Song for this Chapter
"Keep your eyes open! I am not even at full speed," commanded the king.
"My eyes are open," I said.
"You might as well be unconscious, for half the mind you are putting into this."
"That is unfair, My Lord!"
"You are not fully engaged. I can see it in your face."
"In my face?"
"You are not giving this everything you have. You are thinking too much. You must be fully concentrated upon this very instant, watching for my move, readying to counter. Do not think about anything else. Do not think about being a Lady, or about my being your king. Do you understand?"
I thought a moment and knew that he was correct. I was self conscious while fighting him, afraid to be seen as too ferocious or wild. Some part of me was, indeed, holding back, and he was far too masterful a warrior to miss this.
Raising my sword again, I thought of an orc. If I were facing a real monster, there would be no other idea in my mind but surviving, and so the king would have to be an orc--a blindingly handsome, unthinkably skilled orc.
It would have helped were he even the least bit hideous. But nevertheless...
I swung at him and he easily avoided it. I swung again, my face screwed up in concentration, and I came closer that time, but he countered so fast it took all of my mind to leap from it. He allowed no time for recovery, ever, just barraged me with an onslaught of lightning fast maneuvers where I could normality only manage to counter a few, here and there...until now, when I felt the satisfying clash of our swords. I blocked him for the second time in a row
I was certain my face was twisted in some sort of awful way, but it was working, and the fierce smirk upon My King's face told me that he was pleased.
"Better! You provide me a sliver of a challenge," he said.
The arrogamce. A sliver?
I dove forward with my thrust and he blocked me, and again, and again, until finally he missed my advance and in my overzealousness I marked him upon his left cheek with my sword. He held it, and winced.
"Oh, My Lord!" I rushed forward to look at what I had done, but his hand covered it. "I am so terribly sorry! Allow me to help. Please."
He waved me away with his free hand. "It is fine."
"But it is not. It is obvious that I've hurt you. But..." Upon closer look, I could see no blood anywhere around his fingers.
Certainly I had marked him deeply enough to draw blood. "You do not bleed?"
He lowered his hand and the area seemed perfectly untouched. It was impossible that there should not have been at least a scratch there. With an instinct to heal, I reached up to touch his face and he grimaced. The skin was colder there, colder than it ought to have been. I was perplexed. Then I recognized.
"An enchantment of the flesh? Do you hide your injury? I inflicted it...I would heal it."
"You did not inflict it."
I turned up my face in question.
"And you cannot heal it," he said.
"I do not understand. For I can see that I have surely caused you pain. And what use is a Healer to her king if you will not let me sooth you?" I looked at him with gentle, but pleading eyes. "Please."
