Morning comes with an orange glow in the eastern sky. Nathis rises well before the sun, taking refuge in the barracks just west of the castle on the outskirts of town. It is a formidable structure, a simple run of guard posts nested on top of the walls.

  The storehouse near the rear of the building is a mess of sparring swords, rusted equipment, horse armor, and chainmail. Nathis spends his time this morning in the storehouse, rearranging the weaponry. He sorts through the rusty swords, collecting them in a leather wrap on the floor. Surely Lark would find some enjoyment in practicing her craft these next few weeks. His back aches as he bends to gather them up, tying a thong around them and carrying the pack to his horse.

  The castle looms in the distance. Nathis takes note of the sun’s light reaching over the battlements, the mesquite trees beginning to lose their leaves. Gazing toward the south, he images the sea lapping at the shore, the autumn kelp piling up along the sands.

  Nathis had grown up in the province of Chyras among the farmers. He volunteered for the militia when he was young, taking on the tasks that others turned their nose up at. He found himself running personal errands for the Crown and directing scouting parties for the security concerns of the lords. He was never great with horses, but men—men he could lead. Weeks before Taeg’s father died, he appointed Nathis army general. He received direct orders from the Grand Master. He oversaw the personal training of any Guard candidate, as well as fulfilling his own Guard duties. He’d never ended a day without his bones aching. The Kerrich family had bestowed great honor upon him, and for this life, he was grateful.

  From the south, he hears hoofbeats approaching. A figure breaks through the haze of heat over the sand, and he recognizes Anarah, her dark blonde hair flailing behind her as she pushes her white mare. Nathis had given her that horse when she was very young. She had begged for it, watching the stable boys groom his horse more times than she could count at that age. She fell in love with every creature she laid eyes on, and he was not one to stop her.

  Anarah stops her horse a few yards out in a cloud of dust. Nathis watches as she climbs down with practiced grace, smiling as she walks to greet him. When she reaches him, she throws her long arms around his shoulders, squeezing. His daughter is only a couple of inches shorter than he. She pulls away and he watches as her eyebrows knit.

  “How are you this lovely morning?” Nathis says. He forces a grin to reach the corner of his lips, feeling them crack in the dry air.

  She scowls. “What did the physicians say?”

  There is a pause as Nathis sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. He jerks his head sideways, gesturing at the barracks, avoiding her eyes. Across the rocky path, into the shade of the barracks, he slides the great door closed behind them. The inner hall opens before them. Torches light the walls. Nathis takes a seat at a bench nearby, his chainmail clinking.

  “What did they say?” she asks again. She takes the seat next to him, not taking her eyes off his.

  “I suppose you’ve already read something that increased your suspicion?” he says, looking down at his grizzled hands. There are scars all along the tops of them, creeping down his wrists.

  “Of course.”

  Leaning back against the rock wall of the barracks, Nathis looks up. The ceiling feels too close. “Then you already know that I am sick.”

  “How long have you known?” she says, her eyes daggers.

  “A few months now. I’m losing more weight than I would like, but I can’t seem to find the appetite.”

  “Have you told the prince?”

  “No. And I don’t believe he should know.” Nathis drags his eyes away from the ceiling.

  Anarah leans forward. “Please tell him. You’ve done the Kerrich family a great deed for many years. I’m sure he would care for your health. Pardon you, even.”

  “Anarah,” he says, eyes settling on hers. “I am an old man. I’ve lived a busy life and it drags on me. I am tired. Once this conflict is resolved, I’m inclined to retire from the battalion. But I can’t give up my duties as Guard until death takes it from me.”

  She looks away. “I understand.” Her delicate hands fiddle with a piece of cloth tied around her wrist. “Tygoh knows,” she says.

  Nathis is staring at the wall, his hands clasped in his lap. “I figured as much,” he murmurs. “I’m sure he received that very well, yes?”

  “There was some conflict,” she states, turning her attention back to him. There is a small smile on her lips, but Nathis can see the water in her eyes. “He’s worried, but he would never tell you. He believes that my meddling” – she winces – “will affect your performance; though I’m positive he’s just denying the inevitable.”

  “I am sorry, little one.” He hesitates, watching a torch flicker on the wall. “I am dying.”

  A heavy silence falls between them. Nathis sees Anarah struggling with herself, a pool of tears resting in the bottom of her eyes, threatening to spill over. She inhales deeply and reaches for her father, wrapping her arms around his neck. She is shaking.

