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It had only been a fortnight since they returned to the Tower. Young Lady Emily is lying in bed, staring with unblinking eyes at the grandfather clock tick-tocking away, unable to bring herself to look at or think about anything else. Tonight. Tonight. Corvo said tonight, right? She didn’t dream that? Her heart beats fast and hard in her chest, her palms already beginning to sweat from anticipation. Tonight. Corvo said he would start training her on the sword tonight.
The clock’s hands move at an agonizing pace. Each second feels like an eternity. Midnight, Emily thinks, as if she could will time to go faster with her mind. Midnight. Midnight. Midnight.
Midnight strikes, the rhythmic ringing of its bells filling the room. Emily counts each as they sound: one, two, three…
Corvo arrives before the fifth bell. Standing in the doorway, his huge, dark silhouette bathed in chandelier light, he looks like not a person, but a beacon of warmth and safety. He enters before turning the light on, shutting the door in a manner so quiet Emily thinks not even the rats would be able to hear. Then, light floods the room, and even through the pain of adjusting from near-pitch to bright illumination, Emily can see Corvo smiling.
“You didn't even sleep, did you?” he says, voice low, using the same tone he does as when he plays with her.
“No,” says Emily, already crawling out of bed despite still squinting at the light. “I was too excited! You said you were going to start teaching me how to sword fight—with real swords!”
Corvo laughs, short but warm. “Well, not real swords yet. But real techniques. It won’t be like the times we’ve played pretend.”
Emily looks at him. What could be? What could be like the last time they did anything? Most nights, as she tries to sleep, her mother’s death plays over and over in her mind’s eye. Sometimes, if she’s lucky, it will be Havelock shooting the help instead. How could they ever go back to before?
She pouts but keeps quiet as she dresses herself.
“Okay,” she says, still tucking her shirt in. “I’m ready.”
Corvo scoops her off the ground like it’s nothing and carries her out the door. She’s weightless in his arms, ferried only by the air, whisked away by faeries to the world of in-betweens where she can dance and draw and dream her days away while time stands still in the real world. The worse world. Corvo’s arms are the only place she can pretend, nowadays.
Time doesn’t stand still for long, though. It never does. Emily’s eyes had drifted shut as she delved deeper into her fantasy, but the stink of the river hitting her nostrils snaps her back to reality. Corvo sets her down, her surroundings no longer resembling the marred, lavish interior of the Tower’s walls, instead taking the appearance of a run-down alleyway by the river. The moon hangs low in the sky and the river stink makes her nose wrinkle. Emily blinks.
“Here?” she asks. The Tower looms behind them.
Corvo nods, then kneels. He moves with a weight, like something is tied to his shoulders and dragging him down. There’s a change in his demeanor that pricks at Emily’s nerves; his face not unkind but stern, the hands that lay on her shoulders just as stiff. There’s a shine in his eyes and she can’t look away.
“Emily,” he says. He speaks with the kind of severity she usually only hears during important meetings. “Someday… your enemies will come for you. You need to be ready for when they do. You need to take this training seriously.” There is something in his voice that she can’t quite place. It sounds like he’s not asking. “Promise me you will.”
Emily nods. Corvo smiles, but it doesn’t look happy.
“Here,” he says, handing her an iron sword. “It’s blunt, but weighted correctly. Should feel just like the real thing.”
She gazes upon the sword as if it had been touched by the Outsider himself. One part reverence, one part anticipation—she takes the weapon with eager hands and grins wide when Corvo lets go and she can feel its full weight.
“It feels just like the pretend swords,” she says, voice alight with joy. “I thought it’d be heavier.”
Corvo hums. “No, a heavy sword’s no good. It has to be light if it wants to be wielded effectively. Fights usually last shorter than you think.”
“And that’s why you have to be really good at using it,” says Emily, eyes still fixed on the sword. “Because one wrong move and you’ll die in a second.”
There’s a noise above her that was not caused by a river-dwelling animal and Emily looks up to see Corvo breaking; the careful, meticulous façade of eternal strength he puts on for her cracking to let his real emotions leak out in an unceremonious display of a terrible reality. One large hand covers his face, but his shoulders still tremble. It’s not the first time she’s seen him cry—and she’s certain it won’t be the last—but every time the scene jabs a knife in her chest.
Her throat clamps tight and painful to avoid giving in to tears herself. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair.
“Sorry,” says Emily, looking down, but Corvo is quick to shake his head; reeling in his reckless composure, regaining his footing as the unshakeable Protector.
“No,” he says, swallowing, rolling his shoulders, shaking his head. “No, you’re absolutely right. Don’t apologize for being right. Now let me—let me see your stance.”
Emily makes a face. “My stance?”
“Yes, young lady, your stance. Let’s see it.”
Her brow furrows as she struggles to recall the form Corvo takes as he fights. But he moves so quickly—! Far from one to be outpaced by a little uncertainty, Emily pieces together a position that she thinks might be somewhat correct based on her dreamlike memories. Standing resolute upon the worn alley stone, she looks to Corvo for approval.
He stands with his hand to his chin, a position that does not inspire much confidence within her. “Hmm… almost, but not quite. Try this…,” Kneeling, he takes her limbs in his hands and places them where they should be like she’s a marionette. “There. You see?”
The seconds tick by before she responds, standing statuesque as long as possible in an attempt to kick her muscle memory into taking over.
“I… think so,” she says, muffled from looking down. “Can I try swinging now?”
Corvo hums a laugh and says, “relax first,” so she does. Then he says, “Now take the stance again.”
Emily whines in protest. “I thought you said I could try swinging it!”
“I said no such thing. I just told you to relax.”
After a few seconds of putting on the sweetest little pout Emily could muster, all Corvo has to show for appreciation is a sigh. “Emily, your form is the most important part of swordplay. It acts as the foundation for the rest of your technique. If it’s not something you have down perfectly, then—,”
A noise. A loud one. Panic explodes inside Emily, the jolt of fear making her jump. The training sword clatters to the ground and her vision becomes a familiar blur as Corvo sweeps her into his arms; she buries her face in his coat front and digs her nails into the fabric so deep she thinks she might make tiny holes.
“Lord Protector?” A shrill voice pierces the air. Emily peeks out from the warm safety of Corvo’s coat to see a nursemaid in the doorway, hand over her heart. “You scared me half to death. I was just wondering where the young Empress was.”
Emily stares at the maid with the cruel eyes of a child. Corvo readjusts her on his hip and puts his sword—he’d drawn his sword?—away.
“We’re fine, Theresa,” says Corvo. “We won’t be much longer.”
The maid, forced to accept that as an answer, leaves them be.
The threat is gone, the fear has passed, Emily’s heartbeat no longer thrums loud in her ears, yet she still clings to Corvo as a child does to their mother.
“Corvo,” she murmurs into the heavy cotton, “will it always be like this?”
The weight of his silence is felt deep in her bones. “That’s what the sword is for,” he says at last, kissing the top of her head. “That’s what this is for.”