“If you’re going to represent the H?gdragen, then you need to act like one.”
Kasper stood in the center of the H?gdragen training hall. Since he’d taken time out of his busy schedule specifically to work with me this morning, I knew that I should be paying attention to him, but I couldn’t help but look around in awe.
The H?gdragen area was located off the back of the palace, so I’d only ever caught glimpses inside it when I’d been in school, touring the palace. Attached to the training hall was a gym fully loaded with all kinds of equipment and a small dormitory, where the unmarried guards lived.
The training hall itself had less square footage than the tracker gymnasium at the school, but the ceilings seemed to go on forever, with iron lighting fixtures hanging from exposed beams and skylights above them. Tapestries of silver and black—the colors of the H?gdragen uniform—adorned the walls. The floors were a glossy black walnut hardwood.
A few black wrestling mats were spread out in the center of the room, and Kasper stood on one. His dark tank top revealed the thick muscles of his arms, which were crossed over his chest. He was tall and broad-shouldered, especially for a Kanin, who tended to be on the slight side.
“I have had training before, you know,” I reminded him as I walked out to meet him. We were the only two in the room, and my footfalls echoed through the cavernous space.
He smirked. “Not like this.”
Since I would be going to Storvatten to help guard Linnea and I’d be accompanying Kasper, I’d technically be working as a liaison for the H?gdragen. King Evert hadn’t sorted out all the details before he’d gone to bed last night, but we’d gotten enough of them for Kasper to feel that some H?gdragen training would be good for me.
For as long as I could remember, it’s been my dream to be a member of the H?gdragen, so I was doing my best to hold in my excitement and act professional. Ridley said it wasn’t absolutely necessary, but I wasn’t one to turn down doing anything that might help me join the H?gdragen someday.
So I’d helped get Linnea settled in last night—along with Queen Mina, who insisted on personally seeing her to the guest chambers—and then I’d gone home, gotten a few hours of sleep, and woken up bright and early to meet Kasper for training.
“So what are we working on?” I asked.
“Since I probably only have about a day to get you ready, it’s gonna be a crash course,” he said grimly. “I wanna see where you’re at, and we’ll take it from there. And I want to work on how you carry yourself.”
“How I carry myself?” I bristled. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
One thing I took pride in was how I carried myself. Trackers had to learn to stand tall, shoulders back, chin up, feet together. We were slightly more relaxed than the H?gdragen, who tended to stand and march like toy soldiers, but because of my aspirations, I mimicked the H?gdragen the best I could.
“We’ll talk about it when we get to it.” Kasper held up his hand, silencing my argument. “But we should get started.” He lowered his arms and stood with his feet shoulder length apart. “Show me what you’ve got.”
I shook my head, not understanding, and my ponytail swayed behind me. “What do you mean?”
“I wanna see how you handle yourself in a fight. If we’re going to protect the Skojare Queen from possible attempts on her life, I need to see how well you can do that.”
For a moment, I hesitated out of a strange sense of intimidation. I’d fought guys as big as Kasper before, and Bent Stum had actually been much stronger than him. So that wasn’t the issue. It was reverence for his title, and my fear that I wouldn’t live up to the expectations of a proper H?gdragen.
But Kasper had decided that it was time to start, so when I didn’t move, he did. He came at me, and I quickly slipped out of the way. I was stocky and strong, but not as strong as him, so I knew that I’d have to use my agility and smaller stature to my advantage.
I swooped around him and crouched on the ground, preparing to kick out his legs from under him. As soon as I crouched, he grabbed my leg and flipped me back, so I landed on my back on the mat with a painful thwock that echoed through the hall.
The vision in my right eye blurred again for a moment, and I was beginning to wonder how long I’d have to deal with the aftermath of my injury. But within a second, I had jumped to my feet.
“The true testament of a good fighter isn’t the ability to not get knocked down, but in how fast they can get back up,” Kasper commented as I dusted myself off, then he grinned. “Though I’ve found it never hurts to avoid getting knocked down in the first place.”
“Want me to go again?” I asked.