16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

W alking up the gravel path to the barracks under the full swing of sunrise, Cyril had little control over the excitement that hummed through every fiber of her body. She tried to school her grin into something neutral, tried to stop wringing her hands and fixing her braid, but her attempts were fucking useless.

Cyril was sure it would come back to bite her in the ass, but she hardly slept the night before. Buzzing and wide awake, she’d tossed and turned endlessly, and found herself up, dressed, and ready to go before the first flickers of dawn filtered across the sky.

She’d forced herself to wait out the hours on her balcony, watching the lake as those muted ripples of light reflected across its tenebrous surface. When the soft pinks and blues morphed into the warm hues of sunrise and the palace grounds stirred to life, she headed out to the barracks.

Through the propped open doors just up ahead, she could see Mikael doing the most mundanely normal thing she was sure she ever witnessed him do—tying back his hair. He wore what must have been the guard’s standard-issue base layers, all dark blues and blacks with Reykr’s sigil stitched onto the chest.

If his sullen expression was any indicator, the man was not a morning person at all.

Mikael cast Cyril a cool, appraising glance as she entered the main hall. Her excitement fizzled and died a miserable death as soon as the prince opened his damn mouth.

“You showed up.” His voice was low and flat, and his gaze drifted and lingered far longer than it should have—on the black, fitted layers she opted to wear, no doubt.

Cyril blinked up at him, suddenly reminded of just how cold, tired, and hungry she was. Snide comments and wandering eyes were not what she was in the mood for, even less so as some of the other King's Guard filtered into the room.

“And why wouldn’t I?” she challenged, folding her arms over her chest. Mostly for warmth, truthfully.

Mikael shrugged half-heartedly.

“It’s early, and no one actually enjoys running drills.”

Well, he was half right—it was fucking early. But as for the other…

“I enjoy them.”

The way his brows climbed in some sort of shitty amusement spoke volumes to just how little he believed her.

“We’ll see about that,” was all he said before he turned to the group of guards that watched them with less than discreet curiosity.

“Ari and Gunner, you remember Lady Cyril?”

Tension flickered in her jaw— Lady was not a title she bore with any amount of pride, and Mikael enjoyed wielding it whenever he could.

The two moon-fae men that she met during their string of large dinners offered her nods of acknowledgment. Both men were both friendly enough, but had kept to themselves during the dinners.

Ari, their captain, was a tall, reserved man with light olive skin and a mess of short, black curls. His warm, dark eyes always seemed to be on the lookout for something.

Gunner, if she remembered correctly, was a well tenured guard, and a complete contrast to Ari. Only a few inches taller than Cyril, he had a stockier build and sandy-brown hair that looked like it always hung in his light green eyes.

She willed a smile onto her face.

Mikael looked back at her and took a breath.

“Nolan, Kaia, Byron, Nikolai, Silas, Ellis.”

He motioned through the rest of the group with each name while Cyril returned each smile and nod and wave, but she was completely lost by the time he reached the end.

“Lady Cyril is visiting from Helia.” Mikael glanced between her and the guards, and the most infuriating smile tugged at his lips. “And apparently has a masochistic streak, so she plans to join some of our training of the recruits, entirely of her own free will.”

The group’s laughter covered up her petulant sigh.

She should have known this would be an uphill battle.

Gesturing towards the far end of the barracks, Mikael said, “Shall we? I think we’ve kept them waiting down on the grounds long enough.”

A few people grunted their agreements, and someone suggested they let them freeze their little asses off for a bit longer, before the others filed off through the building. Cyril fell in line close behind them.

The main hall they walked through was spacious, lined with dark, wood-paneled walls and a vaulted roof dotted with skylights. The walls themselves bore no shortage of weaponry and armor, housing everything from racks of shields that looked like they’d seen better days to decorative axes and glaives hung with bronzed plaques beneath them.

Of all the tables and chairs that filled the center of the room, laden with discarded uniforms and papers and leather blade rolls, no more than two seemed to match. Cyril wasn’t sure how a few of them were still even upright, with the conditions the legs were in.

