Children Of The Sky (The Scripts Of Neptune, Book 2)

Chapter 22

The week following Ely's meeting with Darcy's father was grueling. He'd accepted the job hunting the vigilante, and the training, helpful though it was, was even tougher than what he'd had before. He'd almost fallen asleep twice at parties already--which the countess hosted a ridiculous amount of--and he'd only managed to stay awake long enough to draw a few nights.

Darcy, blessedly, was becoming increasingly bearable. He still avoided her outside of necessary meetings, and she let him, but there were small things--the pencils and fine paper that'd appeared on his desk without a name attached after she'd caught him with more charcoal in his pockets, or the looser clothing he was now allowed to wear to dances--that made his bitterness towards her waver.

The first day she really surprised him, he was training with the sword, messing up every three seconds and wincing when the instructor gave him correctional instructions with increasing impatience. He knew why he was doing poorly. The weapon's weight was too familiar in his hand, and he kept slipping back to that day he'd sparred in the field with Corin, the day their father had come home. The day he'd lost everything.

He'd slipped again. The flat of the instructor's blade hit his wrist with a resounding whack, and Ely dropped his sword with a hiss, jumping backwards.

"Pay attention, boy," the instructor snapped. He was a lithe man of medium height, a mess of tan hair atop his head and skin that was almost the same shade and speckled with scars. He'd started the morning pleasant and patient; Ely couldn't blame his gradual shift in mood. "I cannot teach a student who won't listen."

It went on like that for another hour or so, Ely getting distracted, the instructor chastising him, the both of them starting over. Eventually, out of frustration, the instructor came at him without restraint, knocking the sword to the ground skillfully and putting Ely on the ground with a boot to the chest. Ely lay there, breathing heavily, his back warmed by the sand, and met the man's eyes as he held the point of his blade to Ely's throat.

"Take a break, son," he said, surprisingly gentle. "Your mind is elsewhere. You need to focus to learn."

Ely rested his head back against the sand and closed his eyes as the man walked towards the buildings that bordered the training yards, sweat rolling down his temples, the sun hot and heavy on his skin. It smelled of sweltering sand and polishing oil out here, the scent of it clinging to him like spirits to a graveyard.

It was too much of an effort to open his eyes when he heard footsteps approaching, but he decided to bother with it when they stopped beside him. Squinting up, he saw red hair twisted in a bun and a wiry, feminine frame dressed in a shirt and trousers silhouetted against the sky.

Darcy offered him a hand up, and he surprised himself by taking it and handing her the training sword when she held out her hand. They walked back to the buildings without saying anything, and she put the sword on a rack in the shade before tossing a water skin to him.

She watched him from one of the pillars, arms crossed, as he took a long drink and poured the rest on his head, letting it drip down through his clothing and hit the sand at his feet. He leaned back against the wall, watching the heatwaves rise off the sand out there in the sun, until her stare at last drew his back again.

"When I was eleven years old," she began quietly, "there was an attempt on my life. No one knows how the assassin got in, but she had a dagger. Tried to put it through my chest. Almost succeeded." She stopped there and pulled the collar of her shirt down past her collarbone, exposing a faded scar, thick and short. "My dad stopped her, barely. I didn't think it'd affect me until a year later, when I started training with blades. I couldn't hold a dagger or a knife without going into a panic. My teacher tried to break me of it, but nothing worked."