The next day, she might have thought it had all been a dream if not for the fact that she was being woken before the sun had even crept above the horizon. A familiar hand was on her shoulder and a familiar voice was in her ear.

"Rise and shine, Your Highness," Julianus purred. "Your first lesson awaits."

Cassia cracked an eye open to find the impertinent lord hovering over her, nothing more than a shadowy outline and a gleam of teeth. She shut her eyes and rolled away from him, then let out a small shriek when he jerked her warm covers completely off the bed.

A chill rolled off the stones, reminding them all that the cooler months were nearing. She curled up, tucking her legs under the skirt of her nightgown. She had a firm belief in not rising before the sun did.

Then warm lips were kissing along the exposed back of her neck. Cassia smiled, keeping her eyes closed. "Is this how you wake all your soldiers, General?"

He snarled lightly at the title, then smirked against her skin. "Maybe if any of them tasted like you do."

Cassia snorted and threw a weak elbow toward him just to shriek again when he pinched her. She sat up, meaning to slap him, but he caught her wrist, seeing the strike even through the gloom. 

A low laugh rumbled from him and he said, "There's that fighting spirit." Then he got up.

She listened as his fingers shuffled over the things on one of the tables beside her bed. A flint was struck and she was squinting against the light of a candle. Julianus was still wearing that infuriating half-smile. She watched him limp back toward the door, carrying the candle.

After a moment, one of the chairs groaned as he sat, and she swore viciously as she got out of her comfortable bed and trailed him into the drawing room. She frowned, taking in his loose white shirt and the light brown leather trousers tucked into his boots. He'd set the candle on the low table between the two chairs before the fireplace.

"Didn't you forget something?" she asked as she came closer to him.

"No," he said, his smile turning taunting.

Cassia's frown deepened into a scowl and she crossed her arms, the material of her light nightgown too thin to keep out the early morning chill. "Well I don't see how you could expect me to provide a sword. How am I to practice without one?"

Now Julianus laughed outright, true amusement shining in his eyes right alongside the candlelight. He stood up and limped a slow circle around her. She hissed and swatted at him when he prodded at her arms, her sides. She swore at him when his hand slid down to her backside and she twisted away, smacking his wrist.

All he offered was a roguish wink. "How can you learn to wield a sword if you can't even hold one up, Your Highness?" he drawled. Then his tone turned serious. "Generally speaking, I wouldn't bother letting you touch a sword for months, but seeing as how we don't have the luxury of time you'll have to train your body while you train with a sword."

Cassia was still at a loss as to why she wouldn't be touching a sword today. 

He went back over to the chair. "I took the liberty of bringing these."

He tossed the clothes to her, and she shook them out to find a pair of cotton trousers that appeared to be her size. "Where did you get them?" she asked, going back into the bedchamber, then into her dressing room, leaving the doors open as she went.

"A Brunian girl," Julianus said, something strange in his voice.

A chill skittered down Cassia's spine as she pictured the pale blonde hair and icy blue eyes. Cassia pulled a length of white cotton from a chest of drawers that held her underthings and began to bind her breasts. Then she stepped into the trousers.

Male slaves often wore something like this in the summer months. She tied the drawstring at the waist tightly, then walked back out into the drawing room.

Julianus took his time looking her over, making her cross her arms again. The hair stood up along her forearms as she said, "You said a Brunian girl brought you these?"

He shook his head, eyes lingering on her exposed midriff. "I went down to the laundries early this morning, since I knew nothing of mine would fit you. But you need something to wear until we can find a way to get you some proper training clothes. She just gave them to me."

"Did you—"

"No," he said with a shrug. "But slaves see much." 

Cassia nodded, her brow wrinkling. She would need to make sure she could somehow buy the Brunian's discretion. Then she shook her head, focusing back on Julianus. Raising an eyebrow, she said, "If I'm not to begin with a sword, what am I supposed to be doing?"

Julianus gave her a droll look, obviously not thrilled by her tone. "Lunges," he said sweetly. "And push-ups and sit-ups and anything else I feel you might need."

