Chapter Text
Alexia Cousland was running out of patience. She had been waiting in the stables for nearly an hour, and Alistair still hadn’t shown up for their weekly sparring session. This was becoming a frustratingly frequent occurrence.
She and Alistair had been meeting in the Highever stables for sword practice nearly every week for the past four years. But since he’d finally made it through the last hurdles of guard training and been added to the roster for regular shifts, he hadn’t been showing up as faithfully for their sparring sessions. Alexia had tried adjusting the meeting times to fit with his guard schedule, but it hadn’t made much difference.
With a sigh, she gave up on pacing and sat down on a large wooden tack box, propping her dull-edged practice greatsword next to her. She leaned back against the wall, tipping her head up in a fruitless search for fresh air in the closed, musty space. She’d already run through her practice forms while waiting, leaving her sweaty skin feeling gritty with the layer of clinging straw dust she’d stirred up. It had been a decent workout, but there was only so much she could do to hone her swordsmanship without facing off against a real opponent. At this point, there wasn’t much she could do other than wait for Alistair to finally show up, so she waited, idly swinging her legs, heels thumping against the empty tack box.
Despite the dust and the musty, stale air, the stables were a perfect meeting place for these clandestine sparring sessions. The central space was open enough to allow freedom to move, the packed dirt floor provided an even surface underfoot, and it was almost entirely deserted. A few of the guards or servants used the stables for clandestine meetings of another sort, but otherwise no one came out here.
Highever hadn’t kept horses since the end of the occupation, years before Alexia was born; the teyrn deemed their upkeep to be an unnecessarily high expense during peacetime. The lack of horses could be inconvenient when traveling outside of the teyrnir, but that was rarely an issue since most of the Cousland’s vassals and allies were content to visit Highever for both conferences with Bryce and Eleanor’s famous salons.
Alexia had begun idly contemplating who her mother might host next – she had a sneaking suspicion that arlessas and banns with sons or brothers eligible for marriage factored into her mother’s invitations more frequently of late – when her attention was drawn to the door creaking open. She looked over to see Alistair, dressed in his practice armor and wearing an expression that was equal parts hopeful and guilty.
It was about time he got here. Alexia hopped down off the tack box, smoothing her sparring leathers and picking up her practice blade. The movement drew Alistair’s attention, and the broad smile that spread across his face when he saw her was almost enough to sweep away the irritation that had built up during her long wait.
Alistair rushed across the stable, stirring up clouds of dust in his wake. “Sorry, Lexia. I know I made you wait and I said I’d stop doing that. But there was this thing with the…”
“Less apologizing, more fighting.” She dropped into a combat stance, barely giving him time to bring his sword up to guard position before lunging into her first attack.
He parried her first blow, but it was a close thing. One of these days she’d manage to get the drop on him. They were a lot less evenly matched now that Alistair had done so much work to enter the guard ranks, but Alexia was determined to pick up as much of that training second-hand as she could.
Alistair grinned as she continued to press her attack hard, rarely giving him enough time to slip a counter-attack in between parrying her strikes. Then he winced as a particularly strong blow jarred his arm when he blocked. “Ow. I said I was sorry.”
“I’m not angry; I’m making up for lost time.” Alexia smirked. “If you don’t want such an intense workout, maybe you should show up on time next week.” She didn’t give him time to reply, swinging the flat of her blade towards his side, hoping to take advantage of his lack of a shield.
He managed to dodge out of the way enough to blunt the force of her attack, taking a lighter impact that threw his balance off briefly instead of staggering him or knocking him off his feet. She tried to take advantage of his imbalance, launching a rapid series of fast cuts. But within moments, he had recovered and his blade intercepted each of her strikes with a dull clang.
Frustrated and winded, Alexia raised her hand to call a halt. Alistair nodded agreement and stepped back, lowering his sword. Once she had caught her breath, Alexia glared at him. “Teach me how you’re doing that.”
“Doing what?” He gasped the words out while panting, and Alexia took some satisfaction in having at least worn him down that much, even if she hadn’t landed many hits.
“You don’t have your shield, and I still can’t hit you.” She frowned. “If it’s a defensive technique that works without a shield, I want to learn it.”
“Oh, that…” He glanced down at the floor before meeting her eyes. “It’s because you’re not wearing a mask.”
Alexia frowned. They had given up wearing protective masks when training a couple years ago, about the time Alistair said he’d quit using one during his guard training. He’d said the guard trainees discontinued them once they had enough control not to hurt each other inadvertently because it was easier to communicate instructions without the protective gear blocking mouth and ears. Now she was wondering if he’d made that up.
“You said I shouldn’t. Because it was easier to learn without it.” Alexia fixed him with a suspicious glare.
“And it is!” He sounded defensive, glancing away again. “But there’s another reason, too.”