  At six years old, Anarah was an orphan. Her mother had died in childbirth, but he knew the girl’s father well. They had trained together in the early days of his army career. Richal was a skilled swordsman, quickly becoming a dear friend. Nathis had been the one to comfort him in the death of his poor wife. He’d held Anarah as an infant, looking into those wide, blue eyes while Richal spent hours in a drunken stupor, tears drawing rivulets on his cheeks. It’d been twenty years since. Anarah reminded him of her father everyday. He tried not to think of it.

  At six years old, Nathis held her little hand across the castle courtyard, her sobs echoing off the battlements.

  For months, she slept on a tiny mattress in the corner of his Guard room, waking gently on the nights he entered late, smelling of drink. He was never unkind to her. As a child, she was cleverer and more boisterous than he had signed up for. She ventured off to the library more times than not and visited the horses when she became bored of reading. She picked up a sword at age eight. He remembers gently prying the weapon from her delicate hands and telling her, “Maybe someday you can learn to fight, but now is not the time.” She was so small, her hands delicate and unscarred.

  She became his constant companion, a vision of innocence he could never find within himself. When she was nine, she called him father and his world changed. At ten, he began training her in bow and arrow. When she made a mistake, she struggled, tears steaming from her eyes as she picked up the weapon again. When she began to beg him to train her in swordsmanship, he refused. She had opened her watery eyes, sticking out her bottom lip, and he crumbled.

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  She was a natural, her father’s daughter.

  There were instances in which he doubted his decision to become her caregiver. Times when she had screamed at him maliciously, when she had cut her tiny knees, when her favorite horse at the stables had died. While she was learning to be herself, he was learning to be a father. He took less nights at the saloons, but there were rough times. When the Prince’s father died, they went to the funeral, watched over the Queen’s misery.

  Later, Tyogh spent countless hours at the castle as a boy, and the two found each other in the stables. Nathis watched, displeased, as a budding relationship occurred. By the time Anarah had long left his nest, Nathis came to realize the beautiful young woman with her father’s eyes had taught him more than twenty years in the military ever could.

  He feels Anarah shift away from him, wiping the corners of her eyes. She smiles at him, a little less light in her eyes.

  “I love you,” she whispers before pulling herself up off the bench. “Please consider informing the prince. If you do not within a fortnight, I will,” she says.

  Nathis sees the stubborn girl with the cuts on her knees once again. He smiles.

  “Yes, my dear.”

  He accompanies her back to her white mare, waiting patiently, and watches her climb into the saddle. From afar, they hear the din of Lark’s voice echoing off the barracks walls from the blacksmithing shop.

  “Leave them by the forge!”

  Nathis catches his daughter’s gaze, and their lips turn up.

  “Over THERE!”

  A pause.

  “For Pete’s sake, by the damned fire!”

  The blacksmith shop is built on the southern side of the barracks, far enough away that the clash of metal upon metal is muted, a rugged lean-to of mesquite and clay. Nathis smirks in the direction of the shop.

  “Good luck,“ Anarah says, smiling. She tugs gently at the reins of her horse and trots away, heading back toward the castle.

  Sighing, Nathis heaves the bundle of swords upon the rump of his sorrel mare, flipping his reins over the head of the animal. A rough hand strokes the horse’s muzzle before he hauls himself into the saddle, sitting heavy, and clicks his tongue.

  At the shop, Lark greets him with a frown and a growl as he deposits the swords next to a massive pile of weapons near the forge. He smiles.

  “This whole Lynac thing really messes with your free time,” he says.

  The building, despite its open design, is sweltering. He takes a seat on an upright log abandoned at the back of the shop, farthest away from the fires. Lark’s assistant, an eager, pale skinned boy of about thirteen, pumps a bellow into the base of the forge’s flames. Lark is wearing a leather apron over her white tank, the pockets sewn into the front packed with hammers, cloths, and what looks like a small can of oil. Her hair, pulled back in its usual braid, sticks out around her forehead.

  “I don’t have any free time to begin with,” the girl says, her lips pursing. Sweat runs in rivulets down her brow. She picks up a sword blade she’s been glaring at and thrusts it into a large wooden barrel of water next to her. Steam explodes out the mouth of the barrel, spitting and bubbling around her hands. “With these hunks of useless metal lying around, I’ll not have the time to become Guard.” She pulls the sword out, examining it, and taps it firmly on the edge of an anvil. It rings loudly, the sound escaping the wooden walls of the lean-to. Without looking up, Lark shouts at the boy, still standing near the forge.

