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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The boat pushed off from the dock right at sundown, the sky to the west still blazing like molten gold. But it was the full moon rising in the east that held the attention of the boat's passengers, a swollen disk of silver rising into the twilit sky, casting its enchantment on this midsummer night.
Gliding with the river's swift current, the hired boatmen barely had to lift their oars out of the water at all. With experienced hands, they guided the sleek vessel along the curves of the river, maneuvering it neatly under bridges and past glowing beacons that marked a safe course for travel even in the dark.
The Frog sat in the prow of the boat, leaning out over the water, eager for the first glimpse of their downstream destination. Every so often, when it caught a rill of choppy current, the boat dipped down low and the river splashed him with its cool fingers, making him laugh.
"Be careful, Pash," the Princess said from behind him. "Your father will kill me if you fall in."
He turned his head to grin at her, but of course she couldn't see him, because of the mask, so he went ahead and stuck out his tongue, too, something he would never have dared at home. Not that she would have cared, but his father would have given him a whack with his biggest spoon if he'd caught him at it. It was just one of the reasons he loved the sculpted paper mask, with its bulging eyes and pink tongue lolling out the side of the too-wide mouth. It had been a birthday present, just two days past. You had to be thirteen to go to the Trienelle masquerade, and he'd made it just under the beam. He couldn't wait to discover all the delightful entertainments the ball had waiting for him.
Despite her words of warning, the Princess looked just as excited as he was. She was dressed in an old-fashioned looking warrior's outfit, with a sweeping surcoat of blue, tall boots, and bits of armor strapped onto her arms and shoulders. She even had a sword at her side, which was all right for tonight, since she was supposed to be Daena and it wasn't a real sword anyway. Her mask was an intricate fretwork of gold wire that wound over the upper half of her face before spreading out in two wings that wrapped around her head.
"If he falls in, he can just swim the rest of the way," said the Ghost from further back in the boat. "Like a good little tadpole."
"I'm a frog!" the Frog snapped back, and emphasized his point by hopping, frog-like, where he crouched on the prow. The whole boat rocked forward when he did it, alarming all the passengers, but especially the Ghost, who grabbed at the gunwale with an oath.
"Enough of that!" one of the boatmen called out from the rear. "Everyone stay in their seats, if you please."
"Come and sit with us, Pash," the Barbarian offered, sliding to one side of the bench. "There's room over here."
If anyone else had asked him, he would have refused, but the Barbarian had a strange pull on the Frog that he was only just beginning to understand. He didn't care much for the mask he was wearing—the leather was shaped like some kind of animal skull, with a crest of spiky feathers and embedded metal thorns instead of teeth. But it was paired with a sleeveless leather tunic that showed off his long, tan arms, lean with muscle from hours practicing with a sword. So he agreeably scrambled back to the benches and took the offered seat.