Greatsword still in hand, Alexia crossed her arms and stared at him expectantly.
“The way it was explained to us…” Alistair’s voice changed, and she suspected he was mimicking the knight who trained the guard recruits. “An attack doesn’t begin here.” He raised his sword to point at her shoulder. “Or even here.” The blade dipped to indicate her feet. “It starts here.” His free hand gestured at his face.
There was a pause before he continued. “Except he actually put his sword right in my face. But I didn’t really think that was a good idea with you.”
“Because you didn’t want to scare me?” Alexia felt her lip curl in distaste at even Ali deciding she needed to be coddled, as if she weren’t every bit as tough a fighter as he was.
He looked startled at the mere suggestion. “No, because I didn’t want you to take it personally and decide to break my arm.”
Alexia couldn’t stop herself from laughing at his unexpected candor. “Honestly, Ali, I have never broken a single one of your bones.” She grinned at him, deliberately showing teeth. “Although it hasn’t been for lack of trying.”
“And you’re supposed to be a noblewoman?” He shook his head in mock reproach.
Alexia rolled her eyes and let it go. “So what point was your instructor trying to make with that? Other than the relative merits of shoving a sword in someone’s face and proving that I’m scarier than the guard trainees?”
He grinned for a moment before resuming his serious teaching mode. “Most people you’re fighting will give you a tiny warning before they attack. You can watch for their arm starting to move or their weight shifting, but the first clue is usually in the face. If you watch closely, you can guess what they’re going to do before they do it. Unless they’ve learned to suppress their tells.” He shrugged. “So that’s why we started fighting without training masks: to read our opponents’ faces and learn to control our own. He called it developing a soldier’s mask.”
Alexia frowned as she considered the idea. She’d never thought about it that way, but it made sense. “So you’re able to block my attacks because you can see them coming on my face.”
Alistair nodded. “But you’re pretty good, Lexia. Especially for someone who hasn’t been trying to hide anything. You’re a lot harder to read than some of the trainees who have been working on a soldier’s mask for years.”
She snorted at the false flattery. He didn’t need to salve her ego. She was here to learn how to fight, not to be pampered. “Which is why you’ve been able to deflect or dodge most of my attacks? What am I doing that gives it away?”
“There’s a glint in your eyes right before you make a move, but it really is subtle. I don’t think most people would catch it, especially not if they’re attention is fixed on a giant sword coming at their face, but I’ve got the advantage of having spent a lot of time studying your eyes. Um, because of all of the sparring practice.”
Alexia hefted her sword back up, contemplating how to make use of this information. She ignored the blush on Alistair’s cheeks. Let him be embarrassed about keeping this from her; he ought to feel guilty about having contrived an unfair advantage in their matches. How was she supposed to learn from him if he held back? “Get your shield and let’s go. Clearly I’ve got some work to do.”
As Alistair retrieved the wooden practice shield he’d stashed in the stables for their sparring sessions, Alexia contemplated how she could suppress whatever unconscious signals she was giving off. How was she supposed to avoid having a glint in her eye? What did he even mean by that?
She was still trying to figure it out as the next bout started, and the preoccupation definitely didn’t help. She spent so much time focusing on controlling her face into some invisible mask that she missed openings to strike and failed to block attacks she should have avoided easily.
After landing a particularly solid blow on her shoulder, Alistair winced almost as much as she did. That was the last straw. He was getting at least as much of an advantage from telling her about her weakness as he had from exploiting it. This clearly wasn’t working.
Maybe it was time to approach the concept from the other direction. Instead of worrying about what might be showing on her face, she started trying to figure out Ali’s.
That worked considerably better. Alistair had never been especially proficient at controlling his expressions, and it wasn’t long at all before Alexia learned how to read his cues in this new context. She identified the slight tightening of his lips that heralded an attack and the small crease in his brow when he was planning to riposte. The bout became much more evenly matched, with each of them anticipating the other’s attacks. Alexia grew more confident as the match progressed and she was able to block nearly every sword thrust by virtue of knowing it was coming.
Which meant she was caught completely off guard when Alistair’s shield crashed into her.
He had managed to deflect her sword with his own, and she must have relaxed the tiniest bit when she sensed he wasn’t setting himself up for a riposte. Instead, he had taken advantage of her sword being held out of position, and his shield had slammed into her chest with enough force to take away her breath for a moment.
Before she fully recovered from the shock of the impact, she had been pushed back a few staggering steps, resulting in her stumbling over some unseen obstacle underfoot. Her greatsword slipped from her hand as she lost her balance, Alistair’s weight on the shield driving her down to the floor.
