“Left hip under,” Jayce called, mild. He also signed
Kairi adjusted without argument—heel kissing dirt, hip set into the line—then slid her point through a gap that hadn’t been there a blink ago. Jayce’s parry came late on purpose to make the lesson live; his grin came honest. “Good. Again.” His hand added the small flick of
Rush set pen to paper.
—To Ryder: Escort composition. My preference remains noble procession. Fewer opportunists when the road knows whom it carries. Command and control simpler. Downside: we will be seen. Alternative: commoner skins with two shadows dressed as sellswords. Downside: fools find courage on an unbadged road.
He glanced up. Kairi feinted high. Jayce didn’t bite—he narrowed his elbow, took her blade on the strong, and rolled it aside with a wrist that knew long roads of steel. Kairi flowed after the miss, mirrored the roll back at him, and for a heartbeat Jayce’s brows climbed in the kind of admiration that costs nothing and buys trust.
“Those hand signs,” Rush said, clearing his throat. “You use them whenever you spar.”
Jayce nodded. “Habit. Silent signals across the Guard. Helps when words would cost.”
Rush copied the motion. “And this one?”
Kairi made the sign too. “It means good.”
Jayce’s mouth tilted. “It means good.”
Rush let his eyes trace her footwork—angles clean, recovery quick, the way her guard never died after the thrust. Not Tearian yard-drill exactly; not quite Naberian troopwork either. Something pinched tighter in the pivots, narrower through the hips. Balcony memory: dueling schools in the capital where men fought like needles and thread. He jotted in the margin:
—Ask Jayce: looks familiar? If not, what flavor?
“Reset,” Jayce said. They touched guards. Kairi stepped back, rolling a shoulder, already smiling for tomorrow’s bruise.
“Your high guard after the pass,” he said, tapping her wrist-guard with the wooden blade, “keep it alive. You dip when you breathe. If I’m ugly, I take your ear there.”
Kairi wrinkled her nose. “You like my ears.”
“Which is why I prefer them attached.” He lifted the guard to demonstrate; she mirrored, shoulders square. “There. You’ll hate me, and I’m right.”
“You’re right,” she admitted, and earned another
Rush wrote on, their rhythm beating an easy time behind the scratch of the nib.
—Leave pinning and ribbons to you. I’ll dress the road, not the courtiers. Noble escort; fewer incidents; if ambush anyway, we choose ground. If we must ghost, I can trim to a two-shadow column and pass for mercenary hire.
He could see Ryder already mapping rivers and choke points in his head—and a second map, the parchment one with names and seals, unrolled across a desk while daylight got old on it. Paperwork tasted like ink when you breathed too long. Trinity had flicked his forehead once and told him to learn to love it. Someday you’ll miss it. He hadn’t believed her. He almost did, now.
A clear laugh cut the yard; Jayce’s answered, lower. Kairi had tried something that undid him, failed it, tried again, and on the third pass put the point exactly where it belonged. They shared the look fighters share when the body finally says thank you.
Rush’s chest loosened at the sound—then tightened on old ghosts. Trinity’s laugh, quick and wicked down a long hall. Krezin’s, thin and brave in winter air. What if—
Stop. He set the pen down, flexed his hand, and looked up.
“Again?” Kairi asked, eyes bright.
They worked. Jayce didn’t crowd his praise and didn’t starve it either. “There,” when she robbed his line. “Better,” when her recovery kept her alive. “No,” when a pretty thing wasn’t honest yet. When he stole her point he told her how; when she stole his he asked her to show it again. Kairi took each correction like a tool, not a wound, and Rush filed that where he kept useful truths. She’d built something with the boy in her dreams—yes—but she was also building something with the man in front of her: trust that turned critique into muscle.
“Break,” Jayce said at last, breath warm. He offered his forearm like a bridge; she took it, and they let the bout end clean.
Rush stood, knees complaining like old friends. “Your guard lives longer than last month,” he told Kairi. “Don’t let him bully you into ugly feet.”
Kairi rolled her eyes with practiced affection. “He’s not bullying. He’s smug.”
