The Cadet of Tildor Read Online Free PDF Page A

always hitting the perfect center of her blade, always parrying with the center of his. Hot blood urged her on. High block. Left parry. The clacking wood sounded like a drum roll.
    She caught his eyes and, seeing a twinge of interest, pushed the speed further. The reset pause disappeared, the drill’s rules a memory.
Clack-clack-clack
. Her body danced. Low block. Attack. Right parry. Attack. Parry again. In a flash of inspiration, Renee added a feint before her next advance. Savoy blocked, unfazed by the ruse. He countered and she hurried to block his high attack.
    Except, he did not do a high attack. She watched him change the strike in mid-motion, while her blade continued up to block an assault that no longer headed that way. Savoy’s face said he saw it too.
    He did not pull the blow. The blade struck Renee’s right forearm so hard that the thud of wood hitting padded leather made all heads turn toward them. Air caught in her lungs and pain seared through her arm, spreading into her side. Burning, then numbness, shot down to the small fingers of her hand. Her grip failed. The wooden blade slipped, thumping against the sand-covered floor.
    Swallowing, she forced herself to straighten in silence. Her eyes met Savoy’s just in time to see the calm on his face while his blade rose again. It landed on the same spot.
    She cried out. The world swayed. Cradling her arm, she knelt to the floor. Looking up, Renee saw Savoy swing his blade for a third time and grimly braced herself. The blow stopped an inch short of her neck.
    “You are dead,” he told her before pitching his voice over the salle. “That will be the last time anyone here lets go of a weapon.” He looked down at Renee. “Am I understood?”
    “Yes, sir,” she whispered, drowning in disgrace.
    He extended his hand and pulled her to her feet.
    The rest of the period passed in silence. Alec abandoned his partner for Renee, all the while fixing Savoy with a look of promised vengeance. The glare failed to make an impact, so far as she could tell, but Savoy didn’t separate the pair. For the first time in her life, Renee couldn’t wait to leave the salle.
    * * *
    Savoy stripped off his pads while his fearless followers silently escaped the salle. After the last cadet vanished, a fat middle-aged man squeezed through the doorway. An annoying, if not unexpected, visit.
    “Lord Palan,” Savoy said without glancing up. “My training is not a show.”
    The man puffed, either from indignation or else from the exertion of hauling his own bodyweight, and opened the top clasp of his shirt collar.
    “You have stood by the side window for the past quarter hour.” Savoy straightened and looked into the man’s little eyes. Nothing had changed in seven years. Palan’s dark, intelligent gaze still tirelessly weighted everything it touched, making Savoy feel as if he held fire beside straw. “Let me save you the trouble,” Savoy offered. “My sword is still not for sale. I serve the Crown.”
Unlike you.
    Lord Palan cleared his throat and gestured toward the Servant’s crest on Savoy’s tunic. The jeweled rings clamped around Palan’s sausage fingers caught the light and shimmered. “Yes, Commander, I’m quite aware that tempting Verin’s foster son lies outside my omnipotence.” He chuckled, a smooth, bitter sound. The graying hair around his temples curled in droplets of sweat. “You were but a lad then, and a troubled one at that. I offered you employment and fair pay. Was such a proposal unjust?”
    Savoy twirled his practice blade before placing it in his bag.
    “I hear the gods blessed your parents with a second child?” Palan continued, undeterred.
    “Eight years past.”
    “Expensive to raise children nowadays. If ever—”
    “You employ little boys now, Lord Palan?”
    “How dare . . . ” Lord Palan’s nostrils flared. He took a step toward Savoy, but stopped himself, his face transforming into a mask of nonchalance. “My apologies,