Arden made it to the training grounds three nights later.

“You do this every night?” She asked after she dropped down from the top of the gate, out of breath, and looking a bit exhilarated by the thrill of sneaking around.

I shrugged, feeling proud. Not that I would ever have admitted it. It was a nice change to have Arden impressed with me rather than glaring at me with disdain. When I didn’t answer, she just shook her head wonderingly and dashed off to get the training swords.

Now, here’s where things could easily have gotten messy. When I’d been training alone, I’d been using one of the knights’ regular swords; I wanted to train with the full weight, which was something Captain Alea had forbidden. Also, you know, because the regular swords were sharp and deadly and all that jazz. I hadn’t thought much about whether or not I’d use the regular swords with Arden. Now, I hesitated – I was wise enough by then to know that if I used the regular swords, Arden would demand to do so as well, and I wouldn’t be able to stop her.

And you know, I would love to sit here now and tell you that it was for Arden’s and my safety that I decided to quietly take the wooden practice sword from Arden. But what was bothering me at the time more than the risks of dismemberment and death was the fact that I was no good at using the regular swords yet. I simply wasn’t strong enough to do anything fancy or, frankly, impressive. So, childishly, I was reluctant to let Arden see me struggle with it when all she had seen so far were my abilities with the lighter practice swords. This whole team mission was just such a nice change from my usual interactions with other people that I didn’t want to do anything that might mess up the slowly strengthening truce between us. And so, in the name of that truce, and definitely not because I also wanted to remain as impressive as possible to Arden, I stuck with the practice sword and kept my mouth shut about my secret training with the metal swords.

It was just as well because shortly after we started, Arden demanded a spar. I shouldn’t have been surprised by this, really. We weren’t allowed to spar in Captain Alea’s lessons, and Arden was almost as competitive as I was. (Not quite, though.) Since we were already breaking all the rules, it made sense for us to break this one too. Still, I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea, and my hesitation made Arden angry.

“Come on. We’ve seen the knights spar before, so we know the rules! This might be our only chance to practice this way.”

I shook my head slowly. “What if I hurt you?”

That was, as you might have guessed, very much the wrong thing to say.

“Well, what if I hurt you, you stuck-up baby princess? Think about it! You hurt me, nothing bad will happen to you, but if I hurt you, I’ll be executed!”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Why would you be executed? It would be an accident.” Probably, I thought to myself, seeing her face get redder and redder in the pale light from the moon.

She covered her mouth and let out a muffled shriek of frustration. “Because you’re a princess, and I’m –” she cut off, looking on the verge of tears.

I still didn’t really get it, but I remembered how scared Leo was to be around me, and how surprised other nobles were to see me speak respectfully to servants. I had no good sense for the rules of the Empire outside my small world, but it seemed as though there were bigger divides between me and the rest of the world than I had ever understood.

“I don’t really get it,” I said honestly. “But if you want to risk it, I’ll spar with you. You will lose, though. And then you’ll get mad. And then you’ll shout again, and they might hear us, and we could get caught.”

Looking a bit calmer, she lowered her hands from her face. From the way she glanced around, I knew she had forgotten that we could be found out at any moment.

“Okay. We’ll be quiet.”

I wanted to laugh, seeing her calm down so quickly after she got what she wanted. But heroically, I did not, and we got into position to spar.

It was over quickly, Arden’s practice sword flying in a high arc across the yard. She scowled, stomped over to pick it up (I winced at that – we were going to get caught so quickly at this rate), and marched back. Sometimes I wondered if that scowl of hers was her real resting face and if it might actually take her effort to look normal and not-enraged.

We tried again, with the same result. And again. And again. On the fifth spar, I was getting bored. This wasn’t what I had risked my neck and personal freedom climbing out my bedroom window to do – I was here to practice my own skills, not knock a sword out of Arden’s hand over and over again until she was finally ready to murder me. Unfortunately, I think my face showed my boredom, and after try number seven, Arden had a silent but rather spectacular tantrum, sitting down, screaming silently, standing up and stomping her feet. The stomping was kind of loud.

“Can I –” she looked up at me, so angry that I cut myself off midsentence. I started again. “Can I show you what you are doing wrong?”

She still looked just as angry, but to her credit, she listened to me and stood up. Eventually, she nodded, and I went about showing her how to modify her grip. In the next spar attempt, she lost her sword in two moves instead of one, and then she surprised me by looking elated instead of remaining furious.

That was the turning point where our secret training turned into me coaching Arden. Luckily for me, she could only come out to the training grounds four nights a week, leaving me with three other nights to practice on my own with the regular swords.

At regular training, Arden was improving rapidly, which made her much happier and less inclined to snipe and gripe at me. Her being calmer also made Leo more confident, and he even worked up the courage to talk to me sometimes. It was… nice.

Unfortunately, as you might have expected, this could only go on for so long.