The more she looked, the harder the budding ache in Cyril’s chest became to ignore. But she shoved away thoughts of that other place that also smelled like old leather and late nights.

It was not the time for pining after home.

At the far end of the barracks, a set of large doors gave way to another gravel path, and Cyril cursed quietly as the cool morning air again wrapped its claws around her.

When they reached the main clearing, well-appointed with striking dummies, ranged targets, and training weaponry, there were easily forty smiling faces waiting patiently. A mixture of men and women, much to her surprise, and not all of which were entirely fae.

Cyril hung back behind the King's Guard as Mikael addressed the trainees, giving some well-rehearsed speech about their accomplishments thus far, and the challenges they would still face. Apparently, they’d be lucky if half of them toughed it out to their alpine assessment the following spring.

A few eager faces fell at that revelation.

The arrogant prince spoke with a bit of conviction, at least, and the horde of trainees soaked up every word, hope written plainly on their faces.

It may have lit up a bit of warmth in her chest.

“Commander Kallan,” one of the King's Guard started. A woman whose name Cyril had already forgotten. “Should we introduce our guest before we start our warmup run?”

Cyril stiffened.

The few guards who served as the perfect barrier between her and the trainees each looked back at her and parted to either side.

Mikael looked amused.

“That wouldn’t hurt.” He gestured vaguely from Cyril to the trainees. “I’ll let you introduce yourself.”

The wave of far too many eyes settled on her, and she could hear her blood rushing behind her ears. This was not the sort of thing Cyril enjoyed in the least, but she’d be damned if she wasted the opportunity.

She took a couple of steps forward, a deep breath with each, and made a split-second decision as she placed her hand on her heart and said, “Cyril Rhodea. I’m from the Rogues’ Guild of Helia—”

Murmurs trickled through the bodies all around her, and Cyril schooled the grin that threatened to take over her face to something more demure. Casual. Like she’d done this a million times before.

“—and I am very much looking forward to taking part in your training.”

Mikael nodded as she spoke, and…was that a smile? If she hadn’t known better, it almost looked like the damn prince approved. Not that it mattered in the least what he thought, but that was a point for Cyril, and she’d happily take it.

“If everyone is ready?” Mikael looked about the group and eager nods rippled across. “We’ll start with our warmup run. I set the pace. You keep up with me, and we do not stop until I am tired, understood?”

The raucous salutes of, “ Yes commander! ” that broke the quiet calm of the morning were almost startling.

Cyril slotted herself in the middle of the group as they headed out behind the prince.

By the time Mikael decided he was tired of running, casualties rang high.

Two trainees were in tears, another had tripped on a root and rolled their ankle, and five others had veered into the bushes to void the contents of their stomachs. Cyril may have very well rounded that out to six if she hadn’t skipped breakfast before leaving her room.

Back in the main clearing, she braced her hands on her knees and struggled to catch her breath as the group gathered back up. There wasn’t an inch of her body that wasn’t soaked in sweat or aching, and it looked like everyone else—both trainees and guards alike—was just as bad off.

Except for Mikael, who looked like he barely broke a sweat. Not only was he insufferable, but had the stamina of a damn horse.

How fucking nice for him.

Running was something they did no small amount of at the guild. Dion and the others always said that a slow rogue was as good as a dead one, and Cyril had no reason to doubt that. But they focused on sprints and agility, to get out or up as fast as possible.

Endurance was important, but it came second to being able to get the fuck out. Especially enough endurance to get through nearly three damned hours of jogging without so much as even a passing thought about a break.

Cyril didn’t want to think about what was next if that was supposed to be their warmup .

A feminine voice had her looking up before she could dwell on it much longer.

“Here, Cyril. You look like you could use this.”

It was the same female guard from earlier, looking just as disheveled and sweat-soaked as Cyril felt, with a cup outstretched towards her. She would’ve hugged the woman if her base layers hadn’t felt like a swamp.

The water may have been the single most refreshing thing she’d consumed in her life so far. She tried not to guzzle it down like an animal.

“ Gods , thank you—” Cyril winced. “I don’t think I caught your name.”

