained rooted to the spot, my legs refusing to move no matter how desperately I willed myself forward.
I also dreamed of Rendell collapsed in the chair, not the peaceful sleep after I had given him the draught, but something worse—I saw his hand dripping blood. I rushed to him, calling his name frantically, but he didn't answer.
The most terrifying dream was of that fissure. The black seawater split apart by nothing, and something within stirred restlessly, as if trying to pull me into that endless abyss.
I snapped my eyes open, staring at the sky that hadn't fully brightened yet, forcing myself to steady my breathing, one breath at a time, until my heartbeat returned to its normal rhythm.
I rarely had nightmares. This was probably a side effect of the meditation water, scrambling my thoughts.
None of it was real. But if I did nothing, perhaps it would become real. I was no longer the princess who acted on whim alone—knowing herbs wasn't enough. So whether it was swordplay or magic, I had to learn them both. My preferences no longer mattered.
The campfire had burned down to its final embers, red remnants still breathing faintly. Cade sat on the other side, his back against the rock, his head resting lightly against the stone surface, eyes open with that particular alertness of someone on watch—body relaxed, but eyes vigilant.
I sat up and unstrapped the short sword from the side of my pack, placing it across my knees.
Nightmares were nightmares, but when morning came, he was still here, and my sword was still here.
"You're awake," he said, voice quiet, carrying the hoarseness of insufficient rest. "You were muttering something in your sleep. Quite loud."
"Teach me to use the sword."
He lifted his head from the rock and glanced at me.
"I knew you'd come around," he said, wearing that I-told-you-so expression. "Like I said, if you don't know how to use a sword, next time you're in yesterday's situation, you'll just be standing there waiting to be protected."
"Right," I said. "I don't want to keep waiting to be protected."
He stood, walked over, took the sword from my hand, examined it briefly, adjusted the angle, and handed it back.
"Let's be clear—I'm not going to go easy on you just because you're a girl. Hold it again," he said, his tone unusually serious. "Palm supporting it, middle and ring fingers relaxed, not gripping."
We practiced on the flat ground beside the camp for nearly an hour and a half. He was indeed a teacher who gave no unnecessary praise—correcting, demonstrating, waiting for me to repeat, correcting again. As he circled around me, I could track his position by his shadow and footsteps. He stood to my right saying "right foot back half a step," moved behind me saying "shoulders down," came around to the front to check my stance, then moved to the side to examine the angle of my sword grip.
This method made me uncomfortable at first—I was used to receiving instructions from a fixed direction. But gradually I realized he wasn't just training my movements, but my awareness of my surroundings while in motion, something else entirely, more useful than the movements themselves.
"This angle," I interrupted his third correction, "is to reduce the opponent's options for counterattack from the right, isn't it?"
He paused and looked at me. The expression that would have said "practice first, talk later" didn't appear.
"Seems you're not a complete novice," he acknowledged my observation. "With your stance cutting in from the right, if an opponent wants to counter, they need to adjust their position first, giving you about half a second more."
"So this isn't a defensive stance—it's creating a time differential in advance."
"Correct." He said, then paused. "Your way of learning—you need to understand the logic before you're willing to act."
"Is that a problem?"
"No problem," he said, "but on the battlefield, logic is a luxury. Every second you spend thinking is a second you're not acting. You need to train the movements into your muscles first, then you'll have a chance to use the tactics."
I absorbed those words and reset my stance.
The fourth time, he walked over and stood to my right.
"Your grip," he said, looking down at the hand holding my sword, "is still wrong. Middle and ring fingers—show me."
He placed his hand over mine on the sword.
His hand was warmer than I'd expected—that was the first detail that distracted me, because the mountain wind was so cold my fingers had gone slightly numb. But his hand carried real warmth, and the moment it settled on the back of my hand, I felt that temperature difference, the warmth belonging to another person.
Then he began adjusting my finger positions, moving my middle and ring fingers slightly outward, adjusting my thumb's pressure point closer to the hilt, movements precise and efficient, taking only the few seconds the adjustment required.
But those few seconds passed, and his hand didn't immediately withdraw.
It lingered for just a moment, no more than two seconds, but I felt it, because my breathing quietly skipped half a beat during that pause before resuming, struggling to maintain its previous rhythm, pretending nothing had happened.
He said nothing either.
Then he withdrew his hand, stepped back to his original position, his voice as level as every previous correction.
"Try again."
I raised the sword and repeated the movement, took two steps, pulled back. Correct.
"Again."
I did it. Still correct.
"Good."
He didn't withhold his approval. I continued practicing until every movement was firmly memorized. When he spoke again, his voice was slightly lower than before.
"That's enough, you—"
A sound came from the grass.
Bird calls, insect sounds, wind brushing grass tips—all the sounds stopped together the moment that sound emerged. This kind of silence was the kind that only existed when prey hid in the grass and the predator hadn't yet appeared.
Then the ground moved.
It was a low-frequency tremor traveling up from the soil layer, entering through the boot soles and traveling up the ankles. I glanced down at the ground—those fine grains of sand near the rock's edge were jumping lightly, the intervals between each jump shortening. Whatever was approaching us, it wasn't small.
Cade's reaction occurred almost simultaneously with that sound. His muscles visibly tensed, his hand already on his knife hilt. His body didn't move, but his eyes rapidly swept over me, over the grass, over our backs, assessing possibilities from every direction.
"Move," he said. "Now. Don't run, walk fast."
I shoved the sword back into its sheath, grabbed my pack, and followed. Both our steps were controlled—quick but not chaotic.
The sound from the grass followed us for about thirty paces, then stopped. But we didn't stop.
I followed him, my palm still retaining the warmth of that brief contact, still holding the shape of that unfinished sentence—"you—"—like a page corner folded in half, waiting for some moment to be turned open again.
That moment, I didn't know when it would come.