The boy’s, Zara still hadn’t gotten his name, camp was not far from where he found her, and when they reached it she was surprised by how small it was. It consisted of a small cloth lean-to set against a tree, a fire pit that wasn’t being used for anything and a swinging carcass of what she guessed to be a smallish boar slowly dripping blood into a hole dug beneath it.

The boy, she would have to come up with a name to call him for he was around her age and therefore no boy, walked to his lean-to and deposited the four swords he looted into it, then he turned to her approached and touched the sides of her shoulders with the tips of his fingers.

A wave of disgust washed over Zara. Logically she knew the touch was purely practical, a way to measure the width of her shoulders, why she did not know, but it brought on memories. Memories of unwanted touches and constrictive grips. She jerked away, and warped her hands around herself. Her shame of her reaction brought anger.

“Dark blight you! What are you doing?” she snarled at the boy.

He didn’t react to her aggression or answer to her question. He simply looked at the space between his hands for a moment, completely ignoring her outburst, then he turned around and started to cross his camp to the trees opposite them.

His lack of reaction made her angrier, the same part that knew his touch had no motives beyond getting her measure, literally, told her she was acting like a child. But it didn’t offer much resistance.

“I asked you something!” she squawked after him, the tone of her own voice irritating her further, and jumped to reach him.

“Don’t ignore me you peace of shit!” she grabbed onto his shoulder and pulled to make him face her.

What happened was not something she expected. At worst he was going to just shrug her off, but what happened was truly bizarre. Instead of the boy turning towards her or moving against his will, Zara was the one that found herself pivoting on her front foot, as if she tried to twist the top of a giant boulder stuck two thirds in the ground. She let go and re-established her own balance.

What in all the Stars Homes did just happen? She asked herself, stunned. The boy was defying the laws of the world. Even a mountain of a man would show some effect of her attempt to spin him around. This boy was shorter and, Dark, maybe lighter than her, so how didn’t he move at all?

“Stars guide me! What is he?” she asked with an exhale, than turned towards the mysterious anomaly she was with.

He didn’t even notice, or didn’t care to show he noticed, her failed attempt at intimidation. In fact he was moving from tree to tree measuring their width with his hands. Zara watched him do it in the awkward silence she found herself in. She decided to end the silence.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

“Why are you measuring he trees?” she asked no longer angry, the boy’s immovability knocking her anger out of her. “Come on. You said you would teach me. How can I learn if you don’t tell me what you are doing when I ask?” she pleaded in exasperation and a need to break the silence.

The boy turned his head from his task and looked at her. His face went from contemplative to serious. “You are right. Never done this before…” he trailed off “I am looking for a tree for you to start to practice on. That’s how my master taught us.” He returned his gaze to his work “He did have more time to prepare, so I am doing the best I can.”

Zara was confused. When He complained about His sword training He would always go on and on how His masters and teachers would drill stances and swings and never allowed Him to spar with the guards. She guessed that was more for His safety and to stop Him from trying to murder the employees of the castle. Why this boy needed a tree to teach her swordsmanship was baffling.

“This one will do.” The boy brought her out of her musings. She searched for him with her gaze for a second and found him looking up at an old knotted tree barely eking a part of the canopy for its own. He had his hands on his hips and was looking pretty satisfied with his find.

“You start tomorrow. Get some sleep.” The boy said turning to her. “Before you turn in though, I want to ask you something.” The boy looked her in the eyes. Zara noticed something new about him. His eyes weren’t completely black, there were strings of silver winding themselves around and into the depths of his eyes. Strangely while his gaze was intense she felt no danger in it, just deep searching and piercing of her very essence.

“What is it?” Zara asked when the silence stretched.

“What is a sword?” he asked her.

Zara frowned, ‘”What is a sword?” isn’t it obvious? A weapon.’ She opened her mouth to answer but stopped. ‘It couldn’t be that easy.’ She thought. He is obviously looking for something more. He felt like the acolytes in the temples searching for deeper meaning where there is none. She took a deep breath. “A sword is my will, my drive to strive further. To protect what I love and destroy what I hate.” That sounded deep enough.

The boy laughed, but stopped abruptly. “No.” he said “No it is not. Listen to me very closely because it is truly important. I can teach you noting if you do not understand this.” He stopped for emphasis. “A sword is a tool like any other. But its use is to reap human life. Think on this for tonight, tomorrow will leave you little time to think on this.”

And with that he brushed past her, across the camp and into his lean-to, leaving Zara with no response and a headache. ‘A tool he says. Takes one to know one’ she thought. But the idea stuck with her. Something so simple having such a grim use, and being created with a goal to kill did give additional weight to two blades she strapped to her sides.

She stood for a moment in thought. Then pulled out her waxed blanket out of her pack, found a spot in a crook of some roots on the opposite side of the camp from the boy’s lean-to. He didn’t start a fire in the pit, and she had no intention to do any more work today. She leaned back against the trunk beneath which she wrapped herself in the blanket. The last thing she remembered before a deep dreamless sleep took her was watching the boys lean to for any signs he was going to come out and towards her.