Cassia's arms dropped as she gave him a disbelieving look. Wincing and swearing, he showed her the proper form of a lunge. When she just continued to stare at him in disbelief he flopped into a chair, propping his injured foot up on the table.

"We'll only have an hour at most in the mornings," he reminded her.

"I need to learn how to use a sword," she said venomously. "Not whatever the hell this is. Or were you just all boast yesterday when you said you could teach me?"

Julianus sighed, the sound long-suffering and heavy, like he'd already prepared himself for this. Then he pinned her with a harsh stare that actually made her shrink a little.

His voice was brutal when he said, "I could teach you every trick and trapping of swordplay I know, and it will mean absolutely nothing." He stood and came toward her, backing her toward the wall. There was none of the playful lover she had known in his face when he snarled, "I could put a sword in your hand right now. You wouldn't last five minutes." He sneered. "You're soft, Your Highness. You're weak. Change that."

Cassia bared her teeth, snarling as she put her hands on his chest and shoved. To her dismay, he only yielded a single step.

"A hundred repetitions," he said with a grin that was pure evil, "of each. And if you can survive that, maybe we'll talk about picking up a sword when you come see me tonight."

He put something in her hand, then stepped away. She looked down to find a strip of cloth, meant to tie her hair back. Cassia's heart was still thundering with fury, but she knew he was right.

She was soft. Weak.

And he was only trying to help her change that. 

Though, she thought grimly as she secured her hair in a heavy ponytail, his methods were perhaps lacking in finesse.

Julianus nodded in approval when she looked up at him. She started with the lunges.

Sweat broke out across her brow much more quickly than she cared for. Twenty lunges in and her legs were already screaming and burning. She gritted her teeth and continued, not about to give Julianus the satisfaction.

"Since I can't do them with you," he said, making her look up in surprise, "we'll talk."

"Of what?"

"Of strategy, mostly," he answered. "Tactics, politics." He grinned. "Bedroom tricks."

"I would rather you allow me... to suffer in silence," she gasped, panting as her lungs struggled.

Julianus just laughed. "The swordsman who trains his body but not his mind is no swordsman at all. Or... swordswoman." He frowned, then shrugged. "Where do you plan to go for your travel years, Your Highness?"

A drop of sweat stung her eyes. The tops of her thighs burned like they had been smeared with oil and set alight. She realized with dread she was only halfway done.

"I... don't know," she managed. She did, but she didn't need anyone trying to dissuade her.

"Yes you do," he said, crossing his arms. His face was stony as he called her out.

"You can't know," she paused to suck in a ragged breath, "all my secrets... my lord."

All Julianus did was sigh. He stood and went to the shelves that were to the left of the fireplace. His fingers trailed over the dyed-leather covers. Emerald and scarlet and azure books passed under his gaze until he stopped on one bound in chestnut-brown leather.

"Brunia," she managed, pulling his attention back toward her. "I want to go to the island."

He half turned back to the bookcase, eyeing that same book, but didn't reach for it again much to Cassia's relief. Her sigh was hidden in her desperately panting breaths as she completed the last three lunges.

"In which case," he said as she collapsed to the ground, "we'll talk about them. Do you speak any Brunian?"

She lifted her hand and tilted it in a "so-so" gesture. She had been trying to learn it for the past two years, ever since she had determined the still-unconquered island was to be her destination. It was difficult though, since she had no one to converse with and few sources of written material. 

The dark stone of the floor was blessedly cool against her sweaty back as she heaved in breath after burning breath. Julianus said, "Take a breath, and hold it for a count of seven."

She cast him a disbelieving glance, but his face was absolutely serious. So she tried and was infuriated to find she could only make it to four.

"Keep doing that until your breathing returns to normal," he instructed. "I know enough Brunian to be dangerous, but it's not the high-born speech, and you won't fool anyone into thinking that you're Brunian. Still better than nothing."

Cassia was still attempting to make it to seven.

When her breathing was no longer the loudest thing in the room, he said, "Now the sit-ups."

Cassia swore under her breath, but stopped when he lay down on the floor next to her. He gave her a challenging stare. "Keep up if you can."

"Prick," she muttered, but copied his position with her back and feet flat on the floor, knees bent.

They started and he asked, "Why Brunia?"

