Noble Beginnings by D.W. Jackson Read Free Book Online

searched his for a long moment,
and he did his best to meet her gaze unflinchingly. Then she
smiled, looking away, and handed a cloth over. "Try not to get your
breeches wet, my lord" she replied seriously. Dorran could feel her
eyes on him as he made his way over to the bucket with the cleaning
cloths in it and he could have sworn a small smile crept onto her
stoic face.
    He took the still-dripping cloth and wrung it
over the bucket before kneeling on the other end of the room to
begin. As a noble he never had been forced to work they had
servants to do all the cleaning work but he had often taken the
chore on himself as a way to strengthen himself as well as perform
a useful action. Out of everything he had done to try and get
closer to Myriel the simple action of helping her with her work had
been his biggest success.

CHAPTER VI
    As time passed Dorran found himself finally
starting to grow comfortable with the councils. Although he still
didn't understand the finer points of what was being discussed he
was not as lost as he had been only a short time beforehand. He
knew he still had a long way to go, but at least his improvement
was noticeable. He caught his family's eyes on him frequently,
though he wasn't sure what they thought of him, he knew it couldn’t
have been as bad as it had been at first.
    When Thea occasionally detained him to ask
his opinions on various matters of state, he was able to give a
more detailed answer every time. His conversations with Myriel
definitely helped with this, since she could round out what his
mother's book said with knowledge of current events and common
opinions among the nobles. He found himself wondering how she knew
all that she did, but valued the information too highly to be
willing to pry and risk the fragile relationship they had
built.
    With his education progressing and his
mother's permission, Dorran slowly began increasing the amount of
time he spent in the barracks. Several weeks after they had last
spoken, he came across Edith in the training hall, fighting
one-on-one with the best peers in the group. He was more than a
little surprised to see that she held her own admirably, fighting
two or three of them at once. He watched her for a while before
joining the group. She looked tired, with sweat beading on her
forehead but she continued to push herself and was fighting harder
than ever.
    "Edith," he called as she rounded up a
simulated charge, neatly disarming her final opponent and touching
her blade to his chest to signify his death. "Mind if I join the
next run?"
    "Not at all," she said, running a hand
through her matted hair to push it out of her face. "How does a
four-on-one melee sound? Take your pick of teammates."
    Dorran stared to argue but decided against it
and instead he called for Marcus and Iain and gestured for Kell to
join in as well. The three of them came over and listened as he
outlined the strategy for the battle. He had wanted to fight Edith
head-on, but this was an important exercise as well and one he did
not plan on losing.
    "All right, here's how this will work," he
said. "Iain, Kell, you two try working together. I want you working
as a unit or not at all. Kell, that means protecting Iain from
hits, and Iain, that means focusing as much on Kell as on the
enemy. It'll be an exercise in following another fighter's
lead."
    Kell looked at Iain and smirked. "You got
that? Try not to get killed, and this should go just fine."
    Iain squared his shoulders. "Sure, and you
make sure to actually hit more than air with that stick you call a
sword."
    Dorran turned to Marcus. "As for you...with
your abilities, it'd be good for you to practice taking advantage
whenever the opportunity appears. Stay close to the action, but try
to stay out of her clear view of sight. Your main purpose is to
Interfere where she least expects it, get a swing in whenever you
think you can reasonably expect an opening. But don't get caught,
or she'll have you on your back faster