Heart of Defiance (The Royal Spares)

Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Signy

“ B lock, feint, jab,” Jostein calls out, stepping forward with a swing of his sword.

I jerk the short sword I was given this morning through the motions we’ve been practicing. Steel clangs against steel, the impact reverberating through my arms.

I manage not to stumble backward like I did the first few times we practiced this sequence, but my jab isn’t quite fast enough to even nick Jostein’s tunic before he’s smacking my blade aside.

As I grimace in frustration, he lowers his sword and squeezes my shoulder. “You’re doing well. Most of us had years of training and practice battles before we saw real enemy action.” He glances across the field around us. “I’m sure we never expected to find ourselves as the teachers this early in our careers.”

All across the lightly hilly terrain around us, other soldiers are directing the civilians who’ve joined our ranks through similar exercises. The periodic influxes of new squadrons have brought some extra weapons with them, and some people are still using kitchen and hunting knives, makeshift spears, or whatever else we could scrounge up to arm them.

My gaze drifts farther to the peaks looming in the distance. It’s a strange sensation, looking over and finding the mountains at my flank rather than up ahead.

We’ve come a long way from Feldan. But if we want to stop the Darium army from terrorizing any towns or villages of innocent Veldunians in their rampage to end our rebellion, we have to be on the front lines. We’re at the eastern edge of the country here, only twenty miles shy of the border with Icar.

I hope the army the emperor is sending won’t take their anger out on the innocent civilians of the other countries they have to travel through. Although the thought sends a tingle of exhilaration through my veins—what if every country Dariu has subjugated found the courage to rise up against them?

What if the whole continent could be free again?

The touch of Iko’s hand on my side brings me back to the present with a different sort of tingle. The soldier leans close, adjusting my stance and the angle of my sword, his body warming my back.

“If you keep the blade tilted to the side, you protect more of you from attack,” he says in a low voice that makes me think of all the thrilling things we could be doing other than engaging in mock battles. “And always keep one foot at least a little ahead of the other for ease of dodging.”

His hand drops to my hip to nudge one leg forward, and heat flares between my thighs. His breath tickles over my neck.

I can’t help thinking of the press of his lips against the sensitive skin there a few nights ago. Of being enveloped by both of these men.

But this isn’t the time or place to be indulging in those sorts of thrills.

As Iko eases back, Jostein looks at him with a slight arch of his eyebrows. “If you’re done groping her…”

Iko laughs. “I don’t think Signy minds getting some hands-on instruction.”

My cheeks flush, and the look Jostein gives me, a smolder lighting in his bright blue eyes, makes me reconsider the whole “we probably shouldn’t make out on the training field” principle I’ve been following.

“I would also like to make sure I don’t die when we’re facing an entire Darium army,” I say, pleased that my voice only comes out a tiny bit breathless. “So let’s continue the regular instruction.”

Jostein raises his sword, and a yelp rings out from across the field.

My head jerks around with a lurch of my pulse, but all I see is one of the new trainees rubbing his eyes frantically, an orange flower bobbing in a patch of weed near his feet.

“You need to flush your eyes with water to clear out the pollen,” I holler over to him. I had an unfortunate encounter with lissweld in bloom back when I was a kid, and rubbing only made the stinging worse. It took a few hours before I could see properly again.

As the man hurriedly gropes for a canteen, Captain Amalia rides by, surveying the situation with a frown. With the amplification charm she’s been using since our numbers started to grow, she pitches her voice over the entire field. “Remember to watch out for the lissweld flowers! We have enough enemies already without fighting pollen too.”

Chuckles pass through our crowd at her wry tone, and everyone takes a careful look at the ground around us. We didn’t have a whole lot of choice in where we stationed our line of resistance.

“At least we avoided that huge patch of the stuff back there,” I say, motioning behind us to where we passed a stretch of dense blooms that must have gone on for a quarter of a mile. I waggle my blade. “Where were we?”

Jostein swipes his sleeve across his forehead, sweat beading under the midday sun. “Let’s go back to that side-step and stab combo you were making progress with before. Every soldier needs to learn to lean into their strengths. You’re going to get farther with speed and nimbleness than brute strength.”

We run through the motions with Iko observing and offering a little commentary. By the fourth attempt, I manage to tap my sword against Jostein’s side.

A grin springs to my face. “You’d better not have let me land that blow.”

Jostein shakes his head. “What would you learn from that? You’re getting faster—and better at spotting the openings.”

He pauses to brush back a strand of hair that’s blown across my face, his fingers grazing my cheek. A renewed warmth blooms across my skin.

Maybe I should be training with his colleagues rather than him and Iko. These stunning men are way too distracting.

But I don’t trust anyone else here even half as much as I do them.

At that thought, my gaze moves across the field instinctively. I haven’t consciously registered who I’m looking for until my eyes snag on Landric’s well-built form in the midst of his own training.

His coppery hair has darkened with sweat, but he’s clearly putting his all into the brief sparring match with the soldier who’s been helping him. There’s something pretty stunning about his face too when it’s set in that mask of determination.

I yank my attention back to the men I’m standing with. The apologies and promises Landric has made to me, the passion that reverberated through his voice, echo through my memory. They’re a distraction too.

