“I remember you.” With a pleased smile, I took the drill master’s hand, clasping it with gratitude. The gesture seemed to surprise him. “You and your men helped rescue Prince Halcyon and me. I never got the chance to thank you for it afterward.”
Rufus blushed beet-red. Slipping his hand from mine, he mumbled, “’Twas my duty and honor, milady.”
I smiled. “An awkward one, I imagine. Having to save your new Queen from your old Queen.”
Someone snickered, and like that, the easiness of the night was restored. The men moved about, making quips and snide comments about those who had fought that night. And how well or how lousy each had fared.
“Skewered like a kebab” was one comment that floated to my ear. I didn’t know if the man was referring to himself or to his opponent.
Rufus nodded to me with an appreciative light in his eyes that seemed to say, Well done, milady.
Turning to his men, he called out, “All right, you lazy louts. Fall into your drill groups. I want the new lads with the other boys. Nolan, I’m putting you with the senior group.”
The men fell into three formations shaped much like a whale—smaller at the head and tail. The end groups consisted of the young boys and senior warriors, respectively, with the bloated middle group being the largest: warriors older than the teenage boys in the first group, but younger and less seasoned than the senior group, which was comprised entirely of my contribution of men—Chami, Aquila, Tomas, and Nolan. The power emanating from the four of them was richer, stronger, like the heady scent of sweet wine squeezed from grapes fully ripened and matured. Without my additions, Dontaine and Rufus would have been the only two powerful warriors here. Two to my four. And that was without counting my two strongest, my Warrior Lords—Gryphon, who had become demon dead, and Amber, who ruled my Mississippi slice.
No wonder some of the other Queens had feared me. I could almost see their reasoning. If I surrounded myself with such strong men, so many of them, what did that speak of my own power, my own abilities?
Therein lay the key difference between me and other Queens. I did not fear my men being stronger than I. Did not see them as threats to watch out for, competitors to cut down. I saw them as friends, allies, lovers. Men who wanted to protect me, not hurt me.
The men broke up into pairs, spreading out, and soon the clash of metal filled the air as they commenced sword practice. Rosemary, Tersa, and Jamie’s eyes were fixed on the senior group, watching Nolan. My own eyes drifted to the younger group, which had yet to begin their practice. They stood waiting for the crusty drill master to make his way down to them. There were eight of them, ranging from what looked to be as young as twelve to as old as seventeen, perhaps. The addition of Quentin and Dante was, in my opinion, like throwing in lions with the lambs. But I understood Rufus’s reasoning. They had to start from the bottom. It was responsible, wise even, I realized as Rufus passed out wooden swords to the boys. He wanted to see how Dante and Quentin fared with practice weapons before letting them drill with real swords as the other men did.
Quentin was paired up with a younger boy who looked to be about sixteen. Dante was matched with the oldest lad, the boy whose age I had pegged around seventeen. He was as tall as Dante but far more slender, as if his body mass had yet to catch up with his height growth. Dante was built much more solidly. And aside from the physical difference, there was a confidence to the way Dante moved that set him apart even more markedly. As if he was older than them not only in age—a few scant years in difference—but in experience.
As if Dante felt my eyes upon him, he turned. Our gazes met, and a shiver of apprehension skittered down my spine like the trailing footprints of a ghost. Without breaking eye contact, he stabbed the blunt tip of the wooden sword into the ground and took off his jacket. Metal bracelets hugged his forearms, different, darker than what his brother and father had worn, made from an unusual burgundy-colored alloy. They were as primitive an adornment on him as the gold bar piercing his ear. With the jacket stripped away, he took up his sword and turned back to his practice partner with a cool nod.
A quick glance at the others showed that neither Quentin nor Nolan wore their wrist guards. Just Dante. Then all thoughts scattered as I watched Dante fight. He stood with relaxed poise, countering the other boy’s blows easily, blocking his strikes with minimal effort. One, two, three countering hits. Then, as he had with me, he took control. Two powerful forward lunges like a cobra suddenly striking, and the boy was on the ground, his weapon knocked from his hand, Dante’s wooden sword tip pointed at his heart. Quentin disarmed his opponent almost as quickly, though with less coiled violence.
A quiet word from Rufus, and Quentin and Dante moved to the middle group. Wooden swords were traded for real swords, and a pair of young guards were broken apart, one paired with Quentin, the other with Dante.
By outward appearance, they were more evenly matched. I knew better, though. I’d seen Quentin fight before, had caught a glimpse of Dante’s ability just now, and was both frightened and eager to see more.
What else can you do? I wondered. How well do you fight with a real weapon? Show me.
He did. Again, those few testing strikes and parries, feeling out his opponent. Then he took control, setting the pace, increasing the tempo and the force of the blows. Whereas Quentin fought with flowing grace, like a song, a dance, poetry in motion, Dante fought with brute cutting force. He fought as if the man before him was not a sparring partner but an enemy in truth. He moved with the same fluid grace as his twin, but whereas Quentin was like cool, clear water, Dante was like the raging rapids. Savage, lethal, deadly. As I watched him fight, something inside me whispered, I know you. I’ve met you before.
In no time, Dante disarmed his opponent, his sword, this time, stopped a bare inch from his neck. My own neck tingled in a memory flash of pain, here and then gone, distracting me, pounding my heart, so that I hardly noticed when Quentin defeated his partner.
Rufus grunted, narrowed his eyes, and walked Dante and Quentin down the line of sparring men to a pair all the way at the other end, men older in age, whose power thrummed greater than the Morell brothers. But it wasn’t power Rufus was trying to match up, so much as weapons’ skill.
The two men broke apart, and eyed the brothers curiously.
“Want us to have a go at these two young lads here, Rufus?” asked the bigger of the two guards, grinning. He had dark curly hair and was as tall as Dante but an entire width larger, outweighing the “young lads,” as he called them, by almost a hundred pounds. His arms were massive and his thighs were well on their way to becoming tree trunks. If one were to judge someone’s age by the feel of their power—not always an accurate gauge, granted—I’d have guessed him at close to seventy or eighty years old.
“Aye, Marcus.” Rufus nodded. “And no holding back. I be wanting you and Jayden here to show me whether or not I should be moving these two young ’uns up to the next group.”
It was a statement guaranteed to wipe the grin off of Marcus’s face, and Jayden’s as well. Jayden stood slightly shorter, just shy of six feet, and was built along less bulky lines than his bullish partner. But he, too, felt older in years.
Rufus’s words snapped the two of them to full attention. Because what the drill master was really implying was that the two “young ’uns” were better than they were. Good enough, perhaps, to practice with the senior men.
They paired off in grim silence, Dante with Marcus, Quentin with Jayden. Once their swords engaged, there was no holding back as per Rufus’s instructions. It was fighting that was almost frightening to behold. Whirling movements, dangerous flashing steel. Rufus came at Dante with full slashing force, and Dante smiled as if finally set free, his sword singing in turn, an eager, intent look in those pale eyes.