The Arrival (Birthright Trilogy #1) (46 page)

They followed him in.

Alek and Cat stood close as Alek instructed her on her hold with a wooden practice sword. The atmosphere in the room felt free and easy. Cat looked back to them and gave a bright, delighted smile. Kassie exchanged a happy smile with the others.

It worked!

They all settled into practice while Yakov, acting as the time keeper, watched.

She’d demanded he not hold back and he didn’t. Within a quarter hour Alek had smashed the first of Cat’s swords. Her eyes belied the fear she felt, but she fought back hard, and when she broke his sword near the end of their session she let loose a shriek of delight. He laughed at her, she was up to her fourth sword now and sweating hard, but she wouldn’t give up. Cat hadn’t stopped smiling the whole lesson and neither had he.

Right at the moment, now everything was right, and he felt like he could fly. She lunged at him and he deflected the blow and then stopped her so he could instruct her on how to do the move.

A loud whistle snapped them out of their fighting positions.

Yakov smiled at everyone and pointed to the clock.

'The first hour is up, please move to the next opponent on your right.' He swept an arm in the direction.

I couldn’t believe an hour had passed, though my arms were killing me and I dripped with sweat.

But I don’t want to move on,
wailed the silly voice in my mind as I stared at Alek.

It’s all good now,
my rational voice was amused,
and you’ll have time with him later.

I was pretty sure the expression in his eyes said the same thing. He reached out and grabbed my hand then gave it another of those long and seriously inappropriate kisses, making me blush. Not that you’d be able to tell, I was so red from the lesson. I was very glad that Alek had seen me all icky and sweaty before. With reluctance, I headed off to Rumal for instruction.

Loi reeled from her hour with Sabyn. She’d felt a little smug at the beginning due to her kenjutsu training, but this? This was a different ball game. It had been a proper fight, and they’d both broken several swords. She hoped Daron might go easy on her, or at the very least, spend a decent amount of time explaining stuff. She mentally crossed her fingers as she walked over.

Daron smiled at Laura who looked hot and flustered after her hour with Sabyn. Of the four girls, he knew she was the best swords-woman, and he was curious about her style. It was quite different to anything he’d seen before. He began with his stance and explained why and how it was preferable to him, and asked her to show him her preferred stance. Then they set into it.

Loi winced at the vibrations that echoed down the wooden sword and up her arm. Daron preferred, what she would consider, a German style of sword fighting, a lot of flicking. It was very quick, and she had to focus hard to follow and try and keep one step ahead of him.

'A breather,' she gasped and stepped back quickly.

Daron lowered his sword and they spent a few moments catching their breath before setting back into it. She took the opportunity to observe how the others did. Sian battled Alek with a determined expression. She was quick and lithe, darting out of his reach then lunging back in. It appeared to be giving Alek a good workout. Loi grinned, it was a good thing the fight between him and Cat was over. Otherwise this practice could have been dangerous to his health.

Sabyn led Kassie through some steps. Cat and Rumal almost danced, their sword styles suited one another so well, but the stress on Cat’s face was visible. She fought with a constant frown, and Loi was pretty sure she could see the tip of her tongue between her teeth. It was wonderful to see her happy again, the aura of gloom she’d carried had vanished.

When Yakov called out that it was time to finish I was ready to drop. The thought of training in the afternoon was not pleasant. Yakov must have read the thought in our expressions as he announced.

'Lunch is in two hours time. We’ve made it later so you have time to clean up and have a short siesta if you like.'

Relief ran through me. It was a comfort to see that the men looked as tired as we did. Alek stopped me before I left, with a blinding smile and another kiss to the hand. I flushed hot when Sian and Loi let loose loud wolf-whistles, while everyone else laughed. We headed off to our room, when a thought that had occurred to me before popped back in my head.

'How did he know the word siesta?'

The others stared blankly at me.

'Yakov, how did he know the word siesta? He suggested we take one remember?'

'I’m assuming that’s to do with the spell,' Sian said. 'We asked for all the necessary things to be in place, and I believe our understanding of their language is one of them. Think about it, Cat, you didn’t really think we were speaking English, did you?' she asked skeptically.

I stuttered, 'I honestly hadn’t thought about it.'

'It makes sense,' Loi pointed out. 'There’s been more than one thing that we probably should have had different terms for but they seemed the same here. Like shower, for example.'

Kassie was silent as she listened. She hadn’t thought about it either, but now quite a few terms and words came to mind that, really, they shouldn’t have recognized. She hoped this wouldn’t affect her speaking skills. It would suck, if now that realized they were speaking the other language, they then couldn’t. That happened in some stories with magic spells.

