Chapter 6: Lessons in Blood
The air in the training yard tasted of dust and ended things. Dusk bled the color from the world, turning the high stone walls to grey slabs and the scattered practice dummies to slumped, silent sentinels. Roslin stood in the center of the cracked stones, the new dagger heavy and wrong in her hand.
It was a beautiful piece of steel, its pommel set with a small, green stone, but it felt like a betrayal. It didn’t belong with the memory of silk or the weight of a leather-bound book. She shifted her grip, trying to mimic the casual way Ser Arryk wore his weapons, and lunged half-heartedly at the empty air. The movement was stiff, all elbow and shoulder. She tried again, a sideways slash this time, over-correcting. The blade wavered, a visible shudder in the twilight.
“You’re holding it like it’s a poisonous snake.”
The voice came from behind, quiet and flat. She whirled, the dagger held out defensively, point wobbling. Jace stood a few paces away, having entered the yard without a sound. He was out of his formal doublet, dressed in a worn leather jerkin over a simple tunic, his sleeves rolled to the elbows. He looked more real here, like the stones and the dust. He also looked weary.
“I don’t know how to hold it at all,” she admitted, letting her arm drop. The confession cost her.
He studied her for a long moment, his violet eyes unreadable in the fading light. The distant laughter of departing guards echoed from an archway, followed by silence. He walked forward, his steps measured. “Then why are you out here?”
“Because not knowing felt worse.” She thought of Daeron’s easy charm, of the watching courtiers, of the hidden weight against her thigh. “I can’t just be a lemon cake enthusiast.”
A ghost of something—not a smile, but a recognition—flickered in his eyes. He closed the remaining distance until he stood before her. “Give it to me.”
She handed the dagger over, hilt first. He took it, and it vanished into his grasp, becoming an extension of his arm. He flipped it, caught it, spun it once in a blur of steel that made her breath catch. It was a casual, effortless display of ownership.
“It’s not a sword. You won’t be parrying greatswords with it. It’s for close work. Desperate work.” He flipped it again, caught it by the blade, and offered her the hilt. “Take it back.”
She did. Her palm was damp.
“Your grip is all in your fingers.” He moved then, not behind her, but beside her, his left hand coming to cover her fist on the hilt. His skin was rough, scarred, and shockingly warm. “The power comes from here.” He pressed, rearranging her fingers, forcing her palm to fill the space. “Thumb along the flat. Not over. You’ll lose it on the first impact.”
His touch was clinical, instructive. It was also the most sustained contact they’d ever had. She could smell the faint, clean scent of soap on his skin, overlaying something deeper, like cold stone and metal.
“Now,” he said, his voice a low murmur near her ear. He didn’t embrace her, but his right hand came up to guide her forearm, his chest a solid line of heat against her shoulder. “You don’t think about the arc. Thinking is slow. Your body knows the shortest path from point A to point B. Feel it.”
He guided her arm forward in a sharp, direct thrust, then pulled it back and guided it sideways in a tight, vicious slash. His strength was absolute, leashing her movement to his will. “The blade is an extension of your will. Not your anger. Your will. Anger is messy. It gets you killed.”
She was trying to listen, to learn, but her senses were drowning in the input of him. The feel of his calloused hands, the solidity of his body aligned with hers, the rhythm of his breath near her temple. It was overwhelming. Disorienting.
“Again,” he commanded, releasing her arm but remaining close, a wall at her back.
She tried to replicate the thrust. It was better, but still clumsy. Frustration boiled over. She slashed downward, putting too much of her shoulder into it, her control evaporating. The blade, poorly guided, skipped off an imaginary target and her own follow-through brought her hand swinging back too close to her body.
There was a sharp, bright sting.
She gasped, freezing. A thin, red line bloomed across the pad of her left index finger, where it had grazed the tip of the dagger in her right. It wasn’t deep, but it was sudden and precise, beading immediately into a perfect, trembling ruby of blood.
“Hell.” The word was a soft exhale from Jace.
He moved quickly, his earlier distance gone. He took her left wrist, his grip firm but not hurtful, and examined the cut. His brow was furrowed, not in anger, but in a sharp, focused assessment. “A clean edge. It’ll sting, but it’s shallow.”
Roslin stared at the blood, her face hot with a cocktail of embarrassment and sharp pain. “I’m an idiot.”
“You’re inexperienced,” he corrected, his tone matter-of-fact. He released her wrist, then, to her astonishment, brought her injured finger to his mouth.
Her breath hitched. He wasn’t looking at her; he was looking at the cut, his expression one of pure pragmatism. He sucked the blood away cleanly and spat it onto the stones. The act was startlingly intimate, devoid of romance but full of a raw, unthinking efficiency. The warmth of his mouth, the brief pressure, sent a jolt through her that had nothing to do with the cut.
He released her finger. “Salt water and a bandage. Now.” He took the dagger from her slackened right hand. “Enough for today.”
She cradled her left hand, the phantom sensation of his mouth on her skin burning brighter than the cut. He was already turning, wiping the blade’s tip on his leather jerkin before sliding it into his own belt.
“You keep it,” she said, her voice unsteady.
He paused, looking back at her. The last of the dusk light caught the silver in his hair. “It’s your dagger.”
“I clearly can’t be trusted with it.” She tried for lightness, but it fell flat.
He held her gaze for a long moment. The pragmatic mask was back, but it was fractured, just as it had been in the hall. He had moved to clean her wound without a second thought, an instinct from a world where wounds were constant and needed immediate, unflinching attention. It was the most nakedly caring thing he had ever done for her, and he seemed almost confused by it himself.
“Tomorrow,” he said finally, his voice rough. “Same time. We’ll work on footwork. A blade is useless if you’re on your back.” He gave her a curt nod, then turned and walked toward the keep, his form dissolving into the deep shadows of the archway.
Roslin stood alone in the darkening yard, the coppery taste of blood still hanging in the air. She looked at her finger, clean now, already beginning to throb. The lesson had been in the cut, and in the response to it. He had not lectured. He had not mocked. He had acted.
She closed her hand into a fist, feeling the dull, promising ache, and walked slowly back inside, the ghost of his touch imprinted on her skin, more instructive than any words could ever be.