Each time it happened, Taryn got mad, as though Jude were flubbing the steps of a dance rather than winning. She paired the obvious defenses with the obvious attacks, so it was easy to lure her into a series of moves and then score a hit by breaking the pattern. Her stances were more perfect, but she hated sparring. Taryn was learning the sword, too, although she had different problems than Jude. On the other side of the field, Madoc was guiding Taryn through a series of stances. No one was offering her the option of training wheels anymore. Better than remembering she was a mortal among monsters. No matter how hard she swung at him, it just made him laugh. The High King’s general, Madoc, who wanted to teach her how to ride too fast and how to fight to the death. Instead, she had giant toads and thin greenish ponies and wild-eyed horses slim as shadows.Īnd her parents’ murderer, now her foster father. Sometimes Jude longed for her bike, but there were none in Faerie. Jude wanted to ride in the street, fast, like Vivi, and if she got gravel embedded into her skin for it, well, then she’d let Dad pick it out with tweezers at night.

But Jude had taken off her training wheels herself and disdained riding carefully on the sidewalk, as Taryn did. Her knees had been scabby enough that Mom thought she might have scars. When she’d been learning to do that, back in the real world, she’d fallen lots of times. Chess that left her bruised and tired and frustrated with the whole world and with herself, too. Fighting was chess, anticipating the move of one’s opponent and countering it before one got hit.īut it was chess played with the whole body. Each position could move easily into a strike or a defense. Three: down to her hip, then in a deceptively casual droop in front of her. Two the pommel high, as though the blade were a horn coming from her head. One the sword before her, canted to one side, protecting her body. Wind ruffled her hair as she moved through the stances. Now she was nine and lived in Faerieland, and everything was changed. That was the first lesson he’d taught her after he’d cut down her parents with a sword not unlike the one she held now.

The first lesson is to make yourself that strong. You must be strong enough to strike and strike and strike again without tiring.

Get used to the weight, Madoc had told her. Jude lifted the heavy practice sword, moving into the first stance-readiness.

The wicked king holly black