“Like your guns?” She gestured at the cabinet with several of the objects displayed behind glass.
“Like the guns,” he replied with a curt nod.
She still did not understand exactly what the guns did, but she understood swords. “If you don’t use swords, why bother to train with them?”
“For discipline. To master the techniques of . . . of the past. Of the Bl—swordmasters.”
Karigan narrowed her eyes at him. It had sounded like he almost said, “Black Shields.” His demeanor had reminded her of the Weapons she knew. Her suspicions were roused, but she chose not to pursue them at the moment. “If you are going to work with swords, even if just for discipline, you should do so correctly to properly honor those who perfected the techniques. To do otherwise shows disrespect.”
Cade started to protest, but the professor cleared his throat, startling Karigan who had been so intent on Cade that she hadn’t heard his approach.
“You would do well to listen to her, Cade,” the professor said. “The king would not have anointed her a knight without cause, especially since there had been no knights for two hundred years previous.” To Karigan he explained, “I train Cade in the techniques as they were handed down to me, and as they’ve been handed down in secret since the rise of the empire, but as you can see, we’ve remembered them imperfectly. Cade, I believe you have a new teacher.”
Cade’s mouth dropped open. It would be, Karigan thought, a huge challenge for him to accept her as a teacher, but she relished the thought of actual arms practice and not just sneaking through forms with the bonewood in her bedroom.
“I am returning to the house now,” the professor said. “See that Miss Goodgrave is also returned before dawn.”
Cade nodded.
“Good night, then,” the professor said, and he strolled away from them across the mill floor.
Karigan and Cade watched him until he disappeared through the door, and then they glanced uncertainly at one another. Unable to hold her gaze, Cade paced restlessly, testing the heft of his sword. Would he accept her instruction, even when told to do so by the professor? Or would he prove obstinate, too stuck in the ways of the empire?
He paused, and without looking at her, he said, “This all seems very improper. Females do not teach. They bear children and keep the home. They certainly do not teach sword fighting.”
Karigan sighed, thinking that any discussion between them would deteriorate rapidly into philosophical arguments, but Cade continued, “However, I know things were once different, and if we are to defeat the emperor, we must shed the ways of thinking he has shackled us with. Teach me what you can.”
She nodded, guessing how humbling a concession this was for Cade to make. With renewed respect, she said, “Why don’t you show me all the forms the professor has taught you, one at a time, beginning with the most basic.”
Cade complied, and as he performed one form after another, Karigan commented and corrected as necessary. When she had to, she stopped him to demonstrate the proper execution of a form, using her bonewood as her sword. Occasionally she had to position Cade, placing her hands on him, to move his shoulders or arms or legs. Initially he flinched at her touch, but as they went on, he relaxed. She could only imagine what Arms Master Drent would think of his least-favored student teaching another.
“I want to show you that Crayman’s Circle into Aspen Leaf you had trouble with before,” she said, “so you know what it’s supposed to look like.”
Cade rested his sword tip on the floor and placed his other hand on his hip, waiting as if he were simply indulging her. Karigan dropped her shawl to the floor and pushed it aside with her foot. She inhaled deeply and settled into her starting stance, but unlike Cade, she allowed no time to pass. She released her breath and began.
Although she was not in top form and relying on her left hand did not come as naturally to her, the movement felt good. So good that she did not stop with Aspen Leaf, but flowed into a series of forms that was one continuous progression, a dance ascending and falling to accompaniment of the silent tempo so ingrained in her that it beat through her whole being. She twisted and turned, the bonewood carving the air. Unleashed from her burdens, unhindered by the fear of someone discovering her secret practices, she lost herself in the freedom of motion. Her body awoke to the dance stretching, flexing, blood surging, her hair flowing about her shoulders, her nightgown billowing. Her slippers flew off as she leaped and whirled, shoulders rotating and hips following. She landed lightly on bare feet only to surge seamlessly into the next form.
She became unconscious of her surroundings, of her exile here from her own time, of Cade’s gaze. Though most forms demanded restraint and minimal movement, she felt as though she soared, choosing to repeat those forms that required the big leaps, the long-reaching strokes. Then showing the utmost control, she stopped. Simply came to a standstill, back erect, the point of the bonewood coming to rest on the floor. Her hair brushed across her shoulders and settled. She panted a little, felt how her nightgown clung to the perspiration on her skin. Cade just stared. She could not read him. She shrugged and slid her feet back into her discarded slippers, and retrieved her shawl. And still he stared.
“Well?” she demanded.
“You—you are a swordmaster . . . ?”
“No,” she replied acerbically, thinking he was going to launch into criticism. “I am a swordmaster initiate. I may never make swordmaster.” She definitely would not if she couldn’t find her way home to resume training. “Swordmasters are the best of the best.”