“Smug and correct,” Jayce said, unabashed. Then to Rush, “You were watching the feet.”
“I watch the feet,” Rush said. He tipped his chin toward Kairi. “He watches your shoulder when you lie with your eyes. He’s dangerous.”
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Jayce accepted that with a small, crooked salute and looked away first—good. A man should know where to put his eyes.
Kairi brought water—dipper first to Rush, then Jayce, then herself last because habit is a stubborn animal. Rush was working on breaking that. She’d need to learn to take first.
“You’re learning,” Rush said to her, nodding at the sticks.
“I have a good teacher,” she said.
Jayce looked like he might joke. He didn’t. “You do. Tell us more about him—what’s new?”
Dream boy, Rush thought, and felt the old blade of fear slide under the ribs and not draw blood this time only because he’d expected it. What if the world found the soft spot you loved and put its thumb there. He folded fear into plan: riders at narrow rivers; noise where quiet bred courage; lanterns where dark gaped; letters to three houses who still remembered the taste of honor.
He picked up the pen again.
—Addendum: Training notes. Kairi’s swordwork shows dueling influence—tight pivots, narrow hips. Guard recovery clean. High guard dips on breath (fixable). Accepts correction; improves on repeat. Jayce confirms instruction aligns with Royal Guard method.
Jayce frowned at something Kairi had just signed back to him. Rush caught only the shape of it; his brow folded. “What did I miss?”
Jayce signed a longer phrase, fingers quick. Rush squinted. “Translate,” he said.
Jayce pointed at Kairi, amused. “She knows a phrase she shouldn’t, unless she’s been taught.”
Kairi didn’t flinch. She glanced at Rush. “He asked what was new. I said my dream friend teaches me like this.” She nodded at the practice swords. “And he… signs. He taught me some. That one means he’s handsome.” She pointed, entirely unrepentant, at Jayce.
Rush took that in. “He taught you sign. And he teaches you like the Shadowguard.” He looked at Jayce. “That narrows the field.”
Jayce’s smile thinned, professional now. “It narrows it a great deal.”
Kairi, sensing the shift, lifted the stick again. “Again?”
“Five passes, then food,” Jayce bargained.
“Three,” Rush said, because someone had to be crown in the yard. “Then food.”
They groaned together and obeyed anyway, touching guards. Rush sat, set the sealed letter where sun would dry the wax clean, and watched them work while he penned the last lines.
—Final: Recommend noble escort. I will carry the courtesies if you carry the seals. Choose ground where we must; refuse ground when we can. One more thing, brother: re: the dream-companion. Evidence mounts that he is Royal Guard trained, likely Shadowguard. I will work with Jayce to narrow, quiet, and find. She is my country. Guard her like law.
They let the quiet hold while Kairi bent over the page, lips pursed, braid slipping forward as she worried the nib into behaving. Jayce and Rush kept their voices low, the way you do when someone is threading a needle and you don’t want to jostle the cloth.
“How many men does that leave who fit what she’s described?” Rush asked.
Jayce considered, then named them like inventory. “Ryder. Damon. Me. Darius. Ezra. Kylar. Zen. Fenway. Tamsin. Kurt. Gibson.”
Rush wrote each on its own line. “We know he’s close to her age. Cross out who’s too old.”
Jayce took the pen and struck through three in one breath. “Ezra. Kurt. Gibson.” He added a fourth line with a quick, firm slash. “And me. If it were me, I’d have misdirected you off the Guard years ago.”
He hovered over the first name, then crossed it as well. “Not Ryder. If it were him, he wouldn’t be combing records this hard.”
Rush nodded, mouth a line. They studied what remained:
Damon
Darius
Kylar
Zen
Fenway
Tamsin
“Who teaches well,” Rush said, “and who doesn’t.”
Jayce scratched out two. “Fenway and Tamsin don’t like recruits, let alone polishing a stance for the fourth time.”
Four names stared back:
Damon
Darius
Kylar
Zen
Rush circled them. “Have them all on the escort. Damon will be there in Ryder’s stead.” A glance up. “Ryder himself can’t break away.”
