Of Blood And Royal Bones

Chapter 4: A Pastry And A Prince

Basia doubled over as she heaved in deep breaths in an attempt to slow her heart rate, her hands propping her torso up on her knees. Beads of sweat dribbled down her face and she wiped them away exasperatedly with the back of her hand.

"Drink." Kassia instructed as she held out a canteen. Basia squinted in the darkness and accepted the aluminum bottle, drinking greedily from it. "Next we've got a cord exercise for endurance." Kassia scooped up a long, black cord and handed it to Basia.

Basia inspected it and wrapped her fingers around twin cylinders that encased the ends of the cord. She found that the metal handles rested perfectly in her palms and she was able to hold a firm grip. "What is done with this?"

"Watch as I do." Kassia wrapped her fingers around her own set of metal handles and let the cord fall at her heels. "This is a lesson of coordination as much as it is fitness. Swing the length of cord over your head and once it reaches your feet, jump over it."

Basia glanced down at her floor-length plum purple gown in uncertainty, her booted toes peeking out from under the fabric. Kassia had offered her a pair of wool leggings and boots, but she had declined the leggings, accepted the boots. Kassia knew that while her friend had been eager to train, she was not yet ready to don clothes that society considered unlady-like. Instead her friend had forced herself to exercise in non-training gear and refused to let a single complaint slip past her lush lips. Kassia found this trait admirable and hadn't forced the issue, though she promised herself she'd find a way to provide Basia with a mid length dress for their next session. At least then she could exercise more freely without the worry of her dress snagging or tripping her up, a worry soaked in necessary caution that eliminated many of the exercises that Kassia had planned.

"Seems easy enough." Basia lied. She was not successful on her first attempt, nor her second, nor her third. On one such failure, she found herself in a purple heap in the dirt as she failed to clear the cord. Nevertheless, she continued her attempts– some that were bound to cause soreness later– until nearly twenty minutes passed when she managed to jump a total of three cord rotations.

Kassia stood off to the side doing her own exercises and coaching Basia when it was necessary. "I think the night is ripe enough to retire. Let us sit and I will show you the proper way to cool your body down."

Kassia led Basia through the routine stretches that were more often than not left out of her and Jurgen's training days but were secretly her favorite part.

"Have you read any more about Talla since that evening we learned Ziam's name?" Kassia asked as she helped her friend stretch her latissimus dorsi muscle by gently guiding an arced arm over her head with small amounts of pressure.

"I've familiarized myself with some common phrases of the language."

"And what about the Shadow Seekers? Can you offer me any more information on them?"

"I do not have much to offer. I only know that the trade has been around for millenia, but centuries ago it was erased from history entirely. They are not very common among kingdoms so it was a fairly easy task to achieve, but a very important one. Exterior knowledge of the Shadow Seeker had a direct effect of their demobilization so they wiped them from the books, wiped them from everything and created the illusion that they were gone for good. This illusion has been proven effective to this day. They have been included in Treaties and formal alliances between nations and now no one can recall such characters ever being involved."

"Why on earth were such great measures taken for only a handful of people?" Kassia questioned thoughtfully as she switched to Basia's resting arm and repeated the stretching movement. "Or were there legions?"