It wouldn’t have fit whatever Aline de Valois had planned for Eli.
He ignored the path he and Rey had taken to the palace when they’d first entered Duciel and went instead to the broad, emptyplaza before the steps of the palace, where stages and vendor carts set up on festival days.
It was also where Eli had been hanged.
He stood just under the spot where the gallows had been, hands in his coat pockets. It took planning to set up gallows—they had to know that it would be Eli’s birthday when they had done it. It was calculated to hurt—whether by King Emile’s hand or Isiodore’s, it didn’t matter. They were all complicit. They had made Sabre watch, and when it was done, they sent him to the pleasure houses.
Rain washed over the stones where Eli’s mother had died, and Eli thought of the way his legs had felt so bare in his shift before he fell. He’d been embarrassed, in that brief second that the slats dropped and his body hung in the air, that the last image people would have of him was of a body he wasn’t yet content with, shielded by only a flimsy layer of silk.
Rey liked to see the world in stories, and Eli found that he was starting to pick up some of Rey’s habits. What kind of story did the hanged de Valois child belong to? The girl everyone thought Eli to be had never existed, but most of Staria didn’t know that. Had Eli been immortalized as a villain? A cautionary tale? How did Sabre remember him? What story did Sabre tell himself to make that day on the gallows easier, or was the truth enough?
He tore his gaze away from the plain, empty patch of stone. He’d visited the training yards as a boy, before he’d given up on running after his brother like a stray kitten. If he went through the stables, he could make his way to the training yards without passing under the roof of the palace.
He wasn’t sure if he felt better or worse that Emile was no longer king. Adrien was supposedly kinder, but how far did that kindness go? He’d married Isiodore, after all, and Isiodore had stood by and let King Emile kill his own relatives. The high wallsof the palace felt far too close as Eli passed the guard barracks and reached the circular, fenced-in training yards. Even though he hadn’t stepped inside, Eli could almost hear the crack of marble and the groaning of walls leaning toward him, ready to bury him like a landslide. He stopped to steady himself, one hand on the short fence, and looked up to find a lean figure standing against the wall, shielded by an overhang.
Isiodore de Mortain met Eli’s gaze and nodded shortly.
“I almost thought you wouldn’t be here,” Eli said. He stepped over the fence, and his boots squelched in the mud. Isiodore walked across the muddy practice yards as though it were hard-packed sand.
“I had no doubt you would be.” Isiodore’s voice was cool and calm, and it cut through the rush of wind and rain. “If you would like to reschedule, we certainly can.”
“I’ve fought in worse conditions.” Of course, he’d used a bow at the time, and he’d had the shelter of an ancient oak to shield him from the wind, but Eli would rather eat dirt than admit it.
Isiodore de Mortain drew a longsword from his side. It was finely made, with jewels on the pommel and dyed leather wrapped around the hilt. “I haven’t fought with longswords in some time,” he said. “Forgive me if my skills have declined somewhat.”
Eli drew his own blade. The leather around the hilt was starting to fray, and the pommel was just steel. He felt the weight of Isiodore’s years of study bearing over him, as overpowering as his dominance. “You aren’t talking to a noble, Your Grace. You don’t need to use false humility here.”
Isiodore swung his sword to his side almost as fast as he would a lighter blade, then transferred it smoothly to favor his right hand when he gripped the hilt. “Then you won’t mind if I use my dominant hand, even if it puts you at a disadvantage.”
“My disadvantage, and not yours?”
“If we’re eschewing false humility,” Isiodore said.
Eli smiled. “All right, then.”
He stepped forward, and when Isiodore moved to meet him, he fell on Eli with the force of a hurricane.
The weight behind Isiodore’s first blow was strong enough that Eli could feel it in his back, a ripple of pain running through his arms and down his spine. The second felt like it would hammer Eli into the ground, and he moved with the force of it, letting it slide him out from under Isiodore’s path and into his open left side. Mud splashed over Eli’s clothes, speckling his cheek. Isiodore blocked him, and with a flash of pleasure, Eli saw Isiodore adjust his footing to better absorb the blow.
“Not as weak as you thought I was,” Eli said, stepping back.
“Not quite.” Isiodore bore down on him again, and Eli parried, almost nicking Isiodore’s sleeve before he pulled away. The sound of striking steel made Eli’s ears ring, and he thought of how delighted Sabre had been every time he had a practice session with the great and wonderful Isiodore de Mortain, how he seemed to buzz with energy every time he received the barest compliment. It was something in his submissive nature, perhaps, that made him so eager for praise.
Maybe it was something in Eli’s dominance that made him smile when Isiodore’s brows furrowed in concentration. He wanted Isiodore to work for it, wanted him to feel it when steel clashed and the weight of years of fighting to survive slammed into him. He wanted him to feel every sleepless night and day without food, the struggle of that first year fighting with a sword he picked off a hunter he’d killed with a rock by a riverbank, the snap of jaws when a wolf tore through his flimsy shelter.
“Move your left foot further inward,” Isiodore said. “You’re overcompensating.”
“I’m not your student,” Eli panted.
“No, I think not.” They circled each other, tense, each waiting for the other to make a move. Lightning flashed, and as it bathed Isiodore’s face in light, Eli could see wrinkles at the corners of his eyes that he hadn’t noticed before. It threw him off—Isiodore de Mortain wasn’told,he was…he was almost eternal in Eli’s memory, frozen forever as the grim-faced man who’d signed his execution papers.
Isiodore snapped his fingers. “Pay attention.”
“Don’tdothat,” Eli said, and parried his blow, digging his heels into the mud. He nearly slipped, then had to brace himself on a knee as Isiodore lunged to take advantage of his misstep. Eli only just rolled out of the way in time, coming up with half his face covered in mud, red curls hanging in his eyes.
“Perhaps falling prey to distraction works in the country against common bandits and child-killers,” Isiodore said. He forced Eli back, and Eli grunted as he hit the fence. “But you’ve clearly had no formal training. Sabre would have pinned you to the wall by now.”
“Sabre—what does Sabre have to do with it?” Eli tried to drive Isiodore back, but he was like a wall. Eli’s back pressed against the fence and his boots sank in the mud, mired like they would be in a bog or a swamp. Eli’s heart hammered in his throat, his mouth, his ears.
