The Rebel Prince (The Season Series #3)

Chapter 28

The morning after I'd thoroughly surprised Frederico and ridden away from the Bazeran merchant vessel bound for home, I jerked awake when something prodded my torso. Overhead, dawn bled into the sky, the stars slowly winking out as the purple sky blushed pink.

"Wake up."

My stomach was poked again before I freed myself from my bedroll, blinking up at Beatriz, a wooden quarterstaff hopping between her hands.

"Why?" I yawned, fisting the sleep from my eyes. Behind her, Rafael leaned against a tree, his yawn a contagion of mine.

"Because you need to learn how to stay alive," she said. The staff poked towards my stomach again and I scuttled backwards, struggling to my feet.

"Does this mean I'm finally allowed to train with you?" I asked, tugging on my boots before I caught up to them. She twirled the staff, exchanging a look with Rafael.

"It means we will be training you," Rafael corrected. I looked between the pair of them. We will be training you, meaning that they thought I was too pitifully inexperienced to offer them any kind of real opposition to practice against. Rafael's face was the first to break into a smirk when my expression darkened.

"I'm not that-" I protested.

In response, Beatriz swung the quarterstaff around. It connected with my stomach again, solidly enough that the breath left my lungs in a huff. I coughed and staggered backwards.

"You didn't even try to block me," she stated, leaning on it as she surveyed me massaging my gut.

"You didn't give me any warning!"

"Lesson one," Rafael said. "The enemy will not give you any warning."

It was Beatriz' turn to smirk, tossing the staff at me. I caught it, barely, while she plucked up another leaning against a gnarled old oak. Unsure what to do with it, I tried spinning as she had before, only to have it tumble free from my clumsy fingers. Rafael clucked when I jerked down to pick it back up.

"You should see him with a sword," Beatriz muttered over her shoulder, as she stepped out from underneath the branches of the oak, away from the gnarled roots that burst free from the soil below.

"How many times must I remind you that I understand you?" I asked in Ardal, following her.

She didn't dignify that with a response, instead swinging her staff around in an arc. Now that I was armed, I brought my own staff up in a bid to block it, but she knocked it free from my grip.

"You should hold it with both hands," Rafael offered helpfully, from where he'd now begun to lounge against the old oak.

"Yes, because I'll definitely choose a wooden staff as my weapon of choice in a duel," I muttered, collecting the quarterstaff from the ground.

"If you want to make it harder for someone to knock your sword out of the way, you'll need stronger arms," Beatriz said, holding her staff horizontal to show me the proper grip. "Like this, idiota."

I adjusted my hands, mimicking hers and fighting down the humiliation as Rafael chuckled from behind me. I didn't protest that my arms were plenty strong, not when Beatriz would only have cocked an eyebrow and looked to Rafael's hulking muscles. She'd also demonstrated how painfully easy it had been for her to knock my sword free when she'd pinned me to the battlefield after escaping Relizia.

So I swallowed my pride and bit my tongue, learning the thrusts and swings and blocks that Beatriz and Rafael had decided to teach me. I still doubted their usefulness, especially since I'd never reach for a quarterstaff if a sword or even a bow was available, but I didn't question their approach any further. They were training me to defend myself, a skill I'd never been forced to learn in Pretania. James Amberly had attempted to teach me swordsmanship, but I'd never held a candle to him and the expertise he'd honed to honour his late father.