The midday sun was a pale, heatless coin in the sky as the morning training session finally wound down. Alistair had spent the last four hours on the high balcony, a silent, obsidian silhouette watching the courtyard below. He didn't join the dirt and the sweat; he left the physical instruction to the "Hammer and the Blade."
Dante had spent the morning forcing Elissa to hold a heavy wooden shield until her arms shook, while Vane had been darting around her, tapping her elbows and heels with a blunt training rod to correct her posture.
"Your center of gravity is too high, Princess," Vane remarked, spinning the rod idly. "You're standing like you're waiting for a dance partner, not a dualist. If I were a Ridge-raider, I'd have swept your legs three minutes ago."
"I am trying," Elissa panted, her hair clinging to her damp forehead.
"Don't try. Be," Dante rumbled, his voice like grinding stones.
"Again," he commanded, his voice as flat as the horizon. "Your center is shifting. If you cannot hold your balance on stone, you will never hold it on a battlefield."
"She's been 'again-ing' for three hours, Dante," Kestrel's voice drifted from the stone mounting. She was looking bored and strikingly elegant in a riding habit of deep emerald. "Even a mountain eventually stops moving. Give the girl a breath."
Dante didn't look up. "The South doesn't stop moving. Their assassins don't wait for her to catch her breath."
He looked up at the balcony, catching Alistair's unblinking gaze, before looking back at Elissa.
"Enough for now. Your muscles are turning to water. Go, before you drop the shield on your own foot."
Kestrel, who had been sitting on a stone mounting block for the last hour, hopped down with a bright grin. She looked striking in her riding leathers—a deep, emrald-green that made her blue eyes pop.
"Finally!" Kestrel exclaimed, stretching her arms. "I thought I was going to turn into a statue watching you three. The air is actually bearable today. Let's go for a ride to the Frozen Falls. It'll help your leg muscles more than standing in this dusty square."
Elissa felt a cold pit form in her stomach. She looked at the massive, powerful Northern horses being led from the stables—beasts that looked more like monsters than animals.
"I... I can't go, Princess Kestrel," Elissa said, her voice dropping.
Kestrel paused, one hand on her hip. "Why not? Sore? I promise we'll keep a gentle pace."
"No," Elissa whispered, her face beginning to burn with a familiar Southern shame. "I mean... I don't know how. To ride. I've never been on a horse."
Vane, who was wiping sweat from his brow with a silk cloth, stopped mid-motion. He shared a look of pure, bewildered shock with Dante.
"You're a Princess of the most powerful kingdom in the South," Vane said, his voice flat with disbelief. "How do you get from the palace to the temple? Do you walk?"
"I was carried," Elissa snapped, her Southern pride flaring through her embarrassment. "In a litter. With sixteen bearers and silk curtains. My father said that I am not capable of handling a horse , and not sitting astride a beast like a common scout."
Dante let out a low, huffed breath. "A common scout. Princess, in the North, if you cannot ride, you are as good as dead. If the Bastion fell tomorrow, would you ask the invaders to carry your litter to safety?"
"I didn't choose... my father made the decision.., Prince Dante!" Elissa countered, her chin trembling.
Kestrel, sensing the rising tension, stepped in and placed a hand on Elissa's arm. "Ignore the boys. They have the bedside manner of a brick wall." She looked up at the high balcony, where Alistair was now leaning over the stone railing, his luminous blue eyes fixed on the scene below.
"Alistair!" Kestrel called out, her voice echoing through the courtyard. "Did you hear that? Our Rose doesn't know how to ride. Our father would have a fit if he knew his 'honorary guest' was a flight risk because she's never seen a saddle."
Alistair didn't move for a long moment. Then, with a fluid, terrifying grace, he vaulted over the balcony railing, dropping the twenty feet to the courtyard floor and landing with a silent, heavy thud. He straightened up, his cloak snapping in the wind, and walked toward them.
He stopped directly in front of Elissa. He didn't laugh, and he didn't mock her. He simply stared at her with a straight-faced intensity that made her breath hitch.
"A Princess who cannot ride," Alistair stated. His voice was a low, melodic vibration. "It seems your father spent more time decorating you than preparing you. In the North, we do not have litters, and my soldiers are not bearers."
"I am aware of that, Prince Alistair," Elissa said through gritted teeth.
"Good," Alistair replied, his gaze shifting to the stables. "Vane, get the Shadow-Grey. Dante, the mare. We are going to correct this Southern 'injustic' before the sun sets. I will not have a bride who is tethered to a chair."
Kestrel nudged Elissa with an elbow, whispering loudly, "See? He's 'correcting the oversight.' That's Alistair-speak for 'I'm going to make sure you don't get hurt.' Just don't tell him I said that, or he'll make me polish the shields."
The transition from the training mats to the stables felt like moving from a cold room into a den of giants. The Northern horses were not the sleek, delicate creatures of the South; they were massive, barrel-chested beasts with thick coats and hooves the size of dinner plates.
Vane led out a mare that was supposedly "gentle," though to Elissa, she looked like a mountain with a mane.