The boy jogged to the rack and pulled out a simple, rounded pole that was as thick as his fist and as tall as the man. It was made of wood. He looked back at the man with a dubious expression. “This is only a stick. I thought knights fight with swords.”
“Don’t be pert.” The man waved him over. “You won’t get near a blade until you can master this ‘stick.’ All the students of the School of Knighthood do the same.”
Darren had been a master of sticks for over a year. He told the knight as much.
Sir Audric guffawed. “Have at it, your highness. You give me a flawless performance this next hour, and I will bring you a sword myself. You fail even once, and you will respect your staff and dedicate yourself to its study, never again to call it a mere ‘stick.’”
The little boy smirked. “Deal.”
The knight won the bet, and the boy quickly learned he was a living, breathing mistake. His feet were wrong, his aim was sloppy, he was too quick to judge and too slow to counter.
The man had him holding a stance for ten minutes at a time. Just the effort sent the boy’s limbs quivering. And if he ever thought to release his grip on the weapon to scratch an itch or wipe away a bead of sweat, the man had him hold the pose twice as long the next time.
Then there were the drills. Up and down. Back and forth. Left and right. Simple, but tiring. The moves seemed to echo in his bones.
Darren had watched the soldiers perform dances with their weapons—spins and swoops, the stuff of heroes. The knight just laughed, telling him he couldn’t master the footwork, that it would be at least a year before they would attempt anything half so pretty with him.
A year with a stick? The boy couldn’t believe there was so much to learn.
“You are to be the best, your highness,” the man told the boy. “And you are still so young. You can’t afford to make mistakes when you are older. You practice with that staff every day. You run your laps, and you hold those stances and complete those exercises like I taught you. You do all of that, and by the time you get your sword, you’ll be ready. Three years. Not a day sooner.”
On his fourth month of practice, the boy had successfully mastered the stances. The next morning when he arrived, there was a girl standing next to the knight.
Her hair was pale and thin, almost white. She looked like a bird—hollowed bones and light skin, a bit scrawny, and had he not known her, he might have expected her to fly away with the wind.
But Darren knew better. She was the knight master’s daughter, Eve, and she was far from helpless. If anything, she was a cat—a tiny thing with claws or, in her case, a fist like iron. Though quiet, her violet eyes were fierce.
“You are now ready for a partner,” the man said. “She will be yours. From now on, the two of you will drill together. My Eve will also be attending the School of Knighthood when she comes of age.”
The boy tried to hide his disappointment that it wasn’t another boy. This girl didn’t like him, and she was better.
“You don’t get better without adversity,” the girl declared.
Darren stuck his tongue out the second her father’s back was turned.
She kicked him in return.
It was the start of several long months.
The girl beat him every time, not that he didn’t try. The little boy had never tried harder in his life. Strike. Block. Strike. Block. But Eve’s blows were heavier than his.
Darren’s hands were blistered and shiny and red. The knight warned him not to let the nurse make a fuss. “If she gives you salves, you tell her no. A real soldier is proud of those ridges and bumps. They make him a man.”
When Sir Audric finally let them train without orders, their drills got harder. Trying to think up moves and guess the girl’s wasn’t easy. He found himself making simple mistakes because his mind was too busy trying to anticipate a move in the future.
It was three months after his seventh year that the boy could finally block the girl half the time. He wondered why he was never better until he saw her later that day practicing on her own. It was then he realized how he could better himself.
So the boy started to train in his rooms. The knight wouldn’t let him take the staff off the training grounds, so he just practiced the exercises. Lifting heavy objects helped. Running every chance he could strengthened his legs. Another couple of months and he could block almost all of her moves.
But never win.
It was another year and a half before the boy and the girl were equals. By the time Darren reached nine years of age, he was ready, and so was the girl.
When Sir Audric finally gave them their practice blades, it was the best day of both their lives.
The boy was so caught up in his new world that the Crown lessons his father had ordered hardly seemed worthy. What feat was there in sitting in a boring library with his brother when there were enemies to slay? Darren skipped a couple of lessons, leaving Blayne in the hands of the angry scholars so he could practice behind the Crown stables with his sword.
One of the guards found him a couple days later. Lucius was furious when he found out what his youngest had done. He told Darren he was disappointed, and when the boy readied himself for the monster, it took Blayne instead. The king informed him that would be his price.
“Every time you neglect your studies for your own amusement, you are neglecting your duty to the Crown,” the man said. “Your brother will be the one to pay the price. This is but a small taste of how you could affect his reign. Perhaps now you will think twice about playing the fool.”
The king dragged his twelve-year-old son by the arm and slammed the door shut in front of his youngest, locking Darren outside in the hall.
Blayne’s screams haunted him all night.
The boy swore never to make the same mistake again.
When the healers finally released his brother from the palace infirmary, there were dark circles underneath Blayne’s eyes. He wouldn’t even look at Darren as the boy apologized. It was then, for the first time, that Darren understood what being the monster’s heir meant.
There was no freedom from the Crown for its heir.