She landed hard, gasping as the air was forced from her lungs. By the time she regained her breath, Ali had her completely pinned. Since he’d hit his growth spurt a couple of years ago, he outweighed her by enough that she couldn’t break loose by sheer force, and they both knew it. Her momentary stunning had given him time to position his weight well enough that she wasn’t going to be able to slip or twist free either. He had her pretty thoroughly trapped, but he hadn’t asked for her surrender yet, and she certainly wasn’t going to volunteer it.
Alistair leaned down closer to her, looking concerned. Her sudden stillness must have worried him. “Lexia, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” The words were harder to croak out than she expected, which made them sound unconvincing even to her own ears. Ali clearly wasn’t reassured, his eyes widening. His pulse in the wrist he’d used to pin her arms jumped as he started to panic; she needed to calm him down. Licking her lips and taking a deep, shuddery breath, she tried again, hoping humor would reassure him that she wasn’t badly hurt. “I just need to remember how to breathe.”
Ali was so close that his soft, relieved chuckle tickled against her cheek. “That problem seems to be catching.”
Alexia had no idea what he meant, but she smiled anyway, trying to chase away the lingering concern in his eyes. There was a strange tension between them, something she’d never felt with Ali before, and she wanted to calm him down and convince him everything was fine. She tried to make a joke of the situation, teasing him about acting like a human battering ram, but she never got the chance to say anything.
Because that was when Ali kissed her.
The kiss stunned her nearly as effectively as the shield bash had. No one had ever kissed her before, and she wasn’t sure how to respond. If it was anyone else, she probably would have pushed them away, but she trusted Ali. He was her closest friend, and she was surprised to discover that, once she got past the initial moment of shock, she kind of liked being kissed by him.
She had never imagined kissing Ali, but she thought this was exactly what she would have expected it to feel like. Sweet, tender, hesitant but also strangely comfortable. He pulled back before she had a chance to figure out exactly how she felt, but the nervous look on his face said he was waiting for her reaction.
Alexia thought as quickly as she could, trying to guess what response he was expecting. Even though she’d never kissed anyone, she was familiar with kissing-games, at least second-hand, from listening to Delilah, Oriana, and other young noblewomen gossip while the older ladies in their families attended one of Eleanor’s famous afternoon teas. Although when it was Oriana telling the stories, Alexia did her best not to pay attention; Fergus was her brother, after all.
The main thing she had learned from listening was that kissing usually wasn’t something to take seriously, especially not for nobles. A young woman from a titled family would marry based on politics and alliances, but that didn’t have to prevent her from having some fun beforehand, so long as she was careful and discreet. It was always understood that the family’s needs came first in the long term, and it was a rare thing for natural flirtation to turn into something serious, like it had for Fergus and Oriana. The first rule of kissing-games among noble girls was that they were just that: games. Harmless fun to experiment before getting married to a nobleman selected by the family.
Ali was still staring at her expectantly, his face only inches away, so close it was a little blurry as her eyes refused to focus. But she didn’t have to see the details to sense his growing apprehension as she delayed. He was getting nervous again, so it was time to reassure him that she wasn’t freaking out or trying to make a big deal of this.
“So you decided our sparring matches needed to have stakes for winning?” She smirked up at him in mock irritation. “You could have told me first.”
Alistair grinned back, looking relieved, although his voice was a little shaky. “A kiss from a beautiful lady after winning a match is traditional.”
Alexia ignored the attempt at flattery and shoved at his chest. It was time to get things back on a footing she understood. “You got your reward for winning. Now get off me and let me find my sword for the next round.”
With a slightly guilty flush on his cheeks, Alistair scrambled to his feet and offered a hand to help her up. Alexia tried to convince herself as she took it that this didn’t feel any different from the hundreds of other times she had touched Ali over the years. There was no reason it should. But she found herself strangely aware of the warmth of his skin, the rough calluses worn by his sword hilt, the way his fingers wrapped around hers.
Quickly, she pulled her hand away, ignoring his look of hurt confusion, and scanned the packed dirt floor for the sword she had dropped when he knocked her down, minutes ago when everything had made a lot more sense. She located it quickly – losing a greatsword would take work – and once she had a familiar weapon back in hand, Alexia started to settle back into normal patterns and get past the awkward hyperawareness. She knew how to relate to Ali with a sword in hand.
Alexia approached this bout similarly to the previous one, letting her attacks fall into habitual patterns while she focused on reading Ali’s tells and anticipating his moves. She succeeded in getting more attacks through and blocking most of his, but it was hard to know if she should attribute the increased success to improvement on her part or Ali slipping up. Despite having initiated it, he seemed more thrown by what had happened than she was.
Well, it was his own fault, and she refused to go easy on him for it. They were here to spar, and she intended to do just that.
Alexia continued to press every advantage that she got, capitalizing on Alistair’s moments of weakness and preoccupation. Eventually, a solid hit to his lower ribs snapped him out of it, and he returned to his usual level of challenge. Alexia didn’t even try to suppress her fierce grin as she was pushed to keep up, trading blows and blocks until they were both getting winded and wincing with what would shape up into decent collections of bruises.
