Sword by Amy Bai Page A

did—not for many long years. As you've guessed."
    "What am I supposed to do with it?" Kyali asked, pain pitching the words too high.
    She could feel Saraid's shrug through the old woman’s fingertips. "Whatever you have to. For now, we work at it, until doing this doesn't make you fall over. Do you think you can stand to try again?"
    No answers, as usual. That, the Fraonir had in common with the theory-mad wizards of Lardan. Kyali straightened.
    "I guess we'll find out," she muttered.
    * * *
    She had thought, in those first few panic-filled weeks among the Fraonir, that walking on the edge of a mountain path was the most frightening thing she had ever done. The land seemed to leap away from one's feet. The tops of trees looked like shrubs. A pebble could fall for what must surely be hours before striking ground—and surely, so too might one muscle-sore, travel-weary general's daughter standing too close to the edge and trying to hide the fact that she was shivering.
    Riding on a mountain path was far worse.
    Riding a mountain path on a headstrong mare determined to test her rider's will was terrifying .
    "I don't think…" Kyali swallowed a mortifying yelp and reined hard left as Ainhearag's hooves crumbled dirt at the edge. "I… damn it!" This as her horse bounced at a chipmunk in a tree and shied back toward the drop.
    Kyali drew a breath that seemed at once too small and too large for her chest, then let it out slowly. Then she pressed a knee into Ainhearag's side and tugged once, sharply, on the reins. Her fractious Fraonir gift bucked gently—she did yelp this time, damn it all—then settled into the pretense of good behavior.
    "I don't suppose," she finished, groping for her lost dignity, though it was probably halfway down the mountain by now, "that we might try her gait in the trees."
    Her teacher said nothing. After a frowning moment, Kyali turned back to where Arlen was riding behind her and found him laughing, silently but quite hard, into a hand.
    She turned back around and kicked her horse into the trees.
    She used too firm a heel. Ainhearag took the order with enthusiasm, bolting up the slope and into a thick copse of mountain pine before Kyali had a chance to choose a proper point of entry. In another second she was shielding her face from a hundred pine boughs, branches breaking all about her, as her horse forged a way through by main force. Between the two of them, they sounded like an army of sots lost in a forest.
    After a brief struggle they came to a halt. Kyali sighed and stared at the pommel of the saddle.
    "Interesting tactic," Arlen said, his cool, uninflected voice somehow compounding the disdain in his words. He and his own warhorse, Itairis, had come up on them almost silently. "I'm sure any outlaws camping in the vicinity are long gone now."
    Was it possible to blush harder than this? She met Arlen's eyes with difficulty, hissing at Ainhearag when her horse made a reach after a branch. "I apologize," she said, bowing in the saddle.
    "Words are well enough, girl. Words are easy. Show me you can do better."
    Footwork began to seem pleasant compared to this.
    Kyali bit her lip and turned her horse into deeper forest, sitting gingerly in the saddle, braced for Ainhearag's next disastrous attempt at mischief. She couldn't afford such foolishness out here, away from the safety of the Darachim borders, out where outlaws and raiders made their temporary homes. They rode forward, quieter, and she met every twitch of Ainhearag's reckless head with a twitch of the reins and a shifting of her seat. It was exhausting, particularly riding through dense woods—but after what felt like hours of struggle, her horse heaved a heartfelt sigh and began to obey without argument.
    Kyali let out a sigh of her own and stretched muscles knotted tight. "What now?" she murmured.
    There was no reply.
    "Arlen?"
    It was too quiet.
    Turning in the saddle gave her a view of trees: endless, crowded trees… and no