Until I couldn’t.
I heard myself shout in surprise as Cai suddenly broke the pattern and ducked low, bringing both his blades up in a sweeping right-side attack that screeched along the length of my frantically blocking blades. He let the momentum of that carry him around in a full circle and came at me again, slashing straight across with a single blade from the left. I felt the wind of the weapon’s passage on my skin at the near miss and backed off a step, tracking the angle of his shoulders to anticipate the next blow. Both swords again this time—circling overhead. I crossed my blades high in front of me and braced for the blow. When it came, I felt it all the way down into the soles of my feet, and sparks flew from the edges of our clashing weapons.
Every muscle in my body strained to keep those swords at bay.
I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the sting of sweat from my eyes, and looked up into Cai’s smiling face.
“I’ve been practicing,” he said.
“I noticed.” I grinned back at him through clenched teeth.
“How’s my form?”
“Very nice,” I said.
Then I shifted forward and tipped my top guard on a sharp angle—a dimachaerus-specific move I’d worked hard on perfecting. Cai’s blades slid past my shoulder as he lost his balance, falling toward me. He caught himself a moment too late and found the tips of my blades resting in the hollow at the base of his throat.
I leaned in close and whispered, “But your technique needs work.”
Cai laughed and said, “Then I’ve come to the right place.”
He held his blades out to the side, dangling from his fingertips, in a gesture of surrender. I stepped back and crossed my swords in front to me in salute, smiling, sweaty, ridiculously happy. Cai sheathed his blades in the double-scabbard belt he wore around his waist and reached up to lift his helmet off his head. I looked around to see that we were alone in the courtyard. The sun was high overhead, and it seemed everyone else had wandered indoors, out of the heat, and left us to our sparring. Cai scrubbed a palm over his sweat-damp legion-short hair.
“The dimachaerus style is a challenge, I admit,” he said. “But I wanted to be able to spar with you the way you like to fight, Fallon. As you say, I need work. But I was hoping you might find the time—”
That was as far as he got before I lunged at him, reaching up to pull his head down toward me, and silencing him with the kiss I’d been waiting on for months. And months . . .
From his reaction, it seemed he’d been waiting on it too. I felt a rumbling in his chest that was almost a growl, and his mouth opened hungrily on mine. His arms wrapped around me and he lifted me off the ground. He smelled of horse and iron and leather and he tasted of salt and sunshine.
“Never seen anyone fight with their lips like that,” Elka called out as she passed through one archway and out another, in a perfect example of terrible timing.
I groaned. It seemed we’d have to wait a bit longer to make up for all those months apart. Cai put me back down on my feet, and I reluctantly disentangled myself from his embrace. As I turned to glare daggers in Elka’s direction, I saw Cai’s friend, Quintus, following in her wake, just far enough behind that Elka hadn’t yet noticed him.
I shook my head in amusement.
“He’s an ass.” Cai sighed, watching him go. “But he’s a loyal ass. And a good soldier.”
“Elka will take him apart, you know,” I said.
Cai grinned wickedly. “Piece by piece. That should keep the two of them occupied for a while and give us some time alone.” Then he looked at me wordlessly, his mouth opening and closing, as if he was suddenly uncertain what to say. “I’ve missed you, Fallon . . .”
I started to tell him I’d missed him too—so very much—but then Kronos, the fight master, appeared at the far end of the pitch to shout my name. I’d forgotten that I was on weapons-check duty that day. In truth, I’d forgotten everything except for Cai standing in front of me. But there was an entire shed full of swords and shields that needed inspection, checking for loosened tangs and dulled edges and fraying leather strapping. It would take me the better part of the afternoon.
“Go,” Cai said with a rueful smile. “I need to deliver Caesar’s deed to the Lanista, anyway.”
“You mean—”
“That’s the official reason I’m here,” he said. “And one of the most pleasant duties I’ve been privileged to perform as Caesar’s errand boy.”
“Cai, that’s . . . that’s wonderful!”
I held myself back from hugging him again, because there were others now drifting back onto the pitch from the dining hall. I could sense one of the Ludus Amazona guards staring at us from behind his helmet grate, and the last thing I needed was to cause a scene and start rumors about lax discipline and loose morals at the Achillea school. Sorcha would have my hide—especially now that the ludus was about to become finally, fully hers. And hers alone.
I stepped back, politely inclining my head and letting my hair fall forward so I could smile at Cai without anyone else taking note. “I’ll see you at the evening meal then, decurion?”
“And after,” Cai murmured. “I hope.”
IV
IT’S POSSIBLE I might have taken a bit longer than usual dressing for dinner that evening. Normally, I wouldn’t trouble myself much beyond washing my face and hands and making sure whatever tunic I was wearing wasn’t torn or stained too badly. Which was probably why Ajani glanced at me sideways when I arrived at the mess hall with my hair combed out and wearing a fresh, fine wool tunic bordered in a blue wave pattern and belted with my good leather cincher.
“I wouldn’t have thought the Amazona girls warranted such finery,” she said as I sat down beside her with a platter of cheese and meat.
“They don’t,” Elka chimed in, reaching across the table to pilfer a bunch of grapes off Ajani’s plate. “He does.”
She nodded in the direction of Cai and his soldier companions, who’d just stepped through the door at the other end of the hall. It was with a degree of extravagant casualness that Cai threaded his way through the rows of long tables with his platter and mug, Quint and the legionnaire whose name, I’d learned, was Tullius following him.
“May we join you, ladies?” Cai asked the table at large.
I murmured assent with my eyes on my plate as the others nodded and laughed, shifting down the bench to make room for them. Cai sat across from me, beside Elka, and I had to force myself to concentrate on eating and not distractedly stabbing my hand instead of my food, as I felt his gaze warming my skin. The girls crowded in, eagerly asking Cai and his companions all sorts of questions about the campaign and Hispania.
“I hear the girls there are beautiful,” Elka said, nudging my shin under the table and smirking.