A Court for Thieves. Морган Райс
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you think you have learned enough for one day. You think that you know what is coming, or what is needed.” Siobhan spread her hands. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps you have mastered what I want you to learn.”
Kate could hear the note of annoyance then. Siobhan didn’t have the kind of patience as a teacher that Thomas had shown with her.
“I’m sorry,” Kate said.
“It’s too late for sorry,” Siobhan said. “I want to see what you’ve learned.” She clapped her hands. “A test. Come with me.”
Kate wanted to argue, but she could see that there was no point to it. Instead, she followed Siobhan to a spot where the forest opened out into a roughly circular clearing bordered by hawthorns and brambles, wild roses and stinging nettles. In the middle of it, a sword sat, balanced across a tree stump.
No, not just a sword. Kate instantly recognized the blade that Thomas and Will had made for her.
“How…” she began.
Siobhan jerked her head toward it. “Your blade was unfinished, as you were. I have finished it, as I am trying to improve you.”
The sword did look different now. It had a grip of swirling dark and light wood that Kate suspected would fit her hand perfectly. It had markings down the blade that were in no language she’d seen before, while now the blade shone with a wicked-looking edge.
“If you think you are ready,” Siobhan said, “all you have to do is walk in there and take your weapon. But if you do, know this: the danger is real in there. It is no game.”
If it had been another situation, Kate might have taken a step back. She might have told Siobhan that she wasn’t interested, and waited a little longer. Two things stopped her from doing that. One was the insufferable smile that never seemed to leave Siobhan’s face. It taunted Kate with the assurance that she wasn’t good enough yet. That she would never be quite good enough to live up to the standards Siobhan set for her. It was an expression that reminded her too much of the contempt the masked nuns had shown her.
In the face of that smile, Kate could feel her anger rising. She wanted to wipe the smile from Siobhan’s face. She wanted to show her that whatever magic the woman of the forest might possess, Kate was up to the tasks she set. She wanted some small measure of satisfaction for all the ghostly blades that had plunged into her.
The other reason was simpler: that sword was hers. It had been a gift from Will. Siobhan didn’t get to dictate when Kate got to take it.
Kate took a run up and leapt to a branch, then jumped over the ring of thorns surrounding the clearing. If this was the best that Siobhan could manage, she would take her blade and scramble back out as easily as walking along a country road. She dropped into a crouch as she landed, looking across to the sword that waited for her.
There was a figure holding it now, though, and Kate found herself staring at it. At herself.
It was definitely her, down to the last detail. The same short red hair. The same wiry litheness. This version of her, however, wore different clothes, dressed in the greens and browns of the forest. Her eyes were different too, leaf green from edge to edge and anything but human. As Kate watched, the other version of her drew Will’s blade, slicing it through the air as if testing it.
“You aren’t me,” Kate said.
“You aren’t me,” the other her said, with exactly the same inflection, exactly the same voice. “You’re just a cheap copy, not half as good.”
“Give me the sword,” Kate demanded.
The other her shook her head. “I think I’ll keep it. You don’t deserve it. You’re just scum from the orphanage. No wonder things didn’t work out with Will.”
Kate ran at her then, swinging her practice blade with all the strength and fury she could muster, as though she might break apart this thing with power of her attack. Instead, she found her practice blade met by the steel of the live one.
She thrust and she cut, feinted and beat, attacking with all the skills that she’d built up through Siobhan’s brutal teaching. Kate pushed to the edges of the strength the fountain had granted her, using all the speed she possessed to try to break through her opponent’s defenses.
The other version of her parried every attack perfectly, seeming to know every move as Kate made it. When she struck back, Kate barely deflected the strokes.
“You’re not good enough,” the other version of her said. “You’ll never be good enough. You’re weak.”
The words rattled through Kate almost as much as the impact of the sword blows against her practice weapon. They hurt, and they hurt most because they were everything Kate suspected might be the truth. How many times had they said it in the House of the Unclaimed? Hadn’t Will’s friends shown her the truth of it in their practice circle?
Kate shouted her anger and attacked again.
“No control,” the other her said as she deflected the blows. “No thought. Nothing but a little girl playing at being a warrior.”
Kate’s mirror image lashed out then, and Kate felt the pain of the sword cutting across her hip. For a moment, it felt no different from the ghostly blades that had stabbed her so many times, but this time the pain didn’t fade. This time, there was blood.
“How does it feel, knowing you’re going to die?” her opponent asked.
Terrifying. It felt terrifying, because the worst part of it was that Kate knew it was true. She couldn’t hope to beat this opponent. She couldn’t even hope to survive against her. She was going to die here, in this ring of thorns.
Kate ran for the edge of it then, casting aside her wooden blade as it slowed her down. She leapt for the edge of the circle, hearing her mirror image’s laughter behind her as she threw herself at it. Kate covered her face with her hands, shutting her eyes against the thorns and hoping that it would be enough.
They tore at her as she plunged through them, tearing at her clothes and the skin beneath. Kate could feel the blood beading as the thorns ripped into her, but she forced herself through the tangle of them, only daring to open her eyes when she came out the other side.
She looked back, half convinced that her mirror image would be following, but when Kate looked, the other version of her was gone, leaving the sword sitting on its tree stump as if she had never been there.
She collapsed then, her heart hammering with the effort of all that she’d just done. She was bleeding from a dozen places now, both from thorn scratches and from the wound on her hip. She rolled to her back, staring up at the forest canopy, the pain coming in waves.
Siobhan stepped into her field of vision, looking down at her with a mixture of disappointment and pity. Kate didn’t know which was worse.
“I told you that you weren’t ready,” she said. “Are you ready to listen now?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Lady Emmeline Constance Ysalt d’Angelica, the note read, Marchioness of Sowerd and Lady of the Order of the Sash. Angelica was less impressed by the use of her full name than by the source of the note: the Dowager had summoned her for a private audience.
Oh, she hadn’t put it that way. There were phrases about being “delighted to request the pleasure of your company,” and “hoping that it should prove convenient.” Angelica knew as well as anyone that a request from the Dowager amounted to an order, even if the Assembly of Nobles made the laws.
She forced herself not to show the worry she felt as she approached the Dowager’s chambers. She didn’t check her appearance nervously or fidget unnecessarily. Angelica knew that she looked perfect, because she spent time in front of the mirror every morning with her servants, making sure that she did. She didn’t fidget because she was in perfect control of herself. Besides, what did she have to worry about? She was going to meet one old woman, not walk into a shadow cat’s den.
Angelica tried to remember