The tall, lean woman’s smile lifted the corners of her hazel eyes.

It was hard not to appreciate how striking she was, with stark white hair cut short and still feminine, and skin that was nearly as rich a shade of umber as Tyr’s. She lacked the wicked double canines that Cyril had grown accustomed to seeing, and it brought her no small amount of comfort.

“It’s alright! I’m Kaia Gatlin. There’s a lot of us to keep track of,” she said, taking Cyril’s empty cup from her. “Truthfully, I thought we were in for some babysitting today when Mik— the commander said a guest of the family was joining us. He didn’t say you were a damn rogue!”

Cyril was glad the run already had her cheeks blazing.

“I, well…” She rubbed the back of her neck. “It’s complicated. My uncle—”

Kaia sucked in a quiet gasp and some realization settled into her face. Harshly, she whispered, “Are you helping with the investigation too?”

A tight smile crept onto Cyril’s face, and she nodded.

“Well, this makes much more sense.” Kaia huffed a laugh and shook her head. “I guess Ari and Gunner will roll in their riches after—”

She clamped her mouth shut, eyes wide. But Cyril heard plenty.

“Did you bet on me?” she asked cooly.

A few broken syllables stuttered out of Kaia before she sighed and grimaced. “We might have…but, fuck, we didn’t know! Honestly, we thought you were some high-born lady the commander was pursuing, that Their Majesties were forcing his hand finally. We never—”

Cyril balked. She was certain that clear introductions had been made between herself and Gunner and Ari at one of those dinners. That they would imply to anyone she was just some prize livestock, being herded around for show by the prince…

“No, no, no . There’s no pursuing happening here—”

“I understand now!” Kaia waved her hands a bit exasperatedly, droplets of water flying from the cup she held. “I’m sure everyone does, and I—” She sighed, her shoulders dropped. “Before I fucked this all up royally, I was coming to see if you’d like to do my rotation with me?”

The grimace that hadn’t left Kaia’s face turned into more of a pleading smile.

Rotation . Cyril didn’t have the faintest idea what she meant.

The confusion simmering through her must have been obvious, because Kaia leaned in closer and lowered her voice. “He didn’t explain anything to you, did he?”

She shook her head. Other than the frosty welcome she’d gotten from the prince this morning, he hadn’t uttered a single word to her since the awkward as fuck dinner with his parents.

“Well, we take all of them ”—Kaia slung her arm across Cyril’s shoulders and turned them around to face the trainees, all in various states of recovery from the run—“and divide them out into a few groups, with a couple of us assigned to each to guide them through their rotation of activities for the rest of the day. Then we shuffle up the groups and guards every day, so no one ruffles anyone’s feathers too badly.”

Kaia winked knowingly.

“And these activities…?”

“Ah! Right. Ranged weaponry, a bit of swordplay, and hand-to-hand combat. The usual. We try to save the grappling for the end of the day to get everyone back together.”

Cyril supposed guards were to be well-rounded in their abilities, depending on where they ended up stationed, but that was…a lot.

“You do that all in one day?” she asked, and Kaia nodded.

“For the first week, we do. It helps us weed through their natural strengths and weaknesses, so when we move into more focused training, we can better assign them out.” Kaia pulled her gaze from the trainees and looked at Cyril. “But that’s all boring semantics. Would you care to join me on my rotation?”

Cyril eyed her for a moment, pursing her lips.

She supposed the only other option was risking getting stuck with someone less hospitable—or worse, Mikael—for the rest of the day. At least Kaia was friendly, if a bit chatty.

“I’d like that.”

“Good.” Kaia grinned and clasped her shoulder. Cyril’s aching knees wobbled. “Let's go see if we can get first dibs on picking out our group. We do not want to get stuck with that gaggle of idiots.”

Kaia jerked her chin towards a group of eight huddled near a bench, all in various stages of disarray. Two were fighting for their lives, sprawled on their backs in the dirt. The others sat on the bench, heads clutched in their hands or leaned against each other for support.

Cyril blinked.

“Is there something wrong with… all of them?”

