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  “That might be easier said that done,” Carla pointed out.

  “Yes, of course. Training isn’t all about knowing what to do, it’s about practice. In theory, most people can think of what to do when they’re attacked, but few can perform when it happens. They get scared, insecure, unsure. They freeze. We’re training so that if we do get in a fight, we won’t be bringing theory to life, we’ll be doing what we’ve done before.”

  Elloriann nodded approvingly. Carla wasn’t quite so certain. She understood what Sal was saying, but she didn’t have Ell’s experience in combat training, so all of this was still very new to her, and she wasn’t sure if she could manage it.

  “What about...” Carla started talking, but trailed of, going silent for a moment. “What about the emotional side? Do I have to...get angry? I was never very good with violence.”

  Sal looked at her, sizing her up, considering how best to approach teaching her.

  “Carla, why are you here?” they asked.

  “Because a bunch of bandits took me from my farm and sold me into slavery, and I don’t want something like that to happen to me again.”

  “Oh.” Sal’s understanding of Carla just became a little less blurry. “I see.” They sat down on a bench, inviting Carla and Elloriann to join them. “I’ve had many teachers in my life, and they were all quite different. Some said you need to be angry in order to fight, others said that you’re stronger when you’re calm. Fighting is violent, you can’t do anything to change that. But it doesn’t have to be cruel. At least, I don’t think so. You don’t have to want to hurt someone in order to be good in a fight. Especially if you only train for defense. Elloriann, you are a warrior at heart. I can see that. You will do what needs to be done in a fight. But you Carla, you don’t have that. That spirit.” They sighed, looking down for a moment. “I think it’s sad that someone like you was brought to seeking combat training because of an experience that led you to believe you need it.”

  “You don’t want to train me?” Carla asked.

  “Oh, I will train you. Because what happened to you shouldn’t happen again. But I’ll train you differently. I’ll train you in a way that will let you defend yourself in the most non-violent way possible. I’ll teach you the best evasion techniques I know. I’ll teach you how to break out of holds, how to disorient your opponent without hurting them, how to cause them minimal damage while still having enough time to run away.” They took a moment to consider the possibilities. “Also, if you’re still interested come spring, I think we should go outside and I’ll teach you how to hide in different types of surroundings. That’s not something I was taught by any teacher, just something I picked up on my own over the years. Not every battle needs to be won by fighting.”

  Sal smiled reassuringly, and Carla smiled back. She felt much better now, knowing that she wouldn’t have to channel her inner rage or anything of the sort. Sal was turning out to be a wonderful, adaptable teacher, and it was making Carla very hopeful about the upcoming training sessions. She looked at Elloriann, who looked back at her with a kind, understanding smile.

  “Thank you,” Carla said to Sal.

  Sal nodded with a cheerful grin.

  “Let me show you some simple exercises you can do on your own,” they said, getting up from the bench and moving to the middle of the room. “You don’t need to be terribly strong to win a fight, but keeping yourself in decent shape certainly isn’t going to hurt.”

  19

  The training sessions continued with relative regularity. Sal insisted that they meet at least once a week, but some weeks they met up 2 or 3 times. Depending on everyone’s personal schedules, sometimes Sal only trained one of them at a time, but that was rare. Carla felt more comfortable training with Elloriann there, and Elloriann simply enjoyed having Carla around.

  During some of the sessions, Carla sat and watched as Sal taught Elloriann some of the more elaborate, violent moves. During others, Ell watched them train Carla evasive maneuvers and disorientation techniques.

  Sometimes Gerome would join them, and then they’d break into pairs – alternating who sparred with whom from session to session – and practiced what they’d learned.

  During one of the sessions, Elloriann asked Gerome and Sal to help her expand her sword fighting skills.

  “I’ve never fought more than 1 opponent at a time,” she said. “This would be a good opportunity to try.”

  “I think we could all use a bit of practice with that,” Gerome replied.

  “Agreed.” Sal nodded.

  Wooden swords were used for this fight, just in case.

  The first battle actually went quite well for Ell. She disarmed Gerome very quickly, and was left with only Sal to fight. On subsequent sessions, they tried harder, taking positions that would make it more difficult for Elloriann to fight them simultaneously or to take one of them out too quickly.

  Carla watched in fascination, immensely grateful for the wooden swords, because watching such a fight – even a pretend one – with real swords would have been very stressful. Every once in a while, someone would end up with a sword to the neck, and while no one present actually meant each other any harm, swords were still sharp, and accidents were no less likely to happen.

  These 3-way fencing sessions soon became a regular part of training as well. And though Carla became a bit more worried when real swords replaced wooden ones, she still enjoyed watching, because Elloriann became more graceful and certain in her movements the more she practiced. One time she even fenced in a ceremonial gown, just in case she ever had to do so in the future.

  As both Carla and Elloriann had hoped, many of their training sessions were followed by resting together in the dining hall with tea by the fire.

