Royal Affairs

Chapter 13

                                                   A Week later. The day before the ball.

(Ember's POV)

        I stood in front of the mirror. I wore my training clothes and my hair I had french braided and it laid over my shoulder. I took in my appearance. My waist was even smaller than before but I could tell that in the short time I had been training my muscles had strengthened. Jonathan has trained me in sword fighting, archery and using both a sword and bow from horse back. We quickly learned I was a master with a bow.

        I looked out the window and saw that the sun could just be seen peaking over the mountain. I quickly grabbed my daggers that Jonathan had me training with and opened the door. Sir Kyles quickly bowed and followed me through the halls. I had been leaving my room early for training for the past week so that I could avoid Sebastian. He had been taking the courting thing a little far. Each day I found roses in my chambers. Everyday there was one more than the day before. It was sweet but most of the time they got in the way and it was just overpowering.

        Sir Kyles and I stopped in the kitchen to grab a couple of apples then we headed for the stables. We came to a halt when we saw Jonathan with Storm and Midnight. "Whats going on?"

        Jonathan looked at me from where he had been tightening Midnight's bridle and smiled. "Good morning. I just thought that we would train off of castle grounds. I thought beings we wouldn't be having training tomorrow we could double today's. However I still don't want you to get to hot from the heat and if we train on castle grounds the other guards would eventually come to train."

        I walked over to Storm and fed her an apple. When she was finished I turned back to Jonathan. "Where are we going then?"

        He smirked. "A place that I know of in the woods." He walked over to a stool and picked up what I hadn't noticed was laying on it. "Take you bow and arrows and also your sword. Do you have your daggers?" He had had each weapon specially made for me a couple of days before. They were all lighter than anything the guards would have armed themselves with but they were still as deadly.

        "Yes."

        "Good. You're going to be using them all," and with that he swung on to Midnight and waited for me to mount Storm. "Ready." When I nodded my head he took off. Storm and I followed beside him as we entered the woods. I tried to remember every thing I could about the path we took.

         After about half an hour we came to an open area. Jonathan dismounted Midnight and tied his reins to a twisted tree limb. I did the same and gasped when I took in the rest of the area. There was a stream that flowed between two trees and the trees sheltered the area from the sun except right above it. "This place is beautiful."

        "Yes. This place in the woods can make any thing beautiful, of course somethings are naturally beautiful." I turned to look at him and saw that he was looking at me but he quickly turned away. "Lets begin."

        We started with archery. He had me target certain areas on trees, and then he threw broken branches in to the air. When he felt sure I didn't need to practice that any more he had me set my bow and arrows aside. He had me arm my self with my daggers and my sword, while he just had his sword. "This is a test. If you pass I will tell your father to let you have a break from training. Shall we say three days?"

        "How do I pass exactly?"

        Jonathan thought about this for a moment, then said, "We will have too see what happens," then he came at me with his sword raised. I quickly blocked his attack. I knew he wasn't using his full force and he wouldn't badly injure me, but I knew he would try to lay a couple of scratches to motivate me.