Mouse felt the force of the blow travel up into her hands, wincing against the impact.

  “Shed and riposte,” said Bo. “Your thumbs weren’t meant to handle that kind of force.” He withdrew, giving Mouse a chance to drop her guard and shake out her shoulders. Mouse knew that she should be getting better with time, and yet she somehow felt as though she was only getting worse.

  “You want to rest, or you want to try again?” asked the guardsman, his dark curls matted against his forehead as sweat glistened on his brow. It was a warm day, warmer than it had any right to be for so late in the season, and the sun only seemed to be growing more determined as it inched higher and higher into the sky.

  “Try again,” said Mouse. Bo nodded, preparing himself for the next bout while Mouse opened her stance and raised her guard, tensing her arms in anticipation of his attack. The guardsman led her through a few simple strikes to build her confidence before at last coming at her with a downward strike from overhead. But rather than do as he had taught her and quickly raise her blade, Mouse hesitated, leaving her little time to parry, and wound up in an awkward sort of crown guard. Still, the guardsman followed through on the blow, his blade meeting Mouse’s on the strong and sliding to her hilt.

  “Well done,” he said. “You’ve managed to keep your hands far enough apart this time, but remember what I told you about the hanging parry.”

  “I know,” said Mouse, with a sigh of frustration. “I just—I can’t seem to get there quick enough.”

  “That’s alright,” smiled the guardsman. “There’s no rush. It’ll come in time.”

  Mouse tried to smile, but it was difficult, feeling, as she did, that she was disappointing the guardsman. He had been generous with her, both in his time and in his measure of patience, and Mouse felt in no way worthy of all his encouragement. She did not know much about sword fighting, that was certain, but she knew enough to understand that she was doing rather poorly.

  Unsurprisingly, the next bout ended similarly as the last, with Mouse once again failing to riposte. The exhaustion was beginning to catch up with her, and no matter how she tried, she could not seem to will her body into action anymore than she could will her mind to focus. Her thoughts were occupied almost entirely by thoughts of dread and despair, her mind governed by the fear of what had been written in the edicts she read last night becoming reality.

  She lifted an arm and wiped at the perspiration collecting on her forehead. The ferocity of the sun beating down was becoming near torturous. Mouse realized now that though a woolen gambeson may be ideal for softening the blows of a sword, the downside was that it was wretched to wear in the heat.

  Bo, though appearing equally damp with sweat, did not seem to suffer as Mouse did, and stood now leaning on the pommel of his sword, the tip of which he had drive into the earth.

  “Tell you what,” he said, looking at Mouse with what she felt must be pity. “Let’s have a proper rest, and then we’ll try again with the hanging parry so you can get more comfortable on the riposte. Sound fair?”

  Mouse nodded gratefully. It sounded more than fair, it sounded lovely. She gave up her blade to the guardsman, trading it for a skin of watered down ale, and followed him to a small patch of shade by an ivy bush, where the two fell into the cool grass, sitting back to back so that they might lean against one another. There, they sat taking swigs from their skins and watching the men who made themselves busy erecting the mock battlements for the reenactment of the Battle of the Yarmen.

  “What have you got on your mind?" Bo asked after a time. “Seem a bit distracted today.”

  Mouse looked down at the grass, tugging the blades somewhat absently.

  “Nothing in particular,” she said, the lie scraping against her throat even as she spoke it. “I suppose I’m just a bit tired is all.”

  She felt the guardsman’s weight shift as he stole a glance at her over his shoulder.

  “If you say so,” he said.

  Mouse stared out over the fields. They’d dried quickly after the rains, and though the grounds in some places were still trampled and muddy, others looked greener and more lush than ever. But of course, a summer storm was always kindest, for it gave as much as it took.

  Mouse watched the builders as they hoisted heavy limestone slabs with the help of a treadmill and slotted them into place. And before she knew it, the tears were beginning to slip over her eyelids and roll down her cheeks.