“Not all of them,” Kaia sighed. “Individually they’re tolerable. I even think a couple of them might actually do well. But together? They’re about as coordinated as a couple of field mice three days deep into a faelock bender.”

“Three days into a what? ” Cyril laughed, but Kaia only waved her off.

“Let's get moving before you’re stuck getting a live demonstration,” she said, tossing her arm across Cyril’s shoulders.

As Kaia steered her down another offshoot of the gravel pathway, Cyril took one look back at the group. One of the men was talking, and rather passionately at that, and not a single other soul was listening to him speak.

She chuckled, shaking her head.

A gaggle of idiots.

Cyril watched quietly as, over and over, one of the trainee’s arrows veered so far to the side that it nearly ended up on someone else’s target. The fifth or sixth time it happened, followed by a slew of profanities, she spoke up.

“Can I offer a suggestion?”

“I—uh, sure?” The man eyed her over his shoulder and lowered his bow.

“Basic stance doesn’t always work for everyone.” She mirrored his position, with her feet squared off shoulder width apart. “If you find you're prone to drifting, you can usually correct it by adjusting your footing. Since you are veering right, try standing more like this.” Cyril slid her left foot back a couple of inches. “And try it a few times. You can always adjust more if you need to.”

The trainee looked from Cyril to her feet, to his own, and shifted his stance.

He still looked uneasy as he said, “Thank you?”

Cyril smiled.

“Don’t thank me yet. Try it first.” She motioned for him to continue. “Oh, and your shoulders—”

His head whipped back.

“What’s wrong with my shoulders?”

“You’re tense and pulling them up. Just make sure to breathe and keep them square.”

He examined himself, shaking out his limbs. A forced rush of air left his lungs. “Right.”

An arrow whizzed through the air, slightly closer than the last half dozen had been. He tossed a glance over his shoulder at Cyril, and she waved him on, taking a few steps away to give him some space. Another couple of arrows fired, and he adjusted his stance and fired again.

“Holy shit,” he breathed.

It wasn’t a bulls-eye by any means, but he hit the target.

Sort of.

A strong wind might have spelled the end of his victory, but Cyril grinned.

“See?” she said, gesturing out to the target, “You just need to listen to what your body is telling you.”

He looked from her, to the arrow hanging onto the target by a thread, and back to her. He grinned. “Thank you, seriously, Miss—”

His grin faltered and tension pulled through Cyril’s body at the voice that came from over her shoulder.

“ Lady Cyril giving out personal lessons? You should consider yourself lucky, recruit.”

She turned slowly.

Mikael stood behind her with his hands clasped at his back and his head cocked in that predatory way that made her skin crawl. He wore a look of cool neutrality that she knew well from Dion. The same bullshit move he pulled whenever he thought a bit of intimidation was overdue.

“I—uh, thank you, Lady Cyril. Commander.” The trainee ducked his head and made himself scarce.

“Kaia?” Mikael shouted toward where she was struggling to restring a bow—the fourth one to come apart in just a couple of hours. When Kaia’s eyes found him, he motioned for her to come over.

Cyril knew exactly what was coming next.

The prince and her uncle truly were two peas in a fucking miserable pod.

“ Mikael , this isn’t her—”

“I have a title here, Lady Cyril. I would suggest you use it and check your tone, or don’t address me at all,” he interjected, with the sort of commanding edge that had Cyril’s blood boiling.

If this arrogant asshole thought he was in any position to dictate how she spoke, he had another fucking thing coming.

Mikael’s eyes lingered on her for a moment, as if to say, Understood, before he turned to Kaia as she approached.

She ran a hand through her short, snowy hair and sighed, “Yes, Commander?”

Flatly, he said, “I’d love to understand why Lady Cyril here felt the need to take it upon herself to teach one of your recruits how to work around their inadequacies?”

“ Inadequacies ?” Cyril stared at Mikael.

The poor man was in fucking training .

“I…I didn’t ask her to do that, if that’s what you’re insinuating.” Kaia’s attention bounced between Mikael and Cyril before she narrowed her eyes at the prince, waving vaguely behind her. “I’ve been busy cleaning up after whoever did a fucking piss-poor job of stringing the bows last night. I should thank her for—”

“If it happens again, I’ll pull you from training.”

