Beastly

Chapter 13

When Brody fell asleep, I half expected the castle to cave in on us. The past week had been nothing but chaotic, especially compared to my life in Ishva. I shook my head, thoughts like that wouldn't help me now. Right now, I needed to worry about keeping Brody safe. Even as I thought that, my hand unconsciously played with the jewel around my neck.

A small knock at the door caught my attention and my hand moved to my side. Not wanting to disturb Brody, I walked over and opened the door myself. When I opened it, I saw the sympathetic smile of Lay.

"Hey," he said, "how's it going?"

"Could be better," I said, glancing back.

"How about something to keep your mind off it?"

Thinking, I walked out and gently closed the door behind me.

"I'm listening."

"Well, since you have a little, okay a lot, of fighting experience, I was thinking that, maybe, you'd like to help train the soldiers today."

I've had a lot of odd jobs; cooking, cleaning, teaching, killing, and even babysitting, training soldiers wasn't normally one of them.

"I don't know how well I'll do," he started to frown, "but I guess I could try." And, his face lie up.

"Follow me, I'll take you to the training grounds."

Nodding, I followed him down I labyrinth of halls, that I'd soon have memorized.

"Hold on," I said, realizing that I'd forgotten something.

I turned back and bolted to our room, carefully opening and closing the door.

"What'd you get?"

"This." I pulled a dark brown cloak around my shoulders and tied it, loosely, around my neck. With my hands, I guided the sides of the cloak so that try covered my body.

"Again? With the cloak? If you fight them, they're bound to find out sooner or later."

"And, I'd rather it be later than sooner."

"I'm just saying."

Training fully grown men? How different could that be from teaching a kid?

...now that I'm actually hearing it, that's a stupid question. Not to mention that I was a girl.

"How do you think they'll take to being trained by a girl?"

The silence was enough of an answer for me. Damn. My hands tugged at the sides of my cloak, preparing to pull it over my head. A hand grasped mine and I jumped, slightly shocked.

"I'll allow the cloak but not the hood."

"You'll allow? Who can kick whose ass here?"

"I have an army behind my back, what do you have?"

"You mean besides a terrifying appearence, daggers tied to my waist, perfect aim, inhuman strength-"

"I get it. Just, please? Being trained by a person they can't make judgements on compared to being trained by a girl, who do you think they'll relax around?"

Hmm, he has a point, as much as that pisses me off. It might be fun to throw an unsuspecting soldier or two.

"Here we are," Lay said, stealing me from my thoughts. He motioned to a wooden door, nothing grand just...a door. I could make out the faint clashing of swords and the pull of an arrow as it made its way through the air.

Pushing the door open, he revealed the training grounds. We were in, what looked like, the back of the palace. For the most part, the training grounds were under an awning, except for the archery field, which was only a few feet away.