Muscles already burning in her abdomen, she hesitated. But then their conversation from yesterday steeled her nerve. If anyone would be able to understand, it would be the general.

"The kings of the past," she grunted, "have gone to the battlefields, the seas, the coliseums even." Just under her ribs, in line with her sternum, a ball of tight fire was beginning to form. "Warrior-kings, that is who I am descended from. That is the blood that runs in my veins."

"So you go to Brunia in search of battle and glory," he said, voice annoyingly steady even as Cassia's breath grew choppy keeping up with his cruel pace.

"No," she managed, "I go to conquer the island."

It would have been impossible not to feel the shocked look he leveled on her, even if she hadn't turned her head to meet his gaze. But he didn't say anything. He didn't ask for her clever plans or her mad schemes, and she wasn't about to offer them up.

Despite her best efforts, she was finding it impossible to haul her torso up with the same speed and ease Julianus did. The last thirty repetitions were agonizing and slow, but she didn't allow herself to stop.

Again, he let her rest. When she felt like she could breathe without wanting to vomit, she said, "Is it true that in a battle, the Brunian armies will send so many arrows into the sky it blots out the very sun?"

Julianus was sitting cross-legged, his elbow resting on his knee and his chin cradled in his palm when she looked at him. Amusement flickered across his face, getting lost in the shadows cast by the candle. Then he was laughing, the sound full of contempt.

"I take it you've been listening to your father's war councils then," he said once he managed to stop laughing. The only thing that stopped her from throwing something at his head was the feeling that he wasn't laughing at her.

When she nodded uncertainly, he made a face. A droplet of sweat traced down Cassia's throat. Meanwhile, Julianus looked for all the world like he had just rolled out of bed.

Shaking his head, he corrected, "That's the Mortanians, though I've heard that they learned the tactic from rogue Sorian warriors. And I wouldn't go so far as to say the volleys blot out the sun. The majority of their fighting force are swordsmen, not archers."

"So what do you do?" she asked, sitting up and trying not to groan with the effort. 

That was a mistake when he motioned for her to start the next exercise. Cassia felt horror like she'd never known before when her arms began to quiver after no more than ten push-ups.

"You hope the men beside you don't drop their shields," he said grimly. "But that's not really something that will help you."

"Why not?" she groaned as she forced her arms to push her toward the ceiling.

"Because you won't be fighting in the army. Women aren't allowed." He turned his head as he effortlessly levered himself up and down. "And Brunians prefer ambushes to open-field battle anyway. Not that they're bad at that either," he added grudgingly. 

Cassia could hardly force a breath in as her abdomen clenched, trying to hold the plank form. Her lower back began to ache and her movements became shallower, her arms screaming profanities at her.

"I know women aren't allowed in the army," she snarled, then let out a small cry when she attempted to push away from the floor and her muscles just stopped working.

She nearly broke her nose as her arms collapsed. After a moment of panting against the stone, she tried again, only managing to get halfway up.

"All right," Julianus finally said. "That's enough for today."

Cassia blinked slowly, frowning, her cheek still resting against the cool floor. Unless she'd performed a grievous miscount, they still had nearly seventy repetitions to go. But when she tried to push up again, she found in no uncertain terms that her body was done with her.

Growling in frustration, she rolled to her back, trying to wipe the sweat away from her face with a sweaty arm. Every inch of her was already an aching, trembling mess and she was almost ashamed at her earlier impertinence.

She wouldn't question him again, she vowed. Even if his methods seemed questionable.

"How much trouble would it cause you to leave the castle before dawn?" he asked.

"Perhaps some, though I can always just say I wish to go for a morning walk," she answered, already dreading whatever devious plan this was part of. "Why?"

"Could you go to the park?"

A sizeable forest park sprawled out from the northern castle wall bordered by the Tarmin River a mile away to the east and by Levitum to the west. It stretched all the way beyond the city borders to the barley and wheat fields in the north five miles away.

The forest was reserved for the nobility and poachers were dealt with harshly.

Cassia frowned as she sat up. Getting to the forest might be a little more difficult, but not impossible perhaps, if she pretended that she was going for a morning ride instead.

