The very last room would be it: that was how his father worked. But he wouldn’t expect Gavin to have weapons and rope. Gavin’s options would expand exponentially once he had those, and his strength back.
Hold on.
Gavin glanced back to the cot. Where was the table and the chair? They’d been right there, last time.
What was that sound?
Gavin quieted his own breathing, even as his heart pounded.
Was there someone in the chamber? If so, he couldn’t fail to know that Gavin was here, with Gavin waving the lux torch in the darkness.
Gavin was at every disadvantage. No night vision, no strength, no weapon, no drafting. He was paralyzed, helpless.
But just as he shook that off with his next breath, a light bloomed in the room, full-spectrum, glorious light, almost blinding Gavin’s eye.
Gavin stabbed the lux torch into a gap to keep the portcullis from slamming shut behind him, and leapt into the chamber, rolling.
It was a pitiful effort. His emaciated muscles betrayed him and he fell rather than rolling to his feet.
In the far corner, sitting in the chair, was Andross Guile. He yawned, utterly relaxed, as if he’d been sleeping.
“Son,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Chapter 34
“Hey, beautiful,” Gav Greyling said as he came onto the training pitch below the Chromeria. “Wanna go a few rounds? You’re already sweaty.” He waggled his eyebrows over deeply blue-stained eyes to show he wasn’t serious.
This again?
“Yeah, sure,” Teia said, as if she’d missed the double entendre.
“Hand-to-hand?” he asked.
Right. Not only could she never beat Gavin Greyling in hand-to-hand combat, but she wasn’t going to wrestle him while he was being a jackass.
“Rope spear,” she said.
He groaned. She practiced with a lead weight wrapped in leather rather than a spear point, of course, but he still had quite a few bruises from their last bout.
“Awright,” he said. “But I’m using a sword-breaker this time.”
Weeks had passed with no contact from the Order. Teia’s dread was only growing. Nor had Karris responded to the signals Teia had activated requesting a meeting. She must be being watched very, very closely. That didn’t help Teia’s anxiety.
She’d filled the time with work and training, both open and covert. It filled the hours, but not the loneliness. Being abruptly finished with lectures—even if they’d been mostly inapplicable—and merely working? It was discomfiting. She felt displaced even when she trained with the Blackguard.
She’d thought that her goal had always been to be in the Blackguard, but now she saw that everything she’d wanted here paled in comparison to what she’d had in the Mighty.
The rope spear was turning out brilliantly for her. It looked like and could be a distance weapon, which was excellent for a small woman. In reality, anyone who snagged the rope with a hand soon found it was also a grappler’s weapon.
Snag the rope, and you found Teia flipping another loop around your hand or head. Stagger back away from the entrapping loops, and you tightened the knot.
Then Teia was on top of you, tripping you, throwing another loop around arm or leg, and then recovering the spear blade and ending you.
They got started amid all the other Blackguards and trainees who were also practicing. This time Gav Greyling snagged the rope with his jagged sword-breaker—and threw it away from himself, a technique no one would usually try.
He rushed Teia, but her panicky jerk on the encumbered rope somehow worked, whipping the sword-breaker and spear point into Gav’s legs as he charged.
He tried to jump over the blades as he stumbled, but Teia slid sideways and flipped a loop of the rope up, catching his foot. She pulled hard as he was still in midair, and he crashed flat on his face.
She rolled onto him and jabbed the spear point lightly into his back.
He groaned, but didn’t curse. “Round to you,” he said, as other Blackguards training laughed.
As he lay on the ground with Teia’s elbow holding him down she said, “You know we can’t have a relationship, right?” Dammit, she’d said it too loud. Some of the others had overheard.
“Nrg. Who said anything about a relationship?” he said, keenly aware of the others.
They both knew how well that would go over with the commander. Fisk wasn’t as inspiring a leader as Commander Ironfist had been, but he’d been a trainer. He didn’t let that kind of stuff slide.
“I’m not your type,” Teia said.
“Oh? And what’s my type?” he asked as he stood, retrieving the sword-breaker.
She went to stand right in front of him. She put her hands on his shoulders, then slid her hands down his arms in front of everyone. “Hmm,” she said in an appreciative tone. “Your arm is so strong. But just the left. So I’m guessing this is your type.” She held up his left hand and shook it back and forth, then dropped it. “Ew.”
Everyone laughed at him, and he shook his head.
Dammit, Teia. Why’d you have to go there? She hadn’t meant to take his vulnerability and beat him with it, but she had.
“Ya know, Gav,” Essel interrupted. “I don’t know why you waste your attentions on her.” She tugged down the hem of her tunic to show off more of her substantial cleavage. Essel was famously insatiable, but she was also almost twenty years older than the young Blackguard, and infinitely better looking. “If you know where to look, you’ll find those who are always up for a good ride.”
His jaw dropped. “Really?” He couldn’t help but look her up and down. She was a veritable Atirat to him.
She licked her lips, and he was entranced. Just because it was forbidden to have sex with another Blackguard didn’t mean it didn’t happen. And if anyone would be available for something quick and dirty and temporary, it would be Essel. In a husky voice, she whispered, “Why don’t you, uh… head to the stables?”
Gavin Greyling must have blocked his hearing with his hopes, because despite everyone’s laughing at him, he said, “You’ll meet me by the stables? When?”
Gill Greyling put his face in his hands. “For a ride, you dumbass. If you’re looking for a ride…”
“Huh?” Gav said.
“I can’t believe we’re related,” Gill said as the rest of them laughed.
Afterward, though, Essel came to Teia, falling in beside her as she cooled down with some fighting forms. “He flirts with you because of how you turn him down. You know that, right?”
“Why would he—”
“Because you’re safe, Teia. He would never dream of actually breaking his Blackguard vows, and he knows you wouldn’t, either. So your rejections don’t hurt, or not as much. It’s fun to flirt with someone you find attractive anyway. You’re practice for him to hone his confidence and his approaches—which, let’s be blunt, need practice. If you like the flirtation, fine. If you don’t like it, just once, seriously, at some time when he’s not flirting with you, tell him that you don’t appreciate it. He’ll stop. But don’t—don’t you fucking dare take him to bed. There are ways to break even that rule, if—”
“The rule against sleeping with other Blackguards?”
“Yes. But not with him, not for you. He’d fall in love with you head over heels, and that is what the rules are there to prevent. Last thing we need here is tempestuous young love, and taking sides, and grand gestures, and burning resentments, and all that horse shit. That is what gets people killed.”
“Why is this my problem?” Teia asked. “I didn’t do anything.” She just wanted to be invisible when this sort of thing came up.
“What do you want me to say, Teia? ‘You’re the woman. Can you imagine what kind of world it would be if we let men take the lead’?”
Teia saw she was kidding but not kidding. “Fine. I’ll take care of it.”
“No, listen, because you shouldn’t go do this with a chip on your shoulder. You know the Philosopher? His concept of the zoon politikon?”