“Then why do you assume her feelings will change?”

Gwen could feel the heat of the fire building as it spread to the logs Dupont was painstakingly stacking atop the blaze. “I . . . I don’t know.”

The silence spread, punctuated by the little cracks and hisses and pops of the fire, creating an expectant space that pulled at Gwen’s need to speak far more skillfully than any interrogator could have done.

Finally, unbuckling her sword belt and tossing it aside, Gwen sat down and braced herself, palms flat against the stone floor. She kept her eyes on the reflection of the fire in the marble. “I . . . I’m not so sure losing is what I’m afraid of.”

“Hmm.” Dupont’s voice lacked even the tiniest hint of surprise. “Go on.”

Gwen swallowed, the slight sound nearly drowned out by the crackling fire. “What happens if I don’t lose?” she whispered, finally raising her gaze to look at Madame Dupont, watching the image of her waver slightly as moisture stung her eyes. “If I prove I am just as good as any of them, as good as all of them . . . if I win, how do I go back to my old, obedient little life when it’s over? How do I close this door again and go back to being who I was?”

The words crystallized in the air, surfacing a far deeper fear, one Gwen had not dared even to name.

Madame Dupont turned her head, looking away from the fire and inspecting Gwen’s features in the flickering light. Then she shifted her weight, easing down to sit cross-legged, gazing at the fire. “I shall tell you a story, Gwen. I was older than you, twenty-three years of age, and I was . . . well. You are not the first to ask whether a woman could hold a sword.”

Gwen felt herself moving, shifting to match Dupont’s body language. Even Isobelle didn’t know much about Dupont’s life before she came to the castle as a dancing instructor.

“How I practiced,” Dupont murmured. “Day and night, ignoring everything else. When the tournament came and I presented myself, as I am, as a woman, I was ready to fight them all. But they did not arrest me, or forbid me to fight, or tell me a woman may not enter. They did something far worse.” The older woman shifted her gaze from the fire and met Gwen’s eyes. In them Gwen could see a decades-old pain, as fresh and sharp as it must have been the day the wound was inflicted. “They laughed at me.”