Court of Shadows (Indefinite Hiatus)

PART 13: FEYRE

Aelin made contact with Feyre, revealing that the wyrdkeys hold great power and that Maeve is a powerful enemy. Now, Feyre must figure out what to do with the information. 

After her encounter with the fae woman--Aelin, Feyre spent the rest of the day walking about the manor. She was too shaken, and her mind too preoccupied to sit still. She would have asked Tamlin to assign her a few escorts so she could travel outside of the manor, but he had yet to return. Feyre figured if he wasn't still in negotiations with the foreign delegation, that he was probably attending to more business with Hybern.

A light breeze stirred the air as Feyre strolled along a stone walkway around the perimeter of the manor. Five more minutes down the path, and the squat, rectangular shape of the soldier's barracks came into view.

Just two men conversed outside of the building; Feyre guessed they were probably trying to convince one another to trade shifts, but their conversation was lost behind the hectic cacophony of the training area further down the path.

She stopped walking when the training grounds came into full view. The open lands totaled about four acres, and were hardly ever not in use. The space was divided into separate training areas for a variety of weapons. Feyre's eyes were drawn to the center most area: the sparring rings, where a handful of males fought.

It was not uncommon for Feyre to make the walk and watch the soldiers train when she found herself with nothing to do. Initially, she thought that she might be able to garner useful information from watching the soldiers: a new battle tactic or fighting technique that might hint at Hybern's plans. Even absent-minded gossip had the potential to yield important information.

However, after her third or fourth time attending, Feyre came to the conclusion that nothing was to be discovered by watching them. Either Tamlin guarded his secrets too closely or his officers were not very forthcoming with their soldiers. Feyre suspected it was probably both.

If Tamlin knew of her little excursions to the training grounds, he hadn't said anything.

It wasn't until the third time she'd made the walk that whoever was in charge stopped asking her if she needed anything. And it wasn't until her fourth or fifth visit that most of the soldiers had finally relaxed enough to train properly. She imagined that it was probably very intimidating to have someone close to their high lord watching them.

She also suspected that if she had been anyone other than the "soon-to-be-lady of the Spring Court" or "Savior of Prythian" then she would have been asked not to come, for the sake of the soldiers' focus. Fortunately, the males got used to her presence and no one said anything negative about her visiting.

Despite the low turnout of information, Feyre liked coming to watch the training. She found peace in the metallic drone of clanking weapons, and the absence of servants and nobility. The atmosphere reminded her of the training routine she'd endured with Cassian, and she longed not just for the presence of her friend, but surprisingly, for the training itself.

Feyre let her lips turn into a wry smile. She could imagine the talking-to Cassian might give her after not training or conditioning for months in a row. "No excuse..." he might say. "...you let yourself regress; now we have to rebuild your endurance before we can continue working on combat..."

Feyre forced her mind back to the training grounds, and walked towards one of large trees that she liked to lean against. One of the males at the weapons rack noticed her, and offered her a quick smile before returning to the rack. She gave him a small wave and laughed to herself.