  “The grinder, Holl!”

  Holl closes the bellow, setting it aside, and rushes to turn the grinding stone. Sparks fly as Lark presses the sword to the surface of the stone. Holl, wearing nothing but a leather apron and trousers too large for his frame, closes his eyes and turns away. Nathis watches, grimacing, as sparks pelt the side of the young boy’s face. A heavy grating noise drowns out the heat.

  The general waits patiently, watching them work. He marvels at his own sword, forged by the hands of the previous castle smith. When the two are finished grinding, the young woman removes a cloth and the small metal container from her apron pockets. She seats herself on a stool near Nathis, opens the can, and begins to rub small amounts of oil into the sword.

  “You’re more irate than usual today,” he quips. “What happens to be bothering our Lark today?”

  The girl scoffs, not looking up from her work.

  “Taeg’s coronation is coming up and I won’t be allowed to participate in the ceremony. I’m no better than the civilians in the street,” she snaps. “On the bright side, it will no longer be up to the Queen to make decisions about the Guard.” She pauses, face flushed. “I always thought a king could not rule without a queen by his side,” she says, so quietly that Nathis leans toward her.

  “For the most part, it is preferred that a king is married by the time he takes the throne, yes,” he replies. “Though the current situation and a lack of…prospective candidates have barred that event.”

  The blonde stands up, carrying the oiled blade to join a mess of others on a far table. She returns to the pile of dingy swords lying near the forge and plucks one off the side of the mound. It is chipped and scratched. She spends the next few minutes beside Holl at the forge, dipping the blade into the flames. After she has snapped the blade from the hilt and broken it into smaller chunks on the anvil, she loads it into a stone bowl and, using tongs, lays it in the fire as the boy bellows the flames. She takes the seat next to Nathis again, rubbing her palms over the leather at her waist.

  “Why do you ask?” He had been watching motionlessly as she moved about the shop.

  She shakes her head. “No reason. Just curious.”

  “I’ve never known you to be curious about castle affairs.”

  Her cheeks turn even more red. She looks away.

  “Look, unless you have something constructive to do here, you need to get out of the way. I’ve one too many swords to hone without your snarky input.”

  She rips herself from the stool and busies her hands with the bowl of molten metal. She sets it aside on a flat rock and searches through wooden cubbies for metal shards to add to the mix. She picks out a few larger stones the color of rust and tosses them in the bowl.

  Nathis watches as Holl takes his opportunity to step away from the flames, panting in the opening of the shop.

  “Drink some water, boy, before you fall over,” he calls. “Lark, you need to take care of your assistant. Don’t kill him before the day is done.”

  “He’ll be fine,” she says from the forge, placing the bowl in the fire once again.

  The older man hesitates, looking at her back. “You don’t have to treat him as you were treated.”

  In the middle of working the bellow, she stops. Nathis waits for the booming of the Lark’s voice, echoing off the barracks walls, but it does not come. She resumes pumping the bellow. Nathis tilts his head and picks himself up off the stool. The boy joins Lark at the forge, picking up a second bellow and breathing life into the fire again. As Nathis begins to slip between the workbenches, the crunch of his boots awakens the woman from her silence.

  “My father was a callous man,” she says, turning to face him. She sits the bellow down and picks up her tongs. “But he forced me to be who I am. His unyielding discipline led me to believe that there is more to this life than riches and dresses. Had I a mother, I would have been weak, stately.”

  She pulls the bowl from the flames and pours it, hissing, into a stone mold. The molten metal smokes about her face as it cools. She looks a sight, her large leather gloves pulled up to her elbows, flyaways plastered to her forehead.

  “I was not born to be a blacksmith. But I honed this life for myself, knowing full well that it meant betraying anything my father wanted for me.” She sets the bowl down, watching the liquid metal contract. “Holl came to me wanting to learn. Who am I to stop him if this is what he wants? He can quit if he pleases.”

  The boy grins at Nathis through a set of yellowed teeth. He picks up a large hammer and sets it over his shoulder, waiting for his master.

  “Same as you are free to quit when you please,” Nathis says, mounting his horse. “I will see to it that you may join the ceremony.” He tugs the reins toward the barracks.

  “Thank you,” she murmurs, watching him leave.