House of Dragons (Royal Houses #1) - K.A. Linde Page 0,94
She nodded and matched him. Right foot, then left. Side to side. Back and forth. An easy, gentle movement that she was familiar with.
“You spared Valero.”
He held his wooden sword low, swooping gracefully through the next movement. “He’s out of the tournament. That was the point of the challenge.”
“So, I have to learn to destroy my mercy?” she asked, mirroring him.
“You must learn to do the opposite of what your opponent expects. The best thing to do would be to learn your enemy, know them better than they know themselves, and exploit their weaknesses.”
Fordham lunged forward. She gasped and took a step back, bringing her sword up and barely blocking him. But he was lightning fast, and he’d feinted. The length of his sword slapped hard against her ribs. She doubled over and coughed.
“You favor your left side,” he said simply. “I know that because I know you.”
“Okay,” she croaked, rising to her feet again. “Know your enemy. Got it. But how can I do that if I don’t know my opponent?”
Fordham picked back up where he’d left off, and she reluctantly followed him. Though she was more on guard this time. This was a lesson, not basic footwork.
“If you don’t know your opponent,” he told her, “then you rely on your training. You must understand how others fight, all the potential ways they could attack you, have a mental dictionary of ways that an opponent could hurt you. Then, you train every one of those mistakes out of you.”
Kerrigan slid into the next movement, considering what he’d said. “You’re going to train my mistakes out of me?”
“Yes and no. I’m going to train every mistake out of you. So that when an assassin comes at you again, you aren’t surprised when they jump out of the shadows.” He finished the last sequence and let the sword drop to his side.
This time, when he attacked, she was ready.
Fordham still beat her every single time they sparred. It was beyond frustrating since she had thought that she was pretty good with a sword before this. He was just that much better.
By the third day, she thought she was finally making a bit of improvement. Not that she could win against him, but she wasn’t losing quite as fast. This was the opposite of how she had been taught. Her teachers had all shown her how to fight. Fordham was training her in all the ways not to fight. Explaining the ways others fought and twisting it around to show how to break down the movements and counter, how to win. It was exhausting, both physically and mentally.
Especially because Fordham refused to let either of them go through healing.
“The pain makes you stronger,” he told her after she asked him again if she could go get a quick healing.
“Right now, it makes me feel terrible.”
“You won’t always be in a position where you can get healing. You might have to deal with injuries. Healing makes it so that you don’t have any way to handle pain. If you’ve never been hurt before, then the shock of it will be a stumbling block.”
“Is that what you mean by battlefield healing? How you were able to pop your shoulder back into place in the tournament and fight through broken ribs?”
His eyes went far away. “Yes. That was not the worst that I’d ever endured.”
Kerrigan frowned. She didn’t like when he was withdrawn. As if he were imagining a not-too-distant past where he had suffered many horrors.
He blinked, and it was gone. “In a battle, magic is reserved for fighting. It drains you too quickly to use magic to heal. You learn to fix what you can and deal with anything else.”
“Okay,” she muttered. “No healing.”
“You are getting stronger,” he told her, taking the practice sword and replacing it. “That is all for today.”
Kerrigan took another sip of water and considered how to ask him the next question. She’d decided yesterday that she wanted to do this. She wasn’t sure how Fordham would react. But still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed this.
“What are your plans tonight?” she asked him, still facing away to hide her blush.
“Plans?” He sounded suspicious. “Do you have a new lead?”
“Unfortunately, no. But… do you want to go into the city with me?”
“Does this involve torture?”
She laughed, finally turning. “Some people might say so. Though I think you’d like it.”
Now, he looked even more suspicious. “What is it?”