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Skylar stared half-dazed at the wall. Something had awoken her, and with her stomach groaning for food, she had crawled towards the plate that had been set next to the iron bars again. Sitting slumped over, the back of her torn dress loosely re-stitched by mysterious hands, Skylar ate the bland mush while wondering about the past lives who had lived in the cell. She looked over to stare at the heirlooms on the walls, the stained legacies left behind, before something shifted in the darkness.
Death was not the haunt people had made it out to be, and she sat staring while the old acquaintance tried to befriend her. There was no noise as it shifted between the cracks in the stone, avoiding the light of the torch. A moan echoed from somewhere, and she stole a glance to see where it was coming from. It wasn’t until she remembered the bars that she knew she would never see what had made the noise. When she turned back to the wall, the movement in the dark was gone.
The isolation stretched out around her, but while still dazed, she finished what was on the plate before glancing up at the torch flame that was flickering against the wall outside of her cell. Part of her knew the dark concealment was getting under her skin, fixing images and casting them on the walls for only her to see, but there was nothing she could do about it. The dark, the coldness, the demonic screams—it all made it easy for the insanity to slip in.
The tremors erupting without warning didn’t help, either. But the tremor that rocked the stone at that moment, moving the ground more violently than before, made Skylar realize that even the stone structure around her had its flaws. It shoved her forward onto her hands as the pipes against the wall rattled into the stone, sending a chorus of bangs to scatter across the prison, leaping with the screams of those it had frightened. The ground rattled her cup until it threatened to tip over, spilling the water her thirst had found precious. Before it could hit the ground, Skylar snatched it, holding it as the quake subsided into soft rumblings and eventually died down. While the following silence was deafening and the stillness nerve-wracking, Skylar remained sitting on the ground, staring at the cup in her hand.
You’re stronger than you think.
The words spoke for her, just like they had when she had first heard them in the abandoned barn. Harlin basking in the morning sunlight replaced the image of the cup she was still staring at in her hand.
“You were given this life because you’re strong enough to live it,” he had been explaining.
“It still doesn’t make things any easier,” she groaned, sprawled on her stomach against the dirt floor, the muscles in her arms burning from the push-ups he had made her do.
“It’s not supposed to. Easiness is not the way of the world.”
Skylar was too out of breath to tell him what she really thought of him at that moment, and the sideways image of him walking towards her made her head hurt. “Ten more,” is what he said to end the conversation.
Ten more.
Skylar rotated the cup in her hand before glancing at the ground before her. She remembered the strain of those first few weeks, the aching exhaustion following after each lesson. She remembered how hot she would get, even on a cold day, how exhaustion slowly mutated into exhilaration. Skylar continued to stare at the stone floor, the remembrances fluttering around her until all but one remained.
With a slight smile, Skylar set the cup back on the ground and crawled awkwardly a couple paces away from the bars in order to stretch herself on the stone floor. She laid herself on her stomach and placed her palms on the cool ground, preparing to lift herself up in order to strengthen her arms. However, the first push-up was harder than she realized, and she faltered a little before having to lie back on the ground and retry.
The memory of Harlin’s voice whispered into her ear. “There may come a time when you are all that’s left.”
She sucked in a deep breath and heaved herself back up, her arms shaking from lifting her own weight. They might not come for you, she thought to him.
“Whether they do or not, you need to be prepared.”
Skylar let out a huff. Her back and arms burned from the pull and strain, but she ignored it as she slowly lowered herself back down. To keep her mind from giving in to the pain, she closed her eyes and let her thoughts wander back to the abandoned barn, replaying what had happened.
Harlin had heaved open the barn doors, and Skylar followed him inside with the horses. She found that somehow he had prepared the place for their arrival. Two of the twelve stalls had fresh hay, and the thick ropes used as gates were ready for use. Harlin had already grabbed the reins of Lexton, leading him to one of the stalls. He loosened the girth and unbridled the steed, clipping the rope in place to confine him. Skylar mimicked the actions with Suncaster and, when done, hung the bridle alongside Lexton’s on the nail sticking out of the wood that divided the stalls.
Skylar was looking the place over before Harlin closed the barn door and called out to her. “Has your curiosity been piqued yet?”
“Very,” Skylar admitted, turning to face him.
Harlin strolled towards her, coming out from the dimness of the abandoned shadows and into the streaming light that cascaded from the windows just below the tin roof. The black leather shone, making it seem more like armor than before. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “but as your knight, I’d like to make a proposal.”
Her eyebrow raised in question. “What kind of proposal?”
“Given the circumstances, I’d like to propose that I teach you how to defend yourself.”
She knew he must have seen the look she gave him: the baffled expression, the open jaw without words. Harlin cleared his throat, keeping his pride at bay as he confessed, “I can’t always protect you. Not if things keep escalating the way they are.”
Skylar analyzed his motives from where she stood. She had just confronted him about being a benighted the night before, the same day she had watched him kill the Nar-speaker in the forest. Now there they stood in the cold shadows of the abandoned barn which was shielding them from the summer dawn. The world was revolving more and more, she realized, and she knew she was going to have to revolve with it.
