He left the armchair for his desk. He sat and searched through drawers, producing paper, pen, and ink, and then writing furiously and with such focus that Karigan and Cade might as well not have existed. Cade shrugged, collected the empty teacups on a tray, and carried them away to the kitchen.

As Karigan watched the professor work, she wondered just exactly what had been set in motion.

THE TRAINING OF CADE HARLOWE

Neither Cade nor the professor paid Karigan any mind. The professor stayed at his desk scribbling away on papers, and after Cade deposited the tea tray in the kitchen, he proceeded to the training area without a glance in her direction.

She switched chairs so she could watch Cade work. First he removed his suit coat, and then his waistcoat, hanging them on a brass hook on the wall. Perhaps conscious of her gaze, this time he did not remove his shirt. He next looked over the weapons arrayed before him on wall mounts, and after some consideration, chose a longsword. He stood with it at his side for some time, his eyes closed and head bowed, chest rising with slow, deep breaths.

Karigan waited and waited, while he stood there breathing, wondering when he would begin. If he were one of Drent’s students, he’d have been pounded into the ground already, solely for standing there, with Drent screaming in his face. Sword fighting was not about peaceful contemplation but acting, and Drent never let his trainees forget it, for in a real-life fight, hesitation meant death. Enemies did not wait for an opponent to be ready.

Finally, Cade moved slowly and deliberately into some warm-up exercises, stretching his limbs and torso. This, too, went on for far longer than Drent would have ever permitted, and Karigan found herself tapping her fingers on the armrest of her chair.

She settled in when he finally, and swiftly, transitioned to forms, the sword arcing through the air with a bright silver gleam. He began with simple, beginner moves, gradually progressing to intermediate and more advanced forms. It was much as she had observed before—his posture and balance were very good, but his execution lacked finesse. Some of his transitions were rough, and a couple of the forms were plainly incorrect. Drent, she thought, would have enjoyed tearing Cade Harlowe apart.

After he tried to sweep from Crayman’s Circle into Aspen Leaf—very advanced moves—and executed them so poorly, she could stand it no longer. Before she knew it, she was on her feet and crossing over to the training area with her bonewood in hand. She halted before him, but he seemed determined to ignore her, and she had to admire his focus, though the longer she stood there, the more his movements became jerky, less clean, her proximity having some effect on him. No, Drent would not approve.

He fumbled with the simple but elegant Deer Hunt form in such a way that he was inviting an opponent to impale him. Karigan decided to oblige. With a single swift thrust of the bonewood, she knocked the sword out of his hand, then jabbed him in the belly. The clang of steel on the wooden floor echoed through the vast room. He staggered back, hunched over and clutching his belly, gasping for air, while simultaneously shaking out his sword hand. Karigan watched faintly amused while he tried to regain enough breath to swear.

“What in damnation was that for?” he roared.

It was a pleasant surprise to see the usually stoic Cade show some anger. “Your sloppy technique provoked me.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Enough to disarm you, evidently.”

“You could have caused me to injure you by interfering like that.”

“You’re more likely to injure yourself,” Karigan observed.

Cade’s face reddened as he fought to stifle his anger. He swiped his sword off the floor. “How do you know? Girls may have played at carrying swords back in your day, but they could hardly fight men.”

His pronouncement irked her, but she could hardly blame him for the teachings of his world. The empire had reduced the roles of women significantly from what she’d been accustomed to in her own. Women couldn’t even bare their faces in public and were relegated to passivity, systematically made powerless by the rules of the empire. If this was all Cade had ever known, she could not expect to change his attitude about “girls” in one evening, but she could try.

“Apparently you do not have all the facts of your history correct.” The bonewood hummed toward his face and he barely blocked it in time. The blood now drained from his cheeks. If she’d the use of her dominant hand, she might very well have bashed in his face had she so desired. As it was, she easily disarmed him again by catching the crossguard of his sword with the bonewood and yanking it right out of his hand.

He bent once again to retrieve his sword, rage building in his expression, but she stepped on the blade and jabbed the tip of the bonewood into his neck. He stilled. “I’m a swordmaster initiate,” she said, “as were other girls of my time, as were so many who came before me over the generations. You forget that the armies of the Long War were filled with females because so many of the men had died, and many were children when they took up arms. You forget that girls were swordmasters and Weapons. Even female Green Riders, who never trained for swordmastery as I have, are very handy with swords and are taught to fight men as well as other girls. If this bonewood were a sword, and we were enemies, I’d have killed you at least three times already.”

She removed her foot from his sword blade and withdrew the bonewood from his neck. It left a red mark on his skin. He stood, sword in hand, once again trying to master his anger. “We don’t fight with swords here,” he snapped. “We use other weapons.”