"Yes."

He smiled serenely. "Look forward to morning runs, Your Highness, by the end of this month."

For the first time, she was happy his ankle had been injured. Maybe she'd find the guard who had done it and personally thank him.

Grey light was beginning to filter in through the windows, and Cassia knew her ladies-in-waiting would be coming soon to help dress her for the day. Julianus quickly showed her a few cool-down stretches, explaining that they'd help stave off some soreness.

Before he left, he said, "See me tonight if you can. I'm not quite finished with you, my lady."

The way he said the words made her shiver with something more than the sweat cooling on her body. He smiled, the expression dark and forbidden and delicious, then left.

Cassia had to use the wall to pull herself off the floor before she stumbled into the bathing room. Moving as quickly as she could, she washed the sweat from her body and hair.

She stuffed the pants under her bed and wrapped herself in a dressing robe before she settled in an armchair by a window, reading in the early morning light. 

By the time Claudia, Antonia, Drusilla and two servants Cassia didn't recognize came to help her dress, she was stiff and sore. Still, she made a concerted effort to move normally, cursing Julianus soundly with every ache of her muscles.

Her ladies dressed her in a peach-colored gown with gold laces up the back. It hugged her torso comfortably, the long sleeves tight so as not to get in the way. The skirt was a single fold of cloth that swayed with every movement, the hem just grazing the ground. It was delightfully easy to move in.

"A new style, Your Highness," Drusilla offered sweetly as she looped a belt of gold wrought to look like ivy around Cassia's waist, the tail extending all the way to below her knees. "They say this is what the high-born women of Brunia wear."

"Really?" Cassia asked in surprise, examining the scoop-neck design that showed nothing more than her collarbones. 

It wasn't uncommon a practice. Her father often looked to incorporate the cultures of conquered countries where he could. It made them easier to control, he had once said, when they were granted the gift of keeping some of their culture. 

"It's beautiful," she finally said as the serving girls wove her hair into a thick braid that fell to the small of her back, weaving wires of pure gold through the braid as they went.

"Should I have more made, my lady?" Antonia asked from where she was picking through the obscenely large jewely collection Cassia owned.

"Yes," Cassia said absently as Antonia put earrings fashioned from gold and light pink coral through Cassia's lobes.

Once dressed, Cassia considered what she could do with her day. There were no events she absolutely must attend. She would not have any lessons until later that afternoon—dancing and music. It would likely be a waste to see if her father was holding court, it was too late in the week for that.

Maybe she would go to the library, and then the gardens of the inner courtyard to enjoy the warm weather while it lasted.

The dullness of her existence suddenly hit her, threatening to send her toward the melancholy she had lately found herself suffering from. 

It was all just a ploy of her father's, she knew. An attempt to show her that a woman's only worth was in her grace and beauty. Her ability to dance or make music.

Not in her mind. Not in the strength of her body or heart.

So she considered how reckless it would be to visit Julianus' chambers two nights in a row. She concentrated on the ache in her thighs, her back, her chest as they left her rooms.

She would go to the library, she decided, and get the new work by Agrippa Sylvanius, the capital's most famous philosopher. A retired soldier, Sylvanius had works ranging from the pondering of life and death to writings on battle tactics both foreign and domestic, as well as ancient and modern.

The Philosopher Soldier, he'd been dubbed, and Cassia couldn't count the number of times she'd begged her father to allow her to meet him.

As usual, her ladies-in-waiting talked amongst themselves as they trailed behind her. Cassia sometimes wondered if they disliked her as much as she assumed they did. After all, she had never attempted to pretend a warmth she didn't feel. She made sure to never treat them badly, but she had always known that they were not truly friends.

Heirs did not have the luxury of friends, particularly when they were female.

The library was on the second floor of the eastern wing, a half-hour walk from Cassia's rooms. They were halfway there, just crossing the main entrance hall to enter the eastern wing, when the general silence of the castle was broken.

"Casa!" a young voice howled. "Casa!"

She barely had time to brace herself before Quintus, her youngest brother, barreled into her legs. Of her family, the six-year-old boy was the only one she truly loved.