“I want you to be protected by knowing how to defend yourself if something should happen to me,” Harlin was explaining.
“Do you really think that would happen? That things would escalate to that point?”
Harlin briefly closed his eyes, his cheeks fluttering as he clenched his teeth together, giving away that he didn’t want to tell her the truth. “Yes,” he answered when he finally looked back up, the meaning behind those Nar words visibly haunting him.
The look halted her thoughts, keeping her a small distance from him. For the first time, there was uncertainty in those determined eyes, an uneasiness surrounding his stance. They stared at each other, his motives out in the open, waiting for her agreement. It came when Skylar finally drew in a deep breath and said, “When do we begin?”
The corner of his lip twitched upward. “Now.”
The sound of keys in the distance broke Skylar from the trance. The groaning of gates threw her back into the present. Hearing the prison keeper’s footsteps and jingling keys approaching, she dragged herself back to the straw bed, rolling onto her side as the keeper appeared at her gate. She tried to control her breathing as she tilted her head back and found he was pouring water into her cup from a long metal dipper. She could hear the sloshing water in the metal bucket he held as he pulled the dipper back through the iron bars.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
The keeper’s silhouette stood tall until very slowly he bowed his head in return. Without any other exchanges, the keeper walked back the way he came, and his exiting was marked by the rattling of keys and the sharp bang as the gates closed behind him.
Slinking back to the place on the floor, the aching in her arms and stomach told her she needed to focus on something else. So Skylar rolled onto her bruised back, bent her knees, and kept her feet flat on the ground. When she finally lifted her upper body, and her stomach cramped and her back burned further in protest, it reminded her of the first time she had ever done such an exercise.
“This... is harder... than... I thought,” she remembered gasping, her stomach twisting and making her face burn hot.
Harlin stood against the post with his arms crossed, watching each of her agonizing attempts to pull herself up to her knees. He moved away from the post in order to crouch down in front of her, his arms resting on his knees and his hands folded in front of him.
Skylar sat back against her hands, using her arms to prop herself up so she could sit. She continued to breathe hard long after she had stretched her legs out and rested.
“You have a long ways to go,” he explained at eye level. “It’ll be a while before you’ll be able to take down someone twice your size.”
Skylar narrowed her eyes at him, her heart ringing in her ears from the adrenaline. “I don’t want to take someone half my size,” she mumbled.
A little smile appeared on his face, but he hid it away as he continued on, “You have to know where the vital points are. Otherwise, your only options are to run around in circles and tire them out, along with yourself, or try to tackle them and lose because they have more brute force than you do. But if you know the vital points, you can kill a grown man and be able to leave the fight alive.”
“So there’s more to this lesson than just physical pain,” Skylar summarized through her panting.
“You need the physical strength so you can get in and out of a fight in one piece.” Harlin stood up and turned away, saying over his shoulder, “Ten more.”
Ten more still swayed persuasively in the air as Skylar threw her upper back towards her knees. A side ache threatened her, and her chest burned from the exertion, but that was when she couldn’t help but smile, thinking back on one of the lessons.
“I want you to take the stick and attack a vital point,” Harlin had explained, handing her a stick right before he gave his instructions.
Holding the stick out, Skylar used it as a pointer while deliberating which part of the body to attack first. Then the thought came to her, and excitedly she used the stick to poke his chest.
Harlin looked at where she had struck him and then stared at her, one of his eyebrows rising.
“Vital point,” she replied with pride. “The heart. Instant death.”
He clenched his teeth when he took a deep breath and exhaled, his eyes never blinking. “You would be right,” he commented, “if my heart were on the right side of my chest.”
Skylar’s smile slowly dropped as she realized the mistake. Then she got an idea. “Lung,” she announced just as proudly. “A slightly more prolonged death.”
Harlin had to close his eyes for a moment when the moan escaped him. “Try again,” he mumbled.
Skylar took a step back to get her bearings, though not without saying through her smile, “You’re just mad because I’m witty.”
“Oh, yes, that must be it,” he mocked, unable to hide the rising curves in his mouth.
“Yes, it must.” Skylar giggled, hearing her voice echo out past the prison bars and fading into the torchlight. When the silence came back, she pushed the isolated thought aside and concentrated on her old routine.
She thought back to her days in the old barn, remembering when she could do ten full sit-ups, roll over to do ten push-ups, then roll back over to do ten more sit-ups. The cycle would repeat until eventually Skylar had managed to roll from one side of the barn to the other. Closing her eyes, Skylar pretended she was there again, pulling her upper body to her knees while Harlin walked slowly in front of her, watching her as she went. With her sides cramping and sweat staining her clothes, the pain began to seem all too familiar, and she embraced it.
The pressure in the middle of her back became the memory of Harlin sitting on an overturned metal pail, his back resting against a post while his legs were stretched out and resting on Skylar’s back while she tried miserably to do her push-ups under the weight of his heels.