The guard at the throne room greeted them as they passed, 'Good day, ladies, you look like you could all do with a good rest.'

A couple of corridors down Loi suddenly spoke up.

'I was so relieved we could understand him. I had this sudden thought, that now we’d realized, we wouldn’t be able to do it.'

Kassie and Cat started laughing.

'Me too,' they chorused.

Sian shook her head in disbelief at the three of them.

'Honestly you lot, you have no clue.'

I shrugged and stuck my tongue out at Sian as I winked at the others.

Like she had known for sure, it was the first time a spell she’d ever cast had worked in such a literal sense. After showering, we all climbed into bed. Yakov had promised to send Nnelg in to wake us when it was nearly time for lunch. It felt like I had just closed my eyes when I opened them again, groggily, wondering what had woken me.

A jet of fire burst across the room. I shrieked and dove out of bed, the others doing the same.

'NNELG!' roared Laura, her face red as she sighted the little blue dragon.

We heard a chuckle and then the little cretin blinked out of the room. I staggered to my feet. The room spun, so I sat back on the bed for a moment. Then I stumbled around and pulled on fresh work-out gear. The others moaned about their arms, but I didn’t even notice mine. I was too busy floating in my own cloud of happiness. Alek would be at lunch.

And. He. Wants. Me.

My heart sang with joy.

Kassie glanced over at Cat to see how she was. She had an enormous smile on her face. Kassie rolled her eyes and chuckled.

'We’re going to have to put up with a super sappy Cat now aren’t we?'

Loi and Sian laughed as Cat blushed, then laughed and nodded. She felt a rush of joy for her friend.

I’m so glad they’ve sorted it out.

We headed toward the Great Hall, all the while discussing creative ways to get back at Nnelg. Well, I swung between those ideas and some others in my mind, but I wasn’t sharing those. When we reached the Great Hall laughter and applause greeted us. Nnelg sat center table, preening his wings, and looking very proud. Yakov and Elena attempted disapproving looks at the little blue cretin, but failed.

'Gee I wonder who gave Nnelg the clever idea,' Loi said sarcastically.

The guys and others teased us through most of lunch, but I was too hungry to care. My appetite had returned in a rush; it was so good to enjoy food again. Alek pulled my chair close to his, so we leaned against each other as we ate. Everyone promptly switched from teasing us girls about Nnelg, to teasing Alek and I. I smiled smugly and continued eating.

After lunch, we followed Yakov and the Lieutenants to the training room. A loud murmur of voices was audible as we approached it. Yakov glanced back and gave us a warm smile, 'The General Guard are looking forward to learning new skills from you.'

We all ignored the ‘humph’ noise that Iggy made. The men had told us his nickname during weapons training. We entered the door that Yakov held for us and walked to where the Lieutenants waited. The room was crowded, and I started in surprise at the few female faces I noticed in the crowd. I hadn’t expected that. But there they were. I’d counted at least ten women already, and there were around a thousand people in the room.

I turned to Lieutenant Rashid, 'How many in total are there in the General Guard?'

I knew a thousand was no where near enough.

'We currently have one hundred thousand. They are spread over Elion. These are the Majors of each area. They will learn what they can here, and take it back to train those in their area.'

We had discussed it prior, and came to the decision that Sian would talk, and the rest of us would demonstrate. If Sian found she wasn’t being heard, then we’d split up, and Kassie and I would head to the back of the room to teach them. I would talk and then demonstrate with Kassie. Looking at this crowd, we knew we’d have to do that.

We let the Lieutenants know of our plans and Yakov, listening in, pulled a vial out of his pocket, 'Here, Sian and Cat, if you each take a sip of this it will make your voice louder, without any strain on you.'

We both stared at the dark liquid for a moment.

'Good idea, Yakov,' Alek smiled at us reassuringly. 'I’ve used verlin quite a few times for speeches to huge audiences, and it has never let me down yet.'

Daron frowned at something and Sian questioned him.

'Oh, I was thinking we should set up a stage. That way everyone can see you, and the four of you can demonstrate together.'

The men all approved of this idea, and a sturdy stage was quickly erected at one end of the room. A short while later, other than our voices, the room was silent as they watched us in utter fascination. It was a challenge to think back to our first lessons, to how our teachers had taught us and what had made it easier to understand, but we seemed to manage.

After the basics were explained, we divided the room into four and had everyone pair up, so we could instruct them through some throws and how to fall properly. When Sian brought this up there was more than a few titters amongst the crowd. People always thought it was funny that you needed to be taught how to fall. After a few demonstrations between Loi and me, on the right way and the wrong way, you could see the idea click.