The Queen's Rising(57)

“Tristan! What are you doing? Get up!”

He was talking to me, pointing the sharp tip of his sword at me. I now realized why he looked so irritated; I had tripped and sprawled out on the grass, my backside throbbing and my ears ringing, my practice sword fallen uselessly beside me.

I clambered for the discarded sword, wooden and scuffed, and that’s when I noticed my hands. Not mine, but the uncertain, grubby ones of a ten-year-old boy. There was dirt under his nails and a long scratch across the back of his right hand, still swollen and red, as if it wanted to break its scab.

“Get up, Tristan!” the older one shouted, exasperated. He took hold of Tristan’s collar—my collar—and hauled him up to his feet, lanky legs kicking momentarily before boots found the earth. “Gods above, do you want Da to see you like that? You’ll make him wish we were daughters and not sons.”

Tristan’s throat tightened, his cheeks flushed with shame as he retrieved his sword and stood before his older brother. Oran always knew how to make him feel worthless and weak—the second-born son, who would never inherit or amount to anything.

“How many times are you going to get that guard wrong?” Oran insisted. “You realize I nearly cut you open.”

Tristan nodded, angry words swarming in his chest. But he kept them locked away, bees buzzing in their hive, knowing Oran would hit him if he talked back, if he sounded the least bit defiant.

It was days like that one when Tristan fervently wished he had been born a Kavanagh. If he had magic, he would blast his brother into pieces like a broken mirror, melt him into a river, or turn him into a tree. The mere thought, however impossible with his Allenach blood, made Tristan smile.

Of course, Oran noticed.

“Wipe that off your face,” his older brother sneered. “Come on, fight me as a queen would.”

The anger stirred, dark and blazing. Tristan didn’t think he could hold it in much longer—it made his heart rot when he held it in—but he settled into middle guard, just as Oran had taught him, the neutral guard that could shift into offense or defense. It wasn’t fair that Tristan was still forced to wield a wooden blade, a child’s blade, while Oran, who was only four years older, was holding steel.

Wood against steel.

Nothing in life was ever fair, was always set against him. And Tristan longed, more than anything, to be inside the castle, in the library with his tutor, learning more about history and queens and literature. Or exploring the castle’s hidden passages and finding secret doors. Swords had never been what he wanted.

“Come on, maggot,” Oran taunted him.

Tristan shouted as he lunged forward, bringing his wooden sword down in a powerful arc. It lodged into Oran’s steel, stuck, and Oran easily twisted the hilt from Tristan’s hands. Tristan stumbled and then felt something hot on his cheek, something wet and sticky.

“I hope that scars,” Oran said, finally yanking Tristan’s wooden sword off of his blade. “It’ll make you at least look half a man.”

Tristan watched as his brother tossed his training sword in the grass, lifting his fingers to his cheek. They came away bloody, and he felt a long, shallow cut down his cheekbone. Oran had purposely cut him.

“Are you going to cry now?” Oran asked.

Tristan turned and ran. He didn’t run toward the castle, which sat on the crest of the hill as a dark cloud that had married earth. He ran past the stables, past the weaver’s guild, past the alehouse to where the forest waited with dark green invitation. And he could hear Oran pursuing him, shouting at him to stop. “Tristan! Tristan, stop!”

Into the trees he went, weaving deep within them, bounding like a hare, or like the stag of his heraldry, letting the forest swallow him, protect him.

But Oran still trailed him; he had always been fast. His older brother rudely broke branches, blundering through the pines and alders, the aspens and hickories. Tristan could hear Oran gaining on him, and he nimbly jumped a little creek and shot through a thicket, finally reaching the old oak.

He had found this oak last summer, after he had fled from another one of Oran’s brutal lessons. Quickly, Tristan scaled her branches, going as high as he could, the leaves beginning to thin with autumn’s glamour.

Oran reached the clearing, panting beneath the massive branches. Tristan held still in the crook of his chosen branch, watched as his older brother walked all the way around the tree, only then conceding to glance up with a squint.

“Come down, Tris.”

Tristan made no noise. He was nothing more than a bird roosting in a place of safety.

“Come. Down. Now.”

He still didn’t move. Didn’t so much as breathe.

Oran sighed, jerked his fingers through his hair. He leaned against the trunk and waited. “Hark, I am sorry for cutting your cheek. I didn’t mean to.”

He did too mean to. He always meant to these days.

“I’m only trying to train you the best way I know how,” Oran continued. “The way Da taught me.”

That made Tristan sober. He could not imagine Da training him. Ever since their mother had died, their father had been ruthless, sharp, angry. No wife, no daughters, two sons—one who was trying desperately to be like him, the other who couldn’t care less.

“Come down, and we will go steal a honey cake from the kitchens,” Oran promised.