“How long have the two of you been serving rather than training?” I ask as I raise my sword to resume our practice. Neither Jostein nor Iko look like they’re out of their twenties.

Iko lifts his chin toward Jostein. “Jos graduated from the military school at our duchy’s main temple of Sabrelle a year before I did—benefits of managing to be born a year earlier. It’s been six years of active service for him, five for me.”

Curiosity tickles at me. “Is that where you two met?” They haven’t mentioned any shared history outside of their military experiences.

Jostein nods and twitches his sword toward his friend. “This one was a trouble-maker from the start despite all that supposed Esterean wisdom. I got assigned to ‘guide him onto a smoother path.’”

“Which only half worked,” Iko puts in with a grin. “I’m partly incorrigible.”

There’s obvious fondness in the squad leader’s tone. “But after four years of schooling together, he grew on me.”

The warmth of their dynamic sends an odd pang through me. I have no idea what it’s like to have a friendship like that—one so close and loyal they didn’t even let their shared interest in the same woman divide them.

But maybe, by living alongside them for the past week, I’m starting to get a taste of it. The affection in Jostein’s gaze when it returns to me might be more heated, but I know it also matters to him to prepare me for the upcoming battles as well as possible .

Neither of them have been shy about showing I mean much more to them than a means of scratching an itch.

Jostein resumes his sparring stance, but before we can attempt another exercise, hoofbeats thunder over the nearest low hill. One of the sentries our commanders sent ahead gallops toward us with an urgent shout. “Captains!”

Without needing to say a word, Jostein, Iko, and I exchange a worried glance and hustle over to find out what’s happened.

The five captains now with us and a major who arrived with more troops yesterday gather to meet the sentry. As the three of us push closer, many other soldiers and civilians draw nearer. Tension hums through the air.

The sentry doesn’t even bother to dismount. As soon as he reaches the leaders of our ragtag band, he reins in his horse and starts speaking at an urgent clip. “The Darium army is almost here! They’re approaching the border now, coming through Icar.”

A chill washes over me. If they’re almost at the border, they could be on us by tomorrow.

The major frowns. “How large a force have they sent?”

The sentry draws in a breath, a tremor passing through his slim frame. “There had to be thousands of them. Three, maybe four?”

My gaze darts across the mass of figures around us. We’ve assembled a force several hundred strong, but we’ll still be overwhelmed… and all of the Darium soldiers will have had far more than a few days’ worth of training. They’ll all have proper weapons and armor.

Major Arlo glances at the captains. Technically he has the most military authority among us, but he hasn’t been lording his higher title over the other officers, recognizing that most of them have been directly involved in the rebellion for longer than he has. “If we’re going to win this, it won’t be through might. We’ll need Estera and Kosmel watching over us as much as Sabrelle.”

As if any of the godlen of wisdom, trickery, or war are watching out for us now. What we really need is to keep our own wits about us.

Captain Amalia lifts her head. “We have a few advantages we can make use of. Emperor Vitus has sent soldiers from abroad—few if any of them will be familiar with Velduny’s terrain. We know our country as they can’t.”

Murmurs of agreement pass through the watching crowd, but her words don’t reassure me that much. We’ve always known our country better than the Darium forces, but it hasn’t allowed us to fend them off in the past.

We have to use that knowledge in the right way. How are the hills around us or the distant mountains going to help us defeat an entire army?

“We should warn the nearest towns and villages,” one of the other captains is saying. “Most of them didn’t want to evacuate before, but if they know the threat is so close by…”

Another peers at the landscape around us. “Is there any ideal location between here and the border where we could stage an ambush?”

The wind picks up, tossing bits of dried grass and grit into the air. A woman on the other side of the gathering swipes at her eyes to clear them, and inspiration lights in my head like a flame in a lantern.

“I have an idea,” I blurt out.

The major and the five captains all turn to look at me. I expect one of them to tell me off for interrupting, but they all study me with interest… possibly even hope. Waiting for me to say more.

Pride expands through my chest alongside a burst of nerves .

I’ve proven myself—I spearheaded this rebellion. They’re willing to listen to me.

I set us on this course, and I’d better not lead us astray.

Inhaling deeply, I sort through my thoughts, making sure I’m confident in them before I speak. Maybe the gods are watching over us right now; maybe Inganne sparked the idea in my head, letting me picture the scene I could create.

Jostein’s hand rests on my back, a tacit support. Iko shoots me an encouraging smile. And farther around the crowd, I catch Landric’s gaze on me.

I’m not in this alone, not anymore.

“We have several people who’ve joined us who have gifts for building, don’t we?” I ask to confirm. The captains have been compiling a list of all the magic every new arrival can offer as they appear. “Who can move objects with their will?”

It’s a common gift to appeal to Creaden for, since that godlen presides over construction as well as leadership. Much easier to build walls and roofs if you can stand back and direct the materials with your mind.

Captain Amalia nods. “Not enough that they could enhance our weapons a significant amount.”

The corner of my mouth quirks upward. “Not our traditional weapons. It’ll be risky, but… I think we can arrange for our countryside to do a lot of the fighting for us.”