Page 78

"I noticed."

A few men laughed. She came at him again. This time she lasted longer.

She ducked beneath one blow, caught another on her blade, and managed to force him two steps backwards before he twisted her sword aside and swept her footing from beneath her. She hit the dust hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs.

Iain immediately stepped back.

"Ye all right?"

Neilina rolled onto one elbow, coughing once.

"Aye."

She pushed herself upright.

"Again."

His eyebrows lifted.

"Ye're certain?"

"I didnae say ye could stop."

That earned her a grin then. They went again…and again.

By the fifth bout, her arms were beginning to ache. Her palms burned around the hilt and sweat had gathered beneath the collar of her training dress, but she was no longer moving blindly. She was beginning to see the moments before his strikes came—the shift of his shoulder, the change in his footing, the slight tightening of his hand around the hilt.

She could not beat him.

Not yet.

But she could make him work.

On the next exchange, Iain drove her backward, forcing her towards the edge of the yard. She caught his blade, twisted away from the force of it and managed to slip past his shoulder before he could turn.

For one brief second, before he could turn, she had the point of her sword at his back.

The yard erupted with laughter and shouts.

Iain spun around, laughing himself.

"Well done."

Neilina lowered her sword, breathing hard.

"I'll take that."

"Ye should."

Fearchar’s arms had uncrossed somewhere in the last several minutes without her noticing. He was staring at her now with an expression she had not seen on her brother’s face in years.

"That," he said slowly, "was nae luck."

Neilina wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist.

"Nae. It was practice."

Fearchar studied her for a long moment.