  Try as she might, she could not stop herself from thinking of the words written on the parchment, the ones that bound her to a man she despised more than anything in this earth and tied her to the oppression of a people who yearned for freedom as desperately as she did.

  She had never had what she would consider a happy life. Still, she had assumed that she was much like everyone else: miserable, but tolerably so. And though she may have been given to the occasional fit of melancholy, she nonetheless counted herself lucky, for though she had little, she had less still to lose. But as she sat in the cool grass with her back pressed against the guardsman’s, she realized just how wrong she had been. She had much to lose.

  But what did it matter? She was trapped, and she knew that any attempt to free herself would only be met with further ensnarement. The trap would be drawn tighter and tighter around her, until it squeezed the air from her lungs and the life from her body. Because that was the way it was: the Empress was infinitely selfish, Johannes was infinitely cruel, and Mouse was infinitely powerless.

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  She pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them. Hope, small though its measure may be, had brought her through the darkest of times. Wonders, dreams, and what-ifs—all had given her strength, had given her something to cling to as she was swept down the current of uncertainty. But now, even those had been taken from her, and what remained in their absence was the fading shadow of a happiness she would never now, a fate known only as woman.

  She felt something leave her now, some piece of herself slipping away through her lips with her breath, some dream she had not dared to speak aloud, one which she kept close to her heart, like a letter folded and tucked away for safe keeping. And though she might have cried out under the crushing weight of the thousand disappointments that crashed over her, she simply sat there with tears dripping down her chin.

  The pair sat there for a while longer in silence, neither speaking, until finally Bo broke the silence.

  “I’ve got Sir Erik on the quintain over here,” he said, “and I hate to say it, but it looks like the quintain is winning. Gods, he’s gotten old." He took a draw from his skin and nudged Mouse gently with his elbow. "What about you?” he asked. “Anything interesting happening on your side?”

  Mouse wiped the tears from her cheeks, glad that the guardsman could not see her face.

  “Someone practicing for the melee," she said. “I think he must be from house Welfrig.”

  The guardsman gave her another nudge.

  “Well, he’s certainly got you quiet, whoever he is,” he remarked. “Maybe you should go challenge him to a duel, no better way to get to know a person.”

  Mouse scoffed, sopping up more tears with her sleeve.

  “I am simply admiring a man about his craft,” she said.

  She felt the guardsman’s weight shift again, his hair brushing against her neck and tickling her ear as he turned toward her.

  “You ever admire my craft?” he asked.

  Mouse pushed back against the guardsman.

  “Oh, quiet, you,” she muttered, a smile tugging at her lips despite herself.

  After another moment or two of quiet, the guardsman rose, and Mouse watched as he trotted off, disappearing around the armory, only to come cantering back a few minutes later with something in his hand. It was a flower—a rose, to be precise. And without a word, he planted himself in front of Mouse and began untying of the laces of her gambeson.

  “What are you doing?” Mouse protested, “and where did you get that?”

  “Over by the tower,” Bo said, tossing his head in the direction he had just returned from and ignoring the first part of her question.

  “It’s not from Elysia’s rose bush, is it?” Mouse asked, watching the guardsman fumble with the lacing. “You’re not supposed to pick those.”

  “Says who?” Bo retorted,

  Mouse looked down, noticing the scratches on the guardsman’s hands where the thorns had torn his skin.

  “Have you ever heard the story of Elysia?” she asked. For as many times as she had heard the story, she often took for granted that not everyone had been raised in the capital, as she had, and therefore might not be familiar every tale and legend.

  “I’ve not,” said Bo, “but tell me. This might take a while.”

  “Well, as you may already well know,” Mouse began, watching the guardsman try to tie the stem of the rose into her lacing, “Elysia was the daughter of Queen Ingrid. And when Ingrid died, Elysia’s step-father, Sir Hermenegildo, formed a design to marry her so that he might assume rule as her regent.”

