Page 165 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
Sure enough, she shook her head.
“And now,” she sighed, bending to pick up the sword she dropped, “I’m sure our impending trip to the Obsidian Palace will give me sufficient rage to pull from.”
I could have pushed the issue, but I wasn’t sure it was a road I was ready to go down, either. Besides, she wasn’t wrong about the Obsidian Palace.
For the past three weeks, Iiro’s summons had hung over us like a sulphuric cloud; weighty with an oppressive stench that tainted everything in its path. And now, I would be forced to escort my wife right into the lion’s den.
“Speaking of which, we leave at first light in three days,” I said, breaking the news to my wife.
Her shoulders fell. “So soon?”
Iiro had given us five weeks, and after the stunt he pulled while I was in Lochlann, I wasn’t about to be the last one to arrive to that particular party.
“We’ll need to take a carriage, and we’ll be staying with the lords and at Wolf Estate instead of in the inns, so...it will be slow going,” I tacked on that mixed bit of news.
“Wonderful,” she groaned. Then she tilted her head to the side as if listening to something in the distance. She closed her eyes, taking a slow, even breath before nodding to herself. “Although it will be mild enough that at least we shouldn’t freeze inside the carriage.”
Leave it to my feral princess to use fae magic to assess how uncomfortable her long, autumn carriage ride would be.
“I’m sure there are plenty of advantages to being shut up in a carriage with the curtains drawn…” I said suggestively, waiting for her skin to flush with heat before startling her by grazing her sword with mine.
“Aalio,” she hissed.
She quickly stepped back, easily maneuvering herself away from my next attack.
“Good,” I observed, continuing our sparring session. It was important that she be ready for anything.
“I want you to wear a sword while we’re on the road,” I added after a few moments.
Another lunge forward and she blocked my attack on the right, once again leaving her left side open. I smacked my blade against her hip and she yelped.
“You distracted me on purpose,” she hissed as I circled her.
“Deflecting an attack on that side with your left sword needs to be your instinct, not something you think about. Again.”
Her eyes narrowed in frustration, but she listened. This time when I lunged for her, she was more aware, twisting just out ofreach of my blade. I watched as she added the footwork we had been working on yesterday into her routine.
The more familiar she became with them, the more it was like she was dancing. On instinct, she twisted and ducked and spun away from me while positioning one sword to guard against high-line thrusts and the other to protect her center.
“I wasn’t just distracting you, though,” I said after a beat. “There are more Unclanned gathering now that Iiro has driven away the bands near the Obsidian Palace, so we need to be careful.”
I swiped at her left side again, and this time she successfully blocked my sword before launching into the offensive.
“How will the lords take me being armed?” she asked, her words breathy from the exertion.
“Like their future duke told them to get over it,” I said coolly. “Politics is one thing, Lemmikki, but I won’t play games with your safety.”
I thought of the Council of Lords and the icy looks they shot her way, comparing it to the expressions they would don when they saw her defend herself from a horde ofBesklanovvy.
They already knew she sparred, and while I knew it would bother them for her to have a weapon, I also knew that allowing her to carry a sword would not be the straw that broke them—nor shake their much-needed support. With my father even more reticent than usual, most of them had more or less recovered from the incident in the Council Room and it was business as usual.
It would take a hell of a lot more than the threat of offending their precious scruples for me to risk my wife’s safety.
“I’m sure Iiro won’t allow you to carry a weapon in his palace,” I continued. “And Sir Nils will probably take issue, but on the road and while we’re in Bear, there’s no reason for you to go unarmed.”
If that meant lining her gowns with more lewd daggers, or teaching her to dual-wield, so be it. But there wasn’t an ounce of my pride that was weakened by the idea of my lemmikki protecting herself.
And I couldn’t give a single damn what anyone else had to say about it.