Daughter of the Sword

10 || A Different Service

I AWAKEN EARLY THE next morning, aches flaring through my body as I stand and go to relieve myself. My hands shake. Last night, I dreamt of battle, trying to fight my way through an army in a wedding gown, the angelic white stained with red as I drove my sword through soldier upon soldier, their screams drowned out in a wedding choir. I can still feel their blood on my arms as a guard opens my door and delivers my breakfast, before locking it again, leaving me to eat as the silence devours my thoughts.

Something in me changed yesterday. Like the crest of a wave, breaking out at last after building for so long at sea. Yesterday's fight... it was the powers, just as my stamina, my rapid progress, all of it has been. But does that mean it is not me?

Even days ago, I would have take solace in that knowledge. That the muscles bulking up my body are the result of a magic destined for another, something that I wear like my training clothes, unable to touch the fine lady beneath. But I can still feel the ripple of satisfaction as I knocked his sword from his hand, or as I tripped him and sent him to the ground...

Women are not supposed to feel wrath, or bloodlust. They are alien to us, as foreign as Hallar across the sea; we do not have the capacity to be vicious. But the surge of something that I felt in me as I fought, that music that gave rhythm to my strokes and steps, felt more natural than any of the etiquette training I have ever received in my life.

I look up to the ceiling, the deep grey stone still enshrined in shadow as the sun rises on the other side of the castle. "You do not make mistakes," I whisper, as if my words are too personal even for the walls to hear. "So I cannot be blasphemous in following Your path." The kingdom needs me. To take my powers and give them to Luke, or to bring me to the front lines—my heart squeezes at the thought—and I must be capable of handling such a thing. I was always to aid Lyria in marriage, binding bloodlines for finances and military. That was my divine honour, the shrine to which I offered my body.

Is this not just a different form of the same thing?

How can something so unnatural be destined by the rulers of nature?

It is only when Beckett knocks on my door that I remember our kiss. My cheeks redden, and I swallow hard as he slides down the lock and opens the door, standing farther back than normal.

"Lady Calloway," he says.

"Officer Doran," I respond, instinct fresh on my lips.

We stare at each other.

At last he clears his throat, offering his arm.

The ache in my limbs does not fade as I run, warming up for another day of combat. He launches into his explanations without any chatter, and I am surprised to miss the informality. But what we did yesterday was scandalous, conduct low enough to befit only peasants and prostitutes. He may be shaping me into a soldier, but I am neither.

When I listen this time, though, it is less out of the stiff misery of obligation and more with a mounting curiosity, a determination to know just how I was capable of such a feat yesterday. He refuses to speak of it, nor of his out-of-step reaction, and it serves me just as well. But the memory of his lips on mine cannot be banished so easily.

~

Weeks pass. We maintain the formality, both painfully aware of the potential consequences of our actions, and I grow lonelier in our lessons. I also find another hunger, though, beyond our interactions; he no longer relays me politics, or battle lessons, and my mind aches with boredom in a way unfamiliar to me. My only hope is to throw myself into his teachings, so that I am too exhausted to think when he locks me back in my room. I cannot stop noticing the glint of his eyes in the late afternoon sunlight, or the way his hair sticks up with sweat when he runs his hands through it, tired after another feinting drill. Worst of all, though, are his lips, taunting me when we stand close enough that our breath mingles. When he braces himself behind me to show me the proper arc of my sword, I shiver at his touch.

My mother always taught me that formality is a gate. When men and women grow too close, disregarding etiquette and dignity, improper feelings come to pass. Formality keeps our worst impulses in check, protecting our own souls from ruin. And it is the burden of women to protect both themselves and men from the latter's more beastly nature.

The very concept of my training broke that formality, throwing the gate wide. Our unsupervised proximity. My undignified actions. They led to our use of first names. To his politics lessons. To our casual banter. And now, to desire. Both of us have leapt back, slamming shut the gates, trying in vain to lock them. Be undone, no matter how hard we pretend that they have.

We would have probably continued on in awkwardness, had the order not come down on high.

"I've been called to the front lines on the plains," Beckett says one morning, his face grave.

My heart plummets, but I steel my features. "You do not fear battle, though," I say. "Is it not a good thing to go and beat them back?"

He looks at me, his mouth set in a firm frown. "There are reports that Hallar's army is formally mobilizing. And that means their Champion is leading the charge."

My breath catches.

"They're bringing you, as well."