“Ten more,” he called out to her when he saw she was faltering.
Out of the corner of her eye, Skylar realized that he was cleaning the dirt from underneath his nails with the small dagger he kept in his boot. “Don’t you know another number?” she grumbled, her arms shaking from exhaustion.
Harlin glanced at her from over his self-given manicure. “Twenty, then.”
“Ten’s a good number.” Skylar changed her mind, lowering herself to the ground before picking herself right back up. “I’m good with ten.”
Harlin chuckled from where he sat. “That’s what they all say.”
A slight tremor could be felt under her back, evaporating the scene back into the dark coldness of reality. Skylar wiped the sweat that dripped down the side of her face, and as she rested for a moment, his whispered voice repeated in the darkness, “I can’t always protect you.”
Skylar closed her eyes when she heard it, and that was when she saw Harlin lunge at her, a short sword in either hand.
The short swords she had in her grip clashed with his, a block attempt he had taught her. He swung with one of the blades, his step forward a match to the one she took back while she blocked his attack with one of her swords. He swiped his blade out in front of him, in which she ducked underneath. But even though she dodged the attack, she couldn’t dodge his kick when he slammed his foot into her shin. With a cry, Skylar tumbled backwards onto the ground, cradling her wounded leg that brought tears to her eyes.
“What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger,” he said, his way of saying that the lesson wasn’t over.
She looked up at him through her blurry vision, rolling to her side in order to try and get up. She remembered playing rough with Brayden but never to this extent. With the swords still in hand, Skylar got to her feet and limped back into place.
Glancing up, she found Harlin had backed away, holding the swords out in front of him, waiting for her to get back into position. With a firmer grip, Skylar gritted her teeth when the sharp pain pulsed from the bone.
Harlin came forward, and their swords clashed again in the same routine until his blade swung out in a swiping motion in front of him. Skylar ducked underneath it, but when the blade passed, she immediately dropped her sword and shot her balled-up fist upward, ramming it into Harlin’s jaw. The knight stumbled backwards a couple steps from the surprise attack, and regaining his composure, he found that Skylar’s fist was pulled back and ready to hit him again.
Breathing heavily, Skylar watched him stare right back at her, the taken-aback expression just as pronounced as her glare. Harlin rubbed his jaw as he lectured, “Don’t use your anger,” though the smile curving his mouth helped him add, “but good job.”
The triumph was still brightly lit in her eyes when she opened them as she rotated back to her stomach, positioning her palms on the ground and pushing up. However, when an old pain tickled her right knuckle, Skylar dropped back to the floor. She was surprised she still felt it, hidden under the skin and in between the bones, the blunt pain reminding her of the last time she experienced its wakening. She had pushed open the old barn doors, leading Suncaster in out of the rain. His reins barely dropped out of her hands before Harlin trailed in leading Lexton. Skylar felt like she was walking in a daze, the humidity of the autumn rain trapped in the stale atmosphere, wrapping around her as the rain continued to drum just outside.
She could barely hear Harlin attend to the horses since the only thing standing out in her mind was the rain and the brass knuckle weaved around her fingers. Coming to a stop in the middle of the abandoned area, Skylar slipped the blood-smeared weapon off and tossed it on the ground just as the footsteps behind her came to a pause.
“That never should have happened,” she admitted, still seeing Kingston Lurr’s bloody face in her mind.
“It’s a natural reaction—”
“Then why does it feel so terrible?” she cried out, facing Harlin in order to get an answer. “For a moment, I became no better than they are. I just took a total step backwards.”
Harlin stared at her, his sincerity smoothing over the rough edges. “That should be the least of your worries.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Harlin’s eyes dropped, and he fell to attention, his hands clasped in front of him. Choosing his words, he lifted his head and stated, “You’re being isolated.”
The rain-soaked cloak suddenly felt heavy on her shoulders, the stale air suffocating.
“They’re going to take your ladies-in-waiting. They’ll come for me next,” Harlin explained.
“They wouldn’t—”
“I might have to give my life,” his voice continued reluctantly. “And with that, you’ll be on your own.”
Her heart ached, the fate of it all bearing down between them.
Harlin walked steadily towards her, his voice quiet yet warm. “I’m not trying to make you into something that you’re not. I’m trying to give you a chance.”
Although the cold ground of the prison rose up through her battered dress, remembering his words caused Skylar’s legs to slide out until she was lying completely flat against the ground, the remnants of the thymelock unable to take away the heartache.
“There may come a time when you are all that’s left,” she heard the words repeat.
She closed her eyes, saying into the darkness, “They might not come for you.” The words themselves were hard to say, because now she knew she had been wrong. However, it wasn’t Harlin’s voice who replied this time, but the voice of a ghost she had only heard scream once.
“Mandolyn will rise!”
It took a different type of memory to open Skylar’s eyes again, a different voice that made her roll over, placing her hands on the cold floor and pushing herself up. With each push-up, the voice chanted with her:
“Mandolyn will rise! She’s not dead! The Princess Royal’s not dead!”
