Page 43 of The Sun King's Noon

The gratitude was the truth. Though Galdran remained Ardenia’s biggest threat, Rot—this corruption that left such devastation, that warped a faceless man, that made a babe claw out of its mother—had to be entirely destroyed. Even if Ardenia was to be conquered, Rot had to be?—

With a trembling hand, Richard reached for his goblet and downed it. The wine tasted stale, and staler still as he glimpsed his knight’s brilliant smile at another man.

CHAPTER 18

The clash of steel rang across the inner bailey and sent a pair of robins fluttering from the stable roof. Richard caught Seola’s blow on his crossguard. The princess’s blade was a brutish thing—broader and heavier than his own sword—and the impact shuddered through his wrists. Pivoting on his back foot, Richard turned the parry into a sidestep and cut low at her exposed flank.

She swept her blade down in a lazy arc and drove his point into the packed dirt.

“Hah!” Sweat darkened the collar of Seola’s tunic. “You have gotten slow, old friend.”

They were in the inner bailey, where fewer tended to gather, and the smell of horses hung thick in the morning air. Beyond the sparring circle, a column of cavalrymen trotted their mounts through figure-eights.

Richard wrenched his sword free and circled left. He’d removed his shirt a while ago, and bruises already littered his arms where the flat side of Seola’s sword had thudded. The tattoo—he’d kept it covered under a bandage.

Their blades met again and again. A few of the cavalrymen had begun to glance over. With a battle cry that seemed entirely too overwrought, Seola lunged with a looping overhead thatforced Richard to raise his blade in a two-handed block. The crash jarred his teeth. She bore down, their hilts locked.

“Will you stop attempting to remove my head?” Richard asked wearily. “My twenties are behind me.”

“So are mine,” Seola scoffed. “But I do not give excuses like you.”

They broke apart. Seola rolled her shoulder and squinted at him. “Speaking of growth, that knight certainly has.”

“Kaelen?”

“A short thing he was when I was last here, tripping over his own boots.” She swiped her sword, and Richard parried on instinct. “Now look at him. All broad shoulders and pretty eyes.”

“He trains hard,” Richard said, circling. “As any knight ought.”

“Hah, well, he surely trained at something last night.” Seola’s grin sharpened. “I saw him leaving the Naradeshi dancer’s bedchamber this morn.”

Richard’s parry came a beat too late. Seola’s blade cracked against his and tore the sword from his grip. It spun through the air and crashed into a water trough.

The watching soldiers winced and hurriedly turned their backs.

Richard’s chest heaved. He stalked to the water trough and bent to retrieve his sword. “Kaelen’s nightly affairs are his own.”

“Oh, yes. The fun must have been considerable. I used to adore bedding dancers. The positions they bend in?—”

“Seola.” Richard willed the boil of something red and hot trapped in his ribcage to simmer. “How goes your marriage with your general?”

The deflection worked. Seola’s grin fled.

“Fine. Well enough. Poorly. Both, I suppose.” She huffed. “We argue most times. She is often busy and cold, my Ha-eun.” Seola squinted at the sun. “Or rather, she is not cold in truth.Only quiet when I wish her loud, and hard when I wish her soft. And she thinks before she speaks, which is a dreadful flaw.”

Richard smiled. It was clear. “You love her.”

“But, of course. That is what it means, no?” Seola scratched her back with her sword, ignoring Richard’s startled protest. “To be in love. It is not like your bard songs of happy ever after. It is snarling and yelling and sulking and then—” She fiddled with her double rings. “Coming back. Choosing each other again over breakfast, though you are angry about the mead bottle she threw off the table. Making time to worship her in bed, even when the world demands you. Finding a way to fit without cutting each other with your jagged edges.”

Richard rubbed his nape awkwardly. This was a conversation he had no reply to.

Seola noticed. “Not once, old friend? In all these years?”

“No.” Richard dragged a hand through his damp hair. “Regardless, there are more pressing concerns at present.”

“We have a saying in Frostheim. You do not anchor the longship only when the sea is calm. If you are waiting for the right time to give away your heart, I will tell you now, there is no such thing.” Seola pointed her sword at him with a frown. “And if you want that knight—as I think you do, given the numerous times you ogled him last night—you ought to give chase before another catches him first.” She jutted her chin towards the castle. “I am sure that dancer has quick hands.”

Richard blinked. “I do not want Kaelen. Not—not in that manner!”