They fought along the chamber’s perimeter, Anhuset continuously advancing, Ildiko retreating but successfully blocking each blow Anhuset attempted to land on her upper body.
Ildiko’s grim features lightened with a tiny smile, one that fled when Anhuset abruptly changed tactics, swung low, and struck Ildiko’s outer thigh with a silabat.
The hercegesé hopped to the side with a yelp and held up a hand to halt their bout. She rubbed her padded leg while glaring at Anhuset. “I thought you were just focusing on my torso.”
Anhuset arched an eyebrow. “Did I say that?”
Ildiko’s tone changed from indignant to wary. “No.”
“You assumed it, hercegesé. I repeated the same movement several times…”
“So I would assume wrongly.” This time Ildiko’s scowl was for herself. “You did say predictability was a blade with two edges.”
Anhuset nodded, pleased with her student’s echo of her words. As a novice at gatke, Ildiko made every mistake Anhuset expected her to make, but she listened closely to instruction and committed them to memory. The pain of that strike, and the bruise sure to follow, guaranteed Ildiko wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
“You learn from your enemy; your enemy learns from you. Surprise them with the unexpected by teaching them to expect the same thing.”
Ildiko wiped her brow with the back of one hand and blew a stray tendril of vibrant red hair out of her eyes. “I don’t think I’ll ever master this stick fighting of yours.”
“Every student says that until they do.”
“Even you?”
Anhuset answered Ildiko’s doubtful smile with a toothy one of her own. “Even me, and I had a lot more bruises to show for it than you ever will.” She pointed her silabat at Ildiko. “Enough chatting. Stance. Widen your feet a little more. Forearms instead of wrists.”
A brief tap at the door interrupted their next round. Ildiko gave Anhuset a questioning look, one returned with a shrug. The entire fortress knew not to disturb the hercegesé and her teacher during gatke lessons. To do so risked the formidable wrath of Anhuset. So far, no one had been that brave or that foolish except one man.
“Might as well open it,” Anhuset said, relaxing out of her stance. “He’ll just keep knocking until you do.”
Ildiko creaked the door open, a wide smile blooming across her mollusk-pink features at the sight of her husband standing on the other side. “Just in time, Brishen. You’ve saved Anhuset from yet another beating. I’ve trounced her at least a half dozen times this lesson,” she cheerfully lied.
Brishen smirked as he crossed the threshold into the chamber, but Anhuset didn’t miss the way his gaze swept his wife’s form, looking for wounds beneath the distortion of her padded armor. Confession time.
“She’ll wear a bruise on her left thigh for a week or so.” She flinched inwardly when his eyes narrowed. “She’s slower this evening than usual. I hear the queen kept her up all day.”
Anhuset silently congratulated herself on turning Brishen’s disapproval back toward his wife. His gaze settled on Ildiko’s face, noting, as Anhuset had, the dark circles under her eyes. “Where was her nurse?”
Ildiko stood on tiptoe to brush a conciliatory kiss across his frowning mouth. “Right beside me. We took turns coaxing Tarawin to settle down and finally go to sleep.”
“Bring in more nurses.”
She laughed. “How many people do you think we should cram into that nursery just to get Her Majesty to go to sleep?”
Brishen slid an arm around Ildiko’s narrow waist to draw her against him. “As many as it takes. I don’t like waking up and finding you gone from our bed, even if it’s in service to the little tyrant.”
“Who has you dancing on a string just like she does the rest of us.”
“I dispute that notion.”
Ildiko laughed. “Of course you do.”
Fascinated by the interplay between her cousin and his human wife, Anhuset idly wondered what it might be like to have such a connection with someone. She and Brishen trusted each other implicitly. She knew without a doubt her cousin would sacrifice himself for her, just as Anhuset would for him. They were cousins but closer than siblings, more accepting of each other than just friends, and her loyalty to him would remain steadfast until she died.
But it wasn’t the same type of devotion she witnessed now between the herceges and his hercegesé. This affection burned bright with passion, with desire. There existed between them an unspoken and private language only the two of them understood and shared with no one else.
A vague ache pulsed somewhere under Anhuset’s breastbone, and it took her a moment to realize the feeling was both wistfulness and no small amount of envy. What was it like to know someone so well that it seemed like they walked within your spirit and you within theirs?
She mentally shook off the emotions and the question they inspired. Such idle thoughts were a waste of time and not for her. She was pleased for her cousin. After all he’d suffered, he deserved this happiness. It didn’t mean she needed, or even wanted, the same thing.
“Was there something you needed, herceges?” The dry tone of her question drew his attention away from Ildiko and onto herself. A half smile, faintly annoyed, faintly apologetic played across his lips.
He bowed. “I can take a hint, cousin. Forgive me.” He reached inside the tunic he wore and fished out a letter, its parchment neatly creased and its seal broken. He fluttered it before both women. “Serovek will be here at the end of the week. To discuss something to do with Megiddo’s body.”
A pall settled over the chamber, and a pitying look chased away all humor from Ildiko’s features. “That’s all he said? No other detail?”
Brishen shook his head, his own features grim. “I think he wishes to save those for when we speak in person.” He skated his fingertips down her sleeve. “Can you see to it a room is made for him? Maybe now that Saggara isn’t so overcrowded with Kai families seeking shelter, he’ll be willing to stay in the manor house itself instead of the barracks.”
Anhuset’s stomach fluttered at his words. She frowned at the involuntary reaction. A visit from the Beladine margrave should have no effect on her, but it did, and she resented it. She hadn’t seen him in months, and even when memories of his teasing smile or the feel of his mortally wounded body collapsing in her arms, rose unbidden and unwelcome in her mind, she ruthlessly pushed them away. With the exception of Ildiko, she barely tolerated humans. Serovek’s surprising attentions unnerved her, made her react in ways she didn’t anticipate or understand, and she resented him for it.
“Of course,” Ildiko said. “Did you want me to order scarpatine pie for him when he visits? I’ll need to tell Cook now so she can prepare.”
“It’s his favorite.” He raised an eyebrow at Anhuset’s scoffing snort. “I’ll want you at both supper and any meetings we have with him,” he told her, his tone warning off any argument she might put forth. “I value your advice.”
She bit back a protest. “As you wish.”
Ildiko’s gaze centered on the letter Brishen held. I wonder what this news is about Megiddo?”