Page 64 of The Mercy of Dawn
“It’s alright! I’m Kaia Gatlin. There’s a lot of us to keep track of,” she said, taking Cyril’s empty cup from her. “Truthfully, I thought we were in for some babysitting today when Mik—the commander said a guest of the family was joining us. He didn’t say you were a damn rogue!”
Cyril was glad the run already had her cheeks blazing.
“I, well…” She rubbed the back of her neck. “It’s complicated. My uncle—”
Kaia sucked in a quiet gasp and some realization settled into her face. Harshly, she whispered, “Are you helping with the investigation too?”
A tight smile crept onto Cyril’s face, and she nodded.
“Well, this makes much more sense.” Kaia huffed a laugh and shook her head. “I guess Ari and Gunner will roll in their riches after—”
She clamped her mouth shut, eyes wide. But Cyril heard plenty.
“Did you bet on me?” she asked cooly.
A few broken syllables stuttered out of Kaia before she sighed and grimaced. “We might have…but, fuck, we didn’t know! Honestly, we thought you were some high-born lady the commander was pursuing, that Their Majesties were forcing his hand finally. We never—”
Cyril balked. She was certain that clear introductions had been made between herself and Gunner and Ari at one of those dinners. That they would imply to anyone she was just some prize livestock, being herded around for show by the prince…
“No, no, no. There’s no pursuing happening here—”
“I understand now!” Kaia waved her hands a bit exasperatedly, droplets of water flying from the cup she held. “I’m sure everyone does, and I—” She sighed, her shoulders dropped. “Before I fucked this all up royally, I was coming to see if you’d like to do my rotation with me?”
The grimace that hadn’t left Kaia’s face turned into more of a pleading smile.
Rotation. Cyril didn’t have the faintest idea what she meant.
The confusion simmering through her must have been obvious, because Kaia leaned in closer and lowered her voice. “He didn’t explain anything to you, did he?”
She shook her head. Other than the frosty welcome she’d gotten from the prince this morning, he hadn’t uttered a single word to her since the awkward as fuck dinner with his parents.
“Well, we take all of them”—Kaia slung her arm across Cyril’s shoulders and turned them around to face the trainees, all in various states of recovery from the run—“and divide them out into a few groups, with a couple of us assigned to each to guide them through their rotation of activities for the rest of the day. Then we shuffle up the groups and guards every day, so no one ruffles anyone’s feathers too badly.”
Kaia winked knowingly.
“And these activities…?”
“Ah! Right. Ranged weaponry, a bit of swordplay, and hand-to-hand combat. The usual. We try to save the grappling for the end of the day to get everyone back together.”
Cyril supposed guards were to be well-rounded in their abilities, depending on where they ended up stationed, but that was…a lot.
“You do that all in one day?” she asked, and Kaia nodded.
“For the first week, we do. It helps us weed through their natural strengths and weaknesses, so when we move into more focused training, we can better assign them out.” Kaia pulled her gaze from the trainees and looked at Cyril. “But that’s all boring semantics. Would you care to join me on my rotation?”
Cyril eyed her for a moment, pursing her lips.
She supposed the only other option was risking getting stuck with someone less hospitable—or worse, Mikael—for the rest of the day. At least Kaia was friendly, if a bit chatty.
“I’d like that.”
“Good.” Kaia grinned and clasped her shoulder. Cyril’s aching knees wobbled. “Let's go see if we can get first dibs on picking out our group. We do not want to get stuck with that gaggle of idiots.”
Kaia jerked her chin towards a group of eight huddled near a bench, all in various stages of disarray. Two were fighting for their lives, sprawled on their backs in the dirt. The others sat on the bench, heads clutched in their hands or leaned against each other for support.
Cyril blinked.
“Is there something wrong with…all of them?”
