They carried their gear to a quiet, grassy hill outside the fortress walls. “I’ll work with Skop,” Anya announced, testing the edge of a broadsword. Skop grinned to himself as he stretched his muscles, rolling out his neck.

“And her?” Aleksei nodded at me.

Torden’s searching gaze was like a sunburn. “I will work with you. If you like.”

Make your own way, Seneschal-elect.

Perrault had been deriding me. But this had to work.

Torden was my last—my only—chance.

If I was going to do this, I was going to have to do it my way.

I swallowed hard. “If you need to get in some real practice, I can just watch. But I’ll do whatever you’re doing, if you’re willing to teach me.”

The prins passed me a practice sword in answer, nodding firmly. Hermódr and Bragi exchanged a meaningful glance and got to work.

Skop learned quickly under Anya’s guidance. She was a natural, quick and graceful, the gold and amber around her slim neck flashing in the sunlight with every movement, and she sent Bragi and Skop tumbling into the dirt more times than I could count. Over and over, Anya offered them a hand up, and they accepted her each time, their faces never growing less admiring.

But I grew more and more anxious working nearby with Torden. He began by teaching me to parry a thrust, but I kept fumbling it: I failed to shift my weight correctly, my wrists were too slow to reangle the blade, I held the sword too far out and opened my side to attack. Worse yet, I couldn’t read him at all, his quiet study of me so unlike Bear’s open watchfulness.

“Again,” he said simply, over and over. Over and over I got it wrong, but his serene scrutiny never faltered.

I needed his approval. But his patience in the face of my inability—his total, steady calm, such a contrast to my rapidly fraying nerves—was unsettling.

Wasn’t he irritated, to find me so slow to learn? Wasn’t my incompetence getting under his skin?

Either way, his expression betrayed nothing. It unnerved me.

After about an hour and a half, the muscles in my arms and back were aching, and I eased down onto a patch of grass to rest. Most of the others dropped down beside me, but Torden wasn’t finished. Careful and deliberate, he kept working, practicing a single maneuver with the blade until I thought his arm might fall off.

“Slow and steady, old man,” Aleksei taunted.

“You are going to hurry yourself into an early grave,” Torden returned.

Aleksei’s face tightened. “Care to help me get there?” He opened his arms, and the boys began circling one another.