Kieri hung up his sword on the King’s Stand and glanced at Lieth. She had come with the others to Tsaia to find the king—to find him—and she had been captured with him. Even those few hours in the hands of enemies had been bad enough, but she had not flinched from that danger. They had that in common. Yet she, like Suriya and all the others who had also squired the former king, was human-bred, with only the barest hint of taig-sense. And he had never felt for her, as man for woman. The part-elven—Maelith, Esinya, Arian—

In that moment of musing, someone hooked a foot around his ankle and struck his back; he staggered, then fell. He was just able to roll to the side and up before Arian was on him, twisting away from his counter, and catching his arm in a way that forced him down again.

“Good work, Arian!” Carlion said. “Even a king should be watching his back, not daydreaming like a boy in love.”

“You might have said ‘begin,’ ” Kieri said, trying unsuccessfully to squirm out of Arian’s grip.

“I did, twice. The other pairs were engaged, and you just stood there.” Carlion walked over and looked down at them. “I’d yield, if I were you, Sir King. She has you well-pinned and could break bones if you didn’t.”

“Yield,” Kieri said; Arian released him at once and stood. “I was thinking,” he said to Carlion. “Affairs of state.”

“An enemy won’t care, except it makes you easier to take,” Carlion said. Kieri noticed that Arian had moved out of his peripheral vision, and whirled just in time to see her begin another attack; she shifted at once to a new one, and they slid past each other, each evading the other’s attempts. Again … again … and then Kieri managed to connect with one strike. Arian followed the line of the strike, rolling and coming up again.

“Too much time in the palace and too little time here, Sir King,” Carlion said. “You must hand off some of the paperwork to clerks and add a session on unarmed combat alone. It may be mere stiffness from all those days on horseback, but it could kill you.”

As he talked, Kieri and Arian went on sparring. When Kieri pinned her at last, Carlion nodded. “Enough of that now, but you, Sir King, would do well to add an afternoon session to your schedule until you regain your speed and the flexibility in your left arm.”

“I did not heal someone of a poisoned dagger wound but a few days ago,” Arian said. She glanced at Kieri, then back at Carlion. “If the king’s grace is somewhat stiff after that, it is no wonder to me.”

“Sa! And the gossip has not yet reached me?” Carlion scowled. “I will have a talk with my spies. And you, Sir King—you are supposed to tell me of any impediment to your training.”

“I do not think it was that,” Kieri said. “I think it is what you said, barring the lovesick part—I was thinking of other things, dreams I had last night that spoke of the realm, and I am well rebuked.”