  They talked of many things – their childhoods, their memories, their wildest dreams and most immediate plans. Elloriann quickly became Carla’s first true friend.

  Though Carla had had a happy childhood, it was also rather sheltered and isolated. She’d spent most of her early years on the farm with her parents. She’d known other people, but only in passing. There had never before been anyone that she knew close enough to call a friend.

  Elloriann was not new to friendship, but what she had with Carla was different. Not only because of how they met, but because there was a connection between them that was like nothing else either of them had ever experienced before.

  It was, for all intents and purposes, love. Not the kind of love Carla had felt for her parents, nor the kind Elloriann shared with the people who had raised her. It wasn’t deeper or brighter or better. But it was, undoubtedly, different. Never before had either of them been so content to simply be with another person. Never before had either of them wanted another person in a way that they now both wanted each other. Never before had either of them experienced a love that was so possessive, so needy, so painful, so bright, and so confusing.

  And it was, unquestionably, terrifying.

  20

  Carla’s first winter at the castle was one of the coldest winters Evlirone had ever experienced.

  Usually, winters in Evlirone and its neighboring lands were fairly mild. But every once in a while, a frost would hit, causing the people of the land to worry for their lives.

  Carla and Elloriann sat on the floor of Elloriann’s bedroom, on the spare mattress, in front of the stove, wrapped in blankets.

  “You’d think a royal castle would be a better place to survive cold than a farmhouse at the outskirts of the land, but I don’t remember it ever being this bad when I was little,” Carla said through a small opening in the blanket that was wrapped around her entire self.

  “That’s one of the disadvantages of a large living space,” Elloriann replied through a similar opening in her own covers. “It’s harder to heat.”

  “Fair point,” Carla said, hiding her face into the blanket for a moment, to warm up her nose. “Our house was quite small. Most of the storage space was underground. The living space
didn’t take long to heat.”

  “To be fair, we do have a heating system in most of the castle.” Elloriann’s hand appeared for a moment through a slit between the sides of the blanket to point. “See those pipes? Licky had that built several years ago. It uses heated water, I believe. It worked really well, but since the storm, it’s been far too costly to use, especially since so much of the castle is empty.”

  Carla looked at the stove for a while, wondering how everyone in the servant wings was doing right then. There was no heating in the individual bedrooms, so when the weather got particularly cold, most of the servants spent their nights in the dining hall by the fireplace, or in the kitchen, where the oven was used to heat up the air.

  “I must say, I’m feeling a little guilty,” she said.

  “About what?” Elloriann turned to look at what little she could see of Carla peeking out from under the blanket.

  “This. Using the comfort of your bedroom, your blankets, your stove. It’s not fair that I get this, while other servants don’t.”

  “Hmm.” Elloriann considered this for a moment. “You know, Licky and Kay have been close friends for years. That’s why Kay has a heater in his bedroom. Licky had built him one from scraps.”

  “Really?”

  Elloriann nodded.

  “When Johan was alive, Stav and Hannah would always cook little fruit pies for him and Rich to eat during the day out in the fields, because he was their friend, and they did something extra for him and his partner.” She smiled, though most of her mouth was hidden behind her blanket. “People get things out of their relationships. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  Carla thought about that for a while, staring into the fire.

  “What do you get?” she asked quietly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you get out of your friendship with me? I get warm nights, combat training. I get saved from slavery and given a place to live and work I enjoy doing. What do you get?”

  Elloriann looked at her with a raised eyebrow and responded without thinking, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, because it was.

  “I get to have you in my life.”

  They fell asleep slumped against each other, still huddling by the stove. The bed was too far away from the source of the heat, so Elloriann was reluctant to relocate. Which eventually resulted in her falling asleep with her head on Carla’s shoulder. Carla didn’t mind. Nor did she mind waking up with Ell still slumbering with her face on Carla's chest.

  21

  The next night was not as cold, so Carla remained in the servant wing.

  But the night after that was the worst one yet. There was a blizzard. The snow was piled up so high that everyone in the castle feared that they wouldn’t be able to go outside for days.

  All the windows where shuttered, all curtains drawn, all fires going at full blast. Everyone was wearing several layers of clothing, and dragging their blankets around everywhere they went.

  Stav and Hannah were brewing warm drinks for everyone almost constantly, and sometimes people simply drank hot water to warm up their insides. Some alcoholic drinks were passed around, though not much alcohol was kept in the servant wing, so it had to be rationed carefully.

  The king ordered all the gate guards to go inside. It was unlikely that anyone would visit, let alone attack the castle in this sort of weather. Even if someone did, the guards would have likely been no use by midnight as they would have all frozen to death.

  Carla and Elloriann were once again huddled in front of the stove, mugs of tea in their hands. They had a kettle on the fire to make more tea later. Their mugs often cooled before they had the chance to finish the tea.