  Bo cursed under his breath, quickly withdrawing his hand and sucking a bead of blood from his thumb.

  “Go on,” he said, glancing up at Mouse.

  “But Hermenegildo,” Mouse continued, “was in no way worthy of kingship. He was cruel and selfish and had himself three children by three of the household maids, not to mention one by his sister-in-law.”

  Bo raised his eyebrows in scandalized surprise.

  “So in the hopes of evading him,” Mouse went on, “Elysia came up with a plan of her own: she would cut off all of her hair and hope that Hermenegildo would be so repulsed that he would no longer wish to marry her.”

  The guardsman smirked, his grey eyes catching the light.

  “Don’t tell me it worked,” he said.

  “It did, for a time” said Mouse, “though not in the way Elysia had intended. For you see, without her long, beautiful hair, the guards did not recognize her, no one did, in fact, and she was able to escape the castle unmolested.” She paused, watching the guardsman try again to form a knot around the rose stem. “However, she was eventually caught and forced to return to the castle, whereupon Hermenegildo’s scheme to wed her was reformed, only this time he locked her in a tower so that she could not escape.”

  “So where does the rose bush come into all this?” the guardsman asked.

  Mouse swallowed.

  “I’m about to get there,” she said. “Elysia, confined though she may be, was determined not to see Hermenegildo reign, so rather than marry him, she leapt from the tower, killing herself. And where she landed is where the rose bush sprang up.”

  “Well, that’s rather grim,” Bo frowned.

  “Yes,” said Mouse, “I suppose it is. But still, I think Elysia was quite brave, don’t you?”

  The guardsman furrowed his brow.

  “Because she jumped from a tower?”

  “Because she would not allow herself to be used,” Mouse said. “She would not allow herself to become—to become an instrument of subjugation.”

  The guardsman wiped his hands on his trousers and rose, reaching down to help Mouse to her feet.

  “I suppose so,” he said. “Though if she’d bothered to learn the sword, she might just lobbed the old sack’s head off instead.” He stepped back to admire his handiwork, a dark crimson rose fastened to Mouse’s gambeson. Mouse watched him a moment before looking down to do the same.

  Even as she had been telling him the story of Elysia, she had felt something shift inside her, some truth being realized, some ideology long dormant waking from its slumber. She had no wish to be used for the purposes of the cruel and selfish ruler. She had no wish to become an instrument of subjugation. And she had no wish to remain powerless.

  A strange sense of resolve coursed through Mouse as she climbed the steps of the keep. And as she walked down the hallway and into her rooms, the crimson rose still tied to fastened to her breast, she had a feeling like she was standing on the ledge of a great cliff, looking over it.

  Once inside her changed, she ritualistically went to her desk and opened the drawer containing the Bellman’s Elegy, checking that the little glass vial of nightshade had not been disturbed. Satisfied that it had not, she then crossed to her bed and reached beneath the mattress, groping around until her fingers brushed against the familiar roll of parchment, which she pulled out. She unfurled the pages and read the words that stood there. The contents, she was disappointed but unsurprised to find, remained the same as before: Johannes was still to be given chancellorship of the Chatti lands, and Mouse was still to wed him.

  Mouse let her eyes travel across the pages as she slowly walked to the hearth. She had stolen the parchments the night before, folding them up and concealing them within her sleeve as she slipped out of the Empress’s cabinet. She knew she should not have taken them, and she knew how much she had risked in doing so, but it was no more than that which she risked in doing nothing.

  She stood in front of the hearth now, her skin glowing with the warmth of it, and one by one, cast the sheets of parchment into the fire. It was not enough to parry, she thought to herself, she must riposte.

  She watched as the fire danced, the orange flames licking the pages until they became black and twisted. If this was the future, she thought, she wanted to watch it burn.

  If this was her fate, she would destroy it before it destroyed her.