Kaia balked.

“She’s qualified , Commander, I don’t understand what your—”

“Not up for discussion, Gatlin,” he rumbled. “You’ve got an hour. Go eat.” Mikael turned and left without another word, leaving Cyril and Kaia to stare at each other in silence. When he finally disappeared out of eyesight, Cyril winced.

“Shit. I am so sorry,” she said as she gathered the bow and half-empty quiver her trainee had discarded on the ground. “I didn’t mean to—”

The other woman shook her head.

“Not your fault.” Kaia looked in the direction Mikael walked and sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He usually loves training.”

It was Cyril’s turn to let her shoulders sag with a sigh.

“Oh, that’s definitely my fault. I think he hates me.”

Kaia’s features pinched.

“No…I don’t think it’s that.” She laughed and shook her head. “Honestly, chances are his bed’s been cold for a few days and he’s bent out of shape about it.”

Cold? Cyril certainly didn’t have any complaints about the temperature of—

Oh.

Oh .

Her cheeks heated.

Mercifully, Kaia clasped her on the shoulder and started steering her back to the barracks, saying, “Let’s get some food, yeah?”

As everyone filed into the barrack’s mess hall for lunch, Cyril took an opportune cut in from the gaggle of idiots to break away from Kaia and the other King's Guard. At the far end of the room, she found an empty table to eat her stew in a few moments of peaceful solitude.

Kaia shot her a few pointed glances, always subtly tipping her head towards the empty seat at her table, but Cyril just smiled and shook her head.

She needed a few minutes to herself, even if it was nearly impossible to collect her thoughts with the way her ears rang. Laughter and yelling and the clattering of tableware filled the air all around her, ebbing and flowing in cresting waves of volume.

If Cyril hadn’t been worried about it coming off as rude, she would have eaten outside. Having all her meals alone recently left her a little sensitive to distractions, never mind forty-odd living and breathing ones.

Mikael definitely hadn't helped either.

And she still couldn’t place where his overwhelming hate for her stemmed from. Sure, they hadn't gotten off on the right foot, but...

Just a show of dominance, maybe?

But that seemed wholly unnecessary.

Cyril had thought they made a bit of progress when he walked her to her room the other night, with that half-cordial conversation they had.

Apparently, she was wrong.

There was something about these authoritative men she’d never—

“Too good to sit with the rabble, hey?”

Cyril gave a start and grazed her knee on the underside of the table. She cursed quietly as Kaia sat down beside her, leaning back against the table.

“Sorry.” She gave Cyril a wry grin. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s alright.” Cyril slid her bowl aside and tossed Kaia a sidelong glance. “And no , nothing like that. I usually eat on my own, and besides—”

She glanced over to where Mikael and the rest of the King's Guard were still sitting. Not high on the list of places she wanted to spend her time.

Kaia nodded.

“I understand completely.” She rolled her shoulders and settled back on her elbows. “The rest of the afternoon will be hand-to-hand practice, but don’t feel obligated to stay if you’ve got more important things to do.”

Cyril blinked.

That felt like a thinly fucking veiled dismissal if she’d ever heard one.

“If I’m not welcome anymore, you can just say—”

“No! No, no.” Kaia shook her head and sighed. She shot a glance back at the guards’ table. “It’s just that… Well, the boss doesn’t think it’s a good idea for you to take part in these sorts of drills, you know”—she waved her arms around—“distraction and novelty, and all that. But you’re welcome to stay and watch if you want. Just might not be the most interesting afternoon you’ve ever had.”

So the asshole was trying to get rid of her now.

Cyril insulted his fragile, pathetic masculinity, and now he thought he could just push her out of the way. Fuck that.

“Oh, I’m happy to just stick around and watch.”

Cyril looked at Kaia and grinned.

The wicked approval that crept across Kaia’s face in response was enough to carry her through the next couple of hours of sitting on a rickety and worn bench in the barrack’s arena.