  “I have wine if you want some,” Elloriann said.

  “No, thank you. I can’t stand that stuff. It makes me sick.”

  “I don’t like it either. I don’t like how it makes me feel. It’s fun at first, but after a while I just get sad. I keep a bottle for visitors, but for some reason no one actually ever wants it.”

  They sat in silence for a while, both thinking that they should, perhaps, strategize about how to spend the rest of the night. As much as falling asleep on top of each other had been pleasant, it probably wasn’t the safest way to spend a night as cold as this one.

  “Do you want to go to your bed?” Carla asked, uncertain of what she would prefer to hear as an answer.

  “It’s cold.”

  “We could warm it up first. Put the kettle under the covers.”

  They did just that, and after a while, Elloriann crawled under the layers upon layers of bedding. The bed still wasn’t terribly warm, but it would get better eventually.

  Carla made herself as comfortable as possible on the spare mattress. Being close to the stove helped, but the floor was cold, and the mattress was thin, so she still didn’t feel all that warm or comfortable.

  “Carla...”

  “Yes?”

  “Come to bed with me.”

  Carla turned around to look at Elloriann’s face peeking from under the covers.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. It’ll be better for both of us. We’ll share body heat. You know this is the best way.”

  Carla didn’t object. She didn’t want to object. She crawled into Elloriann’s bed, adding her own blanket to the pile already on top of Ell and joined her in the little cave of fabric.

  At first, they stayed a foot apart under the covers, but eventually moved closer. By the time they were both close to falling asleep, they were embracing, with Carla’s head just under Elloriann’s chin, hands on each other’s backs, legs entwined.

  They woke up still wrapped around each other.

  The blizzard had ended, though it didn’t get all that much warmer. It was dark in the room, with only small streaks of light creeping in through the shutters, and the embers barely glowing in the stove.

  They both smelled of sweat, and their breaths were foul, but they were warm and comfortable, and everything felt peaceful and calm and right.

  They separated, but only just, their heads still on the same pillow, only inches away from each other.

  “Carla...” Elloriann’s voice was barely audible as she wondered whether her next words would make her world infinitely better or shatter it into pieces.

  “Yes?”

  “I think I love you.”

  Carla let out a sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure why she felt that – relief. She hadn’t realized that she’d carried a weight on her heart. One of doubt and fear and uncertainty. That weight had now been lifted with a few simple words, and she felt lighter.

  “I think I love you too.”

  22

  They stayed in bed for a long time, in each other’s arms. They were both secretly surprised that neither was getting bored with something so inactive and unproductive, but they were so comfortable, both physically and emotionally, that neither felt like being anywhere else.

  “We’ll have to get up eventually,” Carla said at last.

  “Why? We could just stay here all day. It’s the warmest place to be.”

  “We need to restart the fire. And eat something.”

  Elloriann sighed and buried her face in Carla’s neck.

  “I suppose.”

  “Besides, the snow needs to be cleaned away, or else we’ll be trapped behind a wall of ice.”

  “We don’t all need to be doing that.”

  “But it’ll be faster if we do.”

  After a few more minutes in bed, they finally separated and slowly crawled out from under the blankets, wincing at the cold.

  Elloriann brought the fire back to life, then put a pot of water on to make tea. Carla opened the shutters to let some light in.

  The view out of the window was magnificent and terrifying in equal measure. Everything was covered in snow. Too much snow. So much snow that one could barely make out the shapes of what was underneath it.

  Elloriann joine
d Carla at the window, handing her a mug of tea.

  “Oh,” she said as she looked out at the whiteness outside.

  “This is bad,” Carla said, clutching the mug nervously. “We need to get to the trees and knock some of the snow down. If any more piles up, it could break the trunks.”

  “And the shed roofs need to be cleaned,” Elloriann added. “The castle roof will hold, I think, but the shed roofs could collapse under the weight.”

  “We need to get out there as soon as possible,” Carla said, turning toward the door. “If it starts snowing again, this could get so much worse.”

  “Wait, wait.” Elloriann put her hand on Carla’s chest, gently stopping her from leaving the room. “We’re not going out there. We’re going to the servant wing. We’re going to eat breakfast, because we’ll be needing energy for this. Then we’ll discuss with everyone else what to do.”

  Carla looked back at the blinding whiteness outside, fighting against the need to go out there and do something right that second, but she knew Ell was right. She sighed.

  “Yes, all right. You’re right.”

  They went to the servant wing, where everyone had already woken up and arrived at the same conclusions about the snow.

  Stav and Hannah were serving oatmeal with apple puree, and coffee.

  Jo and Kay were standing by the window, planning out the best way to go about dealing with the snow. They had the most experience with it. Though this much snow was not common for Evlirone, some of the previous winters had had fairly heavy snowfalls, and it had been up to the cleaning people to handle it.