In the city of Corregal, sword fighting is a way of life - unless you're a girl. While young men compete for prestigious positions within the ruling Houses, young women have to rely on others to protect them from the dangers lurking in the streets...
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"Where is it we are going, ailenia?" Romeric asked again as he followed Calette up another row of steps. He hadn't been paying attention. The river was behind them now, with all its cursed, confusing bridges, but the maze of terraced streets that climbed the hillside was no less a puzzle to him.
"It's not much farther." She tightened her grip on the fabric of his shirtsleeve. She had latched onto him like that back on Drennan Bridge – not his arm, just the sleeve – and not let go since, fingers twined in the fabric as if she was afraid he'd get away. She led him through the city this way, weaving through the crowds with unexplained urgency. Every so often she'd point to some notable landmark and name it for him, but she never told him where they were going.
The road they traveled now was more stairway than street, broken every few hundred steps by wide terraces that allowed access to side streets and rows of modest shophouses. She stopped now, several steps above him so that their heights were equal. Smitten, he thought, as she stared into his eyes again. Her own were a dusky gray, with drooping eyelids that made her look only half awake, still lost in some dream of the shifting, sunlit river. He couldn't help smiling at the attention, and mirrored her scrutiny with his own, intense and intimate. It made her blush, which made him smile more. Visibly flustered, she turned away and began to climb again.
"What does it mean?" she asked as she led him upward. "Ailenia?" Her tongue tangled on the unfamiliar word.
"It means...' Romeric hesitated before settling on a suitable translation. "Dear." A more accurate description would have been woman I plan on bedding very, very soon, but he wasn't sure how she'd respond to that just yet.
"Ailenia." She tried the word again, and got the pronunciation right this time. She glimpsed at him over her shoulder, not quite shy. "Ailenia."
He knew he was grinning ridiculously as he let her pull him along, but he couldn't help himself. He had not had much opportunity to meet many young women in this new city. Those to whom he'd been introduced were different than girls at home, cloaked in a reserve of propriety that he hadn't yet figured out how to penetrate. Neda was off limits, of course. Her father had made that clear from the start. If even the hint of a romantic notion came to Sieur Fleuracy's attention, Romeric would find himself badgeless and with nowhere to go. Barris and Tierce were hampered with the same restriction – not that it had stopped either one of them from falling in love with her. It was amusing, really, watching the pair of them struggle to hide their affections. He suspected they weren't fooling anyone but each other.
It had been Barris who sent him to the wrong bridge. Whether it was a welcome-to-the-neighborhood joke or some more malicious intent at work, Romeric didn't know. Either way, he would have to thank him for it later. If it hadn't been on the wrong Drennan Bridge he never would have met Calette.
From the moment he first saw her, wedged through the bridge railing so she could stare at the water below, he had been captivated. It wasn't the sort of thing ordinary girls did, which made her instantly interesting. And then, when he'd finally gotten her attention and she'd looked up at him with those sun-dazzled eyes and soft black hair tumbling around her face, she turned out to be quite pleasing to look at. Plump cheeks, honey-colored skin, rosy lips that kept tempting him to kiss her...