“Right.” Jayce tapped one circle. “Kylar is Dato in the Guard. So that’s both princes on the list.” His mouth tilted. “Comforting.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s either,” Rush said. “But we’ll see who she reacts to, or who reacts to her.”
Jayce folded the paper once, neat. “I’ll talk to Ryder. We’ll set it. If Kylar goes, Tessa goes.”
“Female guard?”
“Very good guard,” Jayce said, eyes sliding away despite himself.
Rush caught the slip, let it pass like a bird he didn’t need to net. “We can leave Kylar if needed.”
“I’ll ask him,” Jayce said. “Make it his choice.”
Rush’s hand landed twice on his shoulder, weight, release. “Take care of yourself.”
“I will.” Jayce exhaled. “Wonder if she’s done with that letter.”
They both glanced over. Kairi hunched protectively, hand covering the page. Rush drifted closer; she lowered her head further and slid her palm over the lines.
“Privacy,” she said, firm. “Please.”
Jayce grinned. “You think he’ll let you send a letter to a prince without reading it?”
She thought about it, looked up at Rush. He stood there, king-quiet, waiting.
“If you’re asking as my brother,” she said, “I’m asking for trust.”
Rush considered, then nodded once. “Condition: I seal it. And Jayce carries it un-opened. If there’s trouble inside, I deal with it after.”
Kairi’s mouth softened. “Deal.”
Jayce lifted a hand. “For the record—I’d rather not know what’s inside anyway. Makes me a better courier.”
“Good,” she said, and bent back to the page.
They waited without staring. Jayce counted breaths. Rush counted footfalls in the lane outside and wrote two more lines to Ryder in his head he’d never put to paper.
At last, Kairi sat back, blew lightly, and folded the sheet. The seal was plain wax, pressed with the little sun-stamp Jayce had bartered for last market run—a nothing-crest that said this is mine in a way no house could challenge. She held the letter in both hands for a heartbeat—like it was heavier than it looked—then offered it to Rush.
He turned it once, didn’t try to read the paper through the wax, and pressed it shut himself with a second, neat ring of seal—his mark, not as a prince, just as a brother. He passed it to Jayce.
“Straight to him,” Rush said.
“Straight to him,” Jayce echoed, tucking it into the inner pocket where Rush's letters for Ryder stayed.
Kairi watched the movement, then—almost idly—picked up her pen and, on the scrap beside the sanded blotter, sketched a tiny wildflower in the margin. She capped the ink like it hadn’t meant anything at all.
Jayce warmed watching her doodle and looked to Rush.
“Leaving now?” Rush asked.
“Yeah,” Jayce said, already standing, already checking the weight of the satchel, already counting the turns between here and the orchard road. He offered Kairi his forearm; she took it in thanks more than farewell.
“Tell him I expect a reply,” she said, chin up, brave in the way she’d learned from too many goodbyes.
“I’ll tell him,” Jayce promised. Then, to Rush, quiet: “About a week till I'm back.”
Rush’s mouth tugged. “We will see you then. And Jayce—”
“I know,” Jayce said, and the smile he made then was real enough to pass inspection. “Honest, I'll be fine.”
“Good,” Rush said.
The house let Jayce out with the same care it let him in. When the latch settled and hoof-sound dimmed, Rush looked at his sister. She was still looking at the closed door, thumb resting on the edge of the blotter, the little drawn flower half-hidden under her hand.
“You’re certain?” he asked.
She breathed once, honest. “Certain enough to try,” she said. “About getting to know the prince—properly. And on the escort, I’ll claim what’s mine. Princess of Tearia.”
Rush’s mouth tugged into something like a smile. “We’ll take ‘enough.’”
He trimmed the lamp to a kinder flame. Kairi capped the ink, tucked the pen away, and squared the little desk like closing a chapter without forcing the ending. Upstairs, a bed waited for the kind of sleep that brings its own weather. Outside, the road Jayce would ride began quietly at the gate and ran—like all good roads do—toward plans made, names spoken plain, and the moment a country finally says it out loud.