“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 grinned at me and set aside the skirt (Ciarra’s) that she’d been mending. My aunt taught all of her men to sew—me included—saying you never knew when you’d need the skill on harness or skin. “He usually practices twice a day, morning and night, but not with the Guard. He’s been using the training ring by the stables and fighting only with Rosem. He doesn’t want an audience.”

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.”