The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(3)
The Girl King
The sword cut through the air a finger’s width from Lu’s face. She suppressed the instinct to flinch. The thrust was meant to throw her off balance so her opponent could knock her to the ground. Once that happened, she would be done for.
She wasn’t so easy. Sorry to disappoint, Shin Yuri.
Lu leaped back lightly, swinging her own blade in a hard, upward parry just as the sword master sent his crashing down upon her. She was ready for it. Their weapons met with a flat thwack. Wood on wood.
“Good!” her shin barked, dancing back from the blow. “Now, fix your stance!”
Lu darted a look down at her feet. Shin Yuri took advantage of her distraction. She barely had time to raise her sword before he fell upon her.
“Don’t use your eyes to fix your feet!” he scolded between thrusts. “The body knows the body. Eyes are for the opponent!”
Idiot! A beginner’s mistake. Hardly befitting a princess who had picked up a practice blade at the age of seven and spent the past nine years training daily. A princess who in a few short hours would be named her father’s successor . . .
Yuri came at her hard, raining fresh blows on her. She shuffled back, taking him with her. His movements were violent, almost wild, but she wasn’t fooled. His control was iron-clad. Still, a man his age could not keep up this pace for long.
“Keep me moving!” Shin Yuri snapped. “Let me use up my energy.”
I know that!
The shadow of Kangmun Hall’s massive red walls fell over them as they danced along the perimeter of the Ring. The hall was named for the first ethnic Hu emperor—her own great-grandsire—who had led his army of nomad warriors south to conquer the failing last Hana dynasty. They had had the Gift of the tiger back then, allowing them to rend their enemies with tooth and claw. But that was long ago.
Yuri pushed her back another step. Lu imagined herself in the bronze-laced red wooden armor and orange tiger pelt of the old Hu kings, like those she had seen hung in reverent display in the Hall of the Ancestors.
She leaped forward and swung hard. The blood pounding in her ears became the thundering hooves of a thousand Hu warriors astride massive black war elk. The warriors screamed for victory—for her— their magnificent mounts foaming at the mouth in their toil.
“Reckless!” she heard Shin Yuri shout. “Control your strokes! Fewer swings, more knowing.”
His words meant nothing to her. She was what thousands of years of warriors had wrought. She had the blood of the tiger in her veins. Who was he to tell her how to swing a sword?
She drove him back another step. As Shin Yuri raised his blade, she spun away from him, then reversed the motion, circling back toward him, raising her sword high above her head. She brought it down, hard, just as he completed his own stroke. The force of her unexpected blow knocked the sword clean from his hands.
Shin Yuri dove after the blade, but Lu kicked it out of reach. He hit the sandy ground, rolling away from her. He bounded back to his feet, poised to dash, only to find her wooden blade at his throat.
Lu kept the sword steady in one hand and used the other to pull off her leather practice helmet, the heavy black rope of her plait tumbling down her back.
“I believe there is a saying for this situation, is there not?” She grinned, wiping away the sweat brimming on her upper lip with her sleeve. “Something about the student becoming the shin?”
Pride and annoyance tugged at the old man’s features, but before he could speak, applause broke out, sharp and unexpected as the ringing of a glass wind-chime.
Lu turned and saw three girls gathered just outside the chalked perimeter of the sparring ring. Against the sandy practice yard, the trio’s pastel-hued robes gave them the misplaced look of flowers scattered in the dirt: Lu’s younger sister, Princess Minyi, and two of her nunas, Butterfly and Snowdrop. Seeing the surprise on her face, they burst into pleased giggles.
Minyi’s sallow face was sun warmed and flushed. She was dressed as their empress mother preferred her to be, in the old Hana way, her layered robes of pale pink cinched high at the waist. The empress had never tried to dress Lu this way, even when she was a young child. But then, between the two of them Min had always been the more malleable.
Butterfly and Snowdrop wore the yellow batik robes customary of palace nunas, topped with a hooded cape—a symbol of modesty. But Butterfly and Snowdrop had uncovered their heads to enjoy the late summer sun.
“Ay!” Lu hollered, striding over to them. “What are you doing here?”
“We overheard you sparring,” Min said. Her voice was ever tentative, like the tip of a toe testing hot bathwater. “It sounded so exciting that they—we—wanted to watch. Just for a moment.”
Lu blinked in pleasant surprise. It had been some time since Min had watched her spar—years, truly. She’d assumed Min wasn’t interested. Her sister had always been a sensitive creature, flinching at even the clashing of practice swords.
“Don’t be cross, Princess,” Butterfly interjected, pulling Lu’s gaze away. “We just wanted to see if the rumors were true, that you’re as deft as a man with a blade.” Snowdrop let loose a fresh peal of laughter.
“What’s so amusing? You don’t think I’m as good as a man?” Lu demanded good-naturedly.
“Oh no, it’s not that!” Butterfly smirked. “Snowdrop was just commenting that in your practice robes and helmet, Her Highness cuts as handsome a figure as any crown prince could hope to—”