He let out a high-pitched squeal that instantly turned into a riotous storm of laughter when she picked him up, swinging them both in a circle. She ignored the murmurings of her ladies as Quintus threw his little arms around her neck, giving her a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

Cassia smiled at the boy. "And what are you doing today, little prince?"

His eyes, the color of freshly tilled earth, gleamed with a promise of mischief. All he said was, "Horses."

Then he was scrambling back to the floor, much to the relief of Cassia's arms and back. She looked up at his tutor—a set-upon looking man of perhaps forty years with thinning dark hair and spectacles perched on his nose.

"It will be the prince's first horseback riding lesson today, Your Highness," he huffed with a deep bow as he caught his breath.

Quintus was still clinging to the skirt of her dress, and she knelt down next to him. In her ear, he whispered, "Is it scary?"

"No," Cassia said with a laugh, hugging him once more. "You'll have so much fun today, Quintus, that you'll never want to walk again." She poked at his belly making him giggle. "Father will have to get you a horse that can be ridden about the castle."

Quintus erupted once more into those peals of innocent laughter only available to young children. He shook his head at her like she was completely hopeless and she stood up.

Gently ushering him toward his tutor, she warned, "You had best hurry, Quintus, or the horses might decide they only wish to laze the day away."

His eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. She gave his tutor an apologetic smile as Quintus grabbed the man's hand, pulling him in the direction of the main door, shouting all the way.

That melancholy still threatening from earlier had been completely banished by the sunshine of her brother.

"Do you suppose, Lady Sister, that Quintus will grow to covet your crown as well?"

Slowly, Cassia turned to find Marcus leaning in the doorway she needed to go through. Of her brothers, he favored her the most in appearance. They shared the same eyes—though no one knew where the strange honey color had come from—and the thick, chocolate-brown hair of their mother. But she also found similarities in the straight, fine line of his nose and the curve of his mouth.

"If he does," she answered coolly, "one can only hope that he might be clever enough to attain his goals."

Marcus smiled faintly and pushed off the doorframe. Three years younger than her, he was still half a head taller. By all accounts a fine young man, with a broad, proud chest and powerful shoulders, the thing that worried Cassia the most about him was his clever mind.

"Won't you walk with me, Lady Sister?" He offered his arm, and after a moment she took it. 

Wary as she was of him, he had also proven himself useful in the past years. They continued down the halls toward the library in silence, until she said, "Why do you call me that?"

Marcus raised a dark brow, his face tan from the summer sun and all the time he spent outdoors. "Should I not?"

"Malitech never does," she said carefully.

Marcus chuckled, the sound sinister. "Yes, well, our dear brother was never one for much tact. He forgets that it is entirely possible that you will rule one day, and that we will be at your mercy."

"And you?" she asked softly. "Do you forget that, Marcus?"

His eyes turned gold in the sunlight from a window by the library doors. "I remember much, Lady Sister. And I hear much."

Her blood turned cold, and she dropped her hand from his arm. Marcus straightened the tailored dark blue vest he wore over a spotlessly white shirt of fine linen. His dark trousers were tucked into shined knee-high black boots.

Marcus used his appearance as a weapon as often as he used the sword at his belt. While not as given to temper tantrums as Malitech, he still had a vicious prideful streak that had led to more duels than Cassia cared to count.

"What is it you hear?" she asked as nonchalantly as she could.

"Oh," he demurred, his beautiful mouth turning up into a slight smile. "This and that. Do you really think I'm more suited to deal with the Mortanians than Malitech?"

She wondered how he could have possibly heard that. It had been a private meeting.

"Perhaps," she said vaguely. "Good day, brother."

She went to move past him, but he grabbed her arm. In her ear, he whispered, "If Lord Julianus is as savage in bed as he is on the battlefield, I find myself worried for your safety."

A gasp of shocked breath escaped her before she could stop it, and Marcus let out a low laugh. He had only been looking for a confirmation of rumor and, like a fool, she had given it to him.

"I remember that I will be at your mercy, sister," he said. "But you should remember that you are currently at mine."

She watched him walk away whistling, like nothing had happened.

Sometimes, with all of Malitech's crowing, she forgot that he was not the most dangerous member of her family.