Page 35 of Promised to the Cursed Laird

"I never learned properly. I've picked up bits from watching the guards run their practice, but that's hardly the same as knowing what I'm doing."

Marcas glanced towards the practice blades.

"Then ye've a great deal tae learn."

"Aye." She met his eyes. "I want ye tae teach me."

He studied her for a long moment.

"Ye're certain ye want this?"

"I'd rather be certain I can protect myself before I go."

He looked at her then, really looked at her, as though weighing the determination in her face against every reason he had to refuse.

"Take up the blade, then," he said, nodding at the rack. "The lighter one. We'll start with yer stance, because whatever ye picked up watching guards from a distance has taught ye naething about where yer own feet ought tae be."

A small smile tugged at her mouth.

"I was afraid ye might say that."

"I suspect ye'll be afraid of many things before I'm finished with ye."

"That sounds encouraging."

"It wasnae meant tae be."

She took the blade he indicated, held it the way he'd expected, too tight, wrist locked, weight all wrong. He came around behind her before he'd fully decided to, close enough that his voice didn't need to carry further than the back of her neck.

"Yer grip's too hard," he said. "Ye'll tire in a minute and lose the blade the first time someone strikes it properly." He reached around, his hand closing over hers on the hilt, adjusting her fingers, loosening what needed loosening. "Like this. Firm, nae clenched."

"Like this," she repeated, and he felt more than heard the small catch in her breath as his chest came nearly flush against her back, his other hand settling at her hip to correct the angle of her stance.

"Feet wider," he said, low, his mouth closer to her ear. "Weight even between them. If ye plant it on yer front foot ye'll go down the moment anyone pushes back."

"Is that meant tae be a lesson about swordplay," she said, "or about something else?"

"I havenae decided yet." His hand moved from her hip to her elbow, guiding the angle of her arm, and he was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of the warmth of her back against his chest, the scent of her hair this close, the stillness in her that hadn't been fear in a long while now and had become something else he was trying very hard not to name in the middle of his own training yard. "Raise the blade. There. Hold it."

She held it, arm trembling slightly with the unfamiliar weight, and he kept his hands where they were a beat longer than the correction required, and neither of them moved to end it.

"MacKinnon."

"Aye."

"Ye can step back now. I believe I have the stance."

"Aye," he said, and didn't, immediately, though he made himself do it a moment later, putting a proper span of cold morning air back between them before either of them did something neither of them had agreed to do in the middle of a training yard in full view of anyone who cared to look.

She lowered the blade, breathing a little unsteady, and didn't look at him directly for a moment, and he found he understood the impulse, because he was fighting the same one.

"We'll work on this properly," he said, rougher than he intended, "every morning, until ye're fit tae hold yer own on any road ye choose tae take. And when the day comes that ye do choose one, Fearchar's or otherwise, I'll ride with ye myself, tae the edge of my land, tae see ye reach it safely. That's nae negotiable, whatever else is."

She looked up at that, something soft moving behind the wariness she still hadn't fully set down.

"Thank ye," she said softly, and meant it in a way that reached further than the words themselves.

"Dinnae thank me yet." He picked his shirt back up off the fence rail, pulling it on, the cold finally catching up with his sweat-damp skin. "Ye've a great deal more bruising tae collect from me first. I'm nae a gentle teacher."