Finally, Alexia saw an opportunity to end the match in her favor. She delivered a basic overhand cut, which Alistair parried easily, as she expected he would. Putting more pressure into the stroke after it was blocked, she twisted his sword around to an impossible angle, forcing it out of his hand. Alistair scrambled backwards, trying to put his shield between them, but she matched him step for step, herding him into a support post.
When Alistair’s back hit the post, his eyes widened in alarm with the realization he was trapped. Alexia calmly placed the tip of her sword in the hollow between his collarbones, something she would never have dared if the practice blade had a real point on it. Staring him down, she did her best to appear intimidating and stern. “Drop your shield.”
He swallowed, started to nod, and then thought better of it. As he pulled his arm free from the grips on his shield, it fell to the floor with a hollow thud of wood on dirt.
Alexia probably should have demanded his surrender then, but she was savoring her victory, drawing out the moment. It was a rare thing for her to have Ali so effectively trapped and helpless. Usually, when she won a bout, it was through some dramatic attack that would have unquestioningly left her opponent dead or incapacitated in a real duel. Greatswords were not meant for subtlety.
As she enjoyed her moment of triumph, Alexia continued to study Ali, reading him like she’d done during the match. Chest heaving as he tried to regain his breath, his pulse was visible in his throat just above the tip of her sword. But his eyes were calm, wide and fixed intently on her.
Alexia’s gaze kept being drawn back to his lips, slightly parted as he panted, recovering from the exertion of their sparring. There was no reason for her to be this focused, but she couldn’t seem to keep herself from staring, trying to remember exactly what Ali’s lips had felt like. Maybe it was because the kiss had ended too quickly, before she’d gotten over her shock enough to process the sensation. Maybe all she needed to get past this fixation was to kiss him again, under her initiative so she was expecting it instead of caught by surprise. Then she would understand this reaction and be able to move on.
Keeping her eyes locked on his, she shifted the tip of her sword from his throat to rest on his shoulder. The blade slid along beside his neck as she stepped forward, the blunted edge brushing his skin when her arm waivered with the strain of supporting the heavy sword one-handed. Ali’s eyes widened further as she closed the distance between them, but he held perfectly still, paralyzed as if she were threatening him with a real sword.
Alexia set her free hand on his chest for balance, feeling his heartbeat thudding beneath her palm. She raised up on her toes – when had Ali gotten so much taller than her? – and brought her lips to meet his.
Ali froze in shock for a second, and she wondered if she’d made a mistake. She started to pull away, but his arm came up behind her, warm hand splayed on the small of her back, and the tensed muscles beneath her hand relaxed. Reassured, Alexia leaned in to him and focused on the experience of kissing Ali.
His lips were warm and surprisingly soft. He smelled like leather and sweat, but not unpleasantly so. Her body rested against his comfortably, and she pressed her mouth to his more tightly, wanting to feel more of this. She suspected she wasn’t being as gentle as he had been, but he didn’t seem to mind. She couldn’t really describe it, but there was something about kissing him that simply felt right.
When her calves eventually protested the way she was stretched up on her toes, Alexia reluctantly lowered herself back to her heels, breaking away from the kiss. She realized that her sword had slid from his shoulder and dropped to the floor without her even noticing, despite the grip still being in her hand.
Ali stared at her with a dazed expression that she couldn’t quite read. She was seriously considering kissing him again when he finally found his voice. “I didn’t win.”
Alexia blinked, forehead tightening with confusion.
“The stakes. Kissing a beautiful girl for winning.” He held up his empty hands. “Being disarmed rarely counts in a person’s favor, so I think it’s safe to say I didn’t win.” His chuckle seemed a bit unsure.
“No, I won,” Alexia agreed. “So I kissed you.” She tried to keep her voice steady, like this was the most logical conclusion in the world, the kiss part of a game rather than something she very much wanted to have happen again.
A grin slowly spread across Ali’s face. “Not that I’m complaining, but that might not be the best way to motivate me to fight well.”
Alexia shyly returned his grin, still uncertain where this was going and if she was reading any of it right.
Distantly, she heard the clock bell chiming the hour and remembered she was supposed to meet her mother and Oriana for tea. And she should probably be wearing just about anything other than stained, worn practice leathers when she did so.
Deliberately not thinking about whether she was frustrated or grateful for the interruption, Alexia hefted her practice sword up onto her shoulder. “Maybe it’s not motivation to win.” She strolled past him to step up onto the mounting block that let her reach the rafter where she concealed the weapon between sparring sessions. She carefully tucked the blade into its hiding place and tossed Ali a smile over her shoulder before hopping down. “But what about incentive to show up?”