Page 17 of Soul Forge

Captain Reiner stepped back to let the Soul Forge take over. He hooked a foot around Elda’s ankle and dragged it outwards a couple of inches, widening her stance without warning. One gloved hand pushed her spine inwards with just his fingertips, the other drawing her shoulders back to straighten her posture with the most fleeting of touches.

“Shoot,” he commanded. She let her arrow fly, hitting the target almost dead centre. Sypher tapped her left elbow, encouraging her to straighten it as he lifted the other so it was at a right angle to her shoulder. “Again.”

This time, the arrow hit the centre of the target.

Reiner cocked her head, watching every move he made like she was waiting for him to attack. The Soul Forge ignored her, not pausing in his instructions. Eventually, the whinnies of the Pegasi waking up and clamouring for their morning flight took Reiner’s attention away.

The captain gave him a warning glare that would have made a lesser man quake in his boots, but Sypher simply arched an eyebrow and carried on with his task. The valkyrie finally left to attend to the winged horses, and Elda’s stomach knotted at the thought of being left at his mercy. Reiner had been her buffer so far.

She kept firing arrows until her shoulders ached and the correct stance was muscle memory, her arms trembling. By the time Sypher let her stop, the sun was up and the city was alive beyond the palace gates.

“How was that?” she asked, working hard to hide the hope flickering in her chest.

“Fine, if your bow is light,” he answered, shrugging. “You’ll need to do better than fine if you want to live.”

The hope sputtered but didn’t die. “I will.”

“We’ll see how enthusiastic you are when I’m done with you,” Sypher replied doubtfully. He rolled up his tunic sleeves, showing yet more runes winding up his forearms, the skin marked with more injuries faded by time. She wondered what ancient language his tattoos were written in.

“What are we doing now?” she asked, rolling her aching shoulders.

“Lose the bow,” he instructed. She set it and the quiver on the ground. “You’re going to try and hit me.”

She raised her fists and nodded, ignoring the way her stomach rolled. “Alright.”

He arched an eyebrow, beckoning her forwards with one gloved hand. She lunged and swung her fist, only to find it connecting with air when he simply stepped out of the way. She whirled and circled him, keeping him in her line of sight. She attacked once more, this time trying to sweep his feet from beneath him, using the drills she’d learned from Reiner over the years. He grabbed her calf and twisted, forcing her onto her stomach as she fell, and then his knee was on her back.

“Again,” he insisted. They continued like that until Elda was sweaty and breathless, but she refused to give up. She kept going until the sparring ring spun slowly around her, her pulse beating in her ears.

Her knees buckled the moment Sypher let her pause. “We’re done for the day.”

“I can keep going,” she insisted weakly, lying flat on her back in the dirt.

“No, you can’t. You need to drink some water and go rest before you pass out.” He started to walk away.

“Wait!” she blurted. He stopped. “You didn’t tell me how I did.”

“You really want to know?” He returned to her side, looking down at her with something close to boredom. He hadn’t even broken a sweat.

“I want to know,” she insisted.

“If you moved any slower, you’d go backwards. You telegraph your strikes before you make them, which makes it easy to predict what you’re about to do. You keep tucking your thumb in when you punch, you don’t watch where I’m stepping, and you hit like agirl.”

Elda swallowed. “Did I do anything right?”

“No.” He cocked his head and reluctantly offered her a gloved hand, tugging her to her feet. Standing took very little effort on her part, most of her body weight easily lifted by him.

“I’ll do better tomorrow.”

“Go drink something.” He turned and walked away, and the hope she’d held onto all day died out at last. Her head dipped in disappointment. “Princess?” She looked up, surprised to see he’d stopped to look over his shoulder at her.

“Yes?”

“I expected to be starting at square one. Next time will be much harder.”

And just like that, the flame lit once more. She watched his retreating back with a small smile. It wasbarelya compliment, but he’d acknowledged that she wasn’t a complete beginner. She’d take whatever she could get.

The bath worked wonders on Elda’s sore muscles. By the time she was clean and able to move without groaning, her stomach howled, and the sun had gone down. She touched her palm to the runed switch stone on the basin edge to drain the water and wrapped herself in a long silk robe. Persephone had left her a plate of bread and dried meat on the small table in her bed chamber, which she sat and dug into eagerly.

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