The Talented (26 page)

Louella made a sound that
could have meant anything, and Adrienne smiled. “And you couldn’t
care less about sword practice.”

“
No more than you care
about herbs,” Louella agreed placidly. “That doesn’t stop me from
talking about them.”

Adrienne tried to think of
what she did during her days that might interest her friend. “I’ve
been taking Strider, my horse, out for a few hours each day. He
needs training as well.”

“
What sorts of things do
you train him for?” Louella asked.

“
He’s a destrier—a horse
specifically trained for battle—and that kind of work requires
skills other horses don’t have.”

“
I guess he’s like a
soldier of the horse world,” Louella said. “Before you came here, I
never thought much about what it takes to make a soldier.” She had
watched, and even attempted, Adrienne’s meditative routines, but
she had never once watched Adrienne practice with her
sword.

“
It takes more than a
sword.” Adrienne’s hand traveled to the Talent-forged sword at her
hip, but her thoughts were on the commission.

“
It must be a complex
skill,” Louella said. “You wouldn’t have been able to develop a
Talent otherwise.”

Adrienne smirked. “I’m
glad at least one person sees that.”

Louella’s blue eyes
clouded. “Maybe I should have said something earlier.”

Adrienne knew her friend
did not mind the soldiering profession the way most in Kessering
did, but Adrienne was not foolish enough to think that Louella was
completely comfortable with the reality of it.

Louella’s interest in
Strider was less complicated.

“
A destrier needs to have
absolute trust in his rider,” Adrienne explained, switching back to
the more comfortable topic of her horse. “He needs to be able to
pull back, to switch off leads, to turn on his hindquarters when
the soldier demands it, without hesitating.”

“
Why?”

“
Battle is a loud and
confusing place. A stallion like Strider can become caught up in
the energy of it, and he needs to listen and trust absolutely the
direction he is given by the soldier riding him. And the soldier
needs to know that her horse is going to move when and how he’s
told, or the soldier won’t be able to plan her next block or
parry.”

“
It sounds dangerous,”
Louella said.

Adrienne thought that
Louella seemed more concerned for the horse than the rider in this
instance, and her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “It can be, even
when horse and rider make a perfect team.”

“
Is it fair for the horse,
do you think?”

Adrienne had never thought
of it that way. Horses like Strider were chosen and trained from a
young age. But then, Adrienne had been placed in a similar
situation herself. “A horse has to show a certain temperament to be
trained. Mild-mannered horses aren’t taken to war.”

“
But it still wasn’t the
horse’s choice.”

With another person,
Adrienne might have gotten mad at the comment, but moral debates
with Louella were interesting, not upsetting. “Many men are drafted
into war against their will. Some of those men don’t last
long—mentally, I mean. Some horses, either. Strider has a few
physical scars from former battles, but mentally I would say he is
as healthy as any horse. There aren’t many horses of Strider’s ilk,
and he would be invaluable to a soldier on campaign.”

“
But you have him sitting
in a stall in Kessering instead,” Louella mused. “A bit of a waste,
if he’s as special as you say.”

“
He was a gift from my
captain when I left Kyrog to come here,” Adrienne told
her.

Louella’s blonde eyebrows
pulled together in a frown as she considered this. “If a horse like
Strider is so valuable, why were you…that is…you must have been
very well thought of,” Louella finally said.

“
Yes.” Adrienne looked down
at the empty cup of tea in front of her, lost in thought until
Louella took her hand.

“
I’ve upset you. I didn’t
mean I thought you weren’t well thought of before,” she said. “It’s
just that if you were given such a gift, you must have really been
special back at the camp.” She let go of Adrienne’s hand and leaned
back in her chair, clearly frustrated. “I’m saying all of this
wrong.”

“
It’s not you,” Adrienne
said, meeting Louella’s worried blue eyes. “I’m just thinking of
Kyrog. Of home. I miss it.”

“
I’m sorry. I forget
sometimes that you left people behind. I’m not used to dealing with
homesickness.”

“
It’s not just the people,”
Adrienne said, though much of it was. “In Kyrog I am regarded as a
skilled soldier.” She thought of the hours of hard work she had put
in over the years. Of sweating through her leathers under the harsh
sun of the dry season, and enduring the wet months that turned the
dry ground to mud that sucked at her boots and made every step an
effort. She did it all, practiced until muscles and bones went weak
with weariness and pain, practiced until she was one of the best.
Until no one looked at her and saw a mere woman, or worse, a girl
whose father had given her away. “Skills count for a lot among
soldiers. And I was a lieutenant—a leader—in Kyrog.”

“
They must have lost a lot
when you left,” Louella said, as if it was a revelation. “I never
realized…I’ve spent almost my whole life in Kessering. My father
moved here after my mother died, when I was just a year old. I
guess I don’t think about life outside of Kessering as life,
really. But Kyrog was your home, wasn’t it, like Kessering is
mine?”

The sympathy in Louella’s
voice nearly undid Adrienne, and she had to look away from the
compassion she saw on her friend’s face. “I had friends there,”
Adrienne said, her eyes losing focus as she saw not the wall in
front of her, but a camp many miles and memories away. “Ricco, he
was a fellow soldier. And Jeral. I was training Jeral, and had been
for nine months, before I left.”

“
When I was getting to know
you,” Louella said, “I always just thought about what a great
opportunity this was for you. You got to come here, to Kessering,
and develop a Talent. I never thought about what you had to give
up.”

Adrienne pulled herself
out of the past and took another sip of her tea, only to find that
the cup was empty. “I had to leave a lot behind,” Adrienne said,
her hand slipping up and stroking the cord around her neck without
conscious thought. She wondered not for the first time if she would
ever get back what she had left in Kyrog. She wondered if Ricco and
Jeral would be waiting for her back in the camp, or if they would
be gone, possibly forever. She might have already lost two of her
closest friends.

“
I’m sorry.” Louella forced
a smile and grasped desperately for a new topic. “I’ve noticed the
necklace you wear, but I’ve never seen the pendant. Can I have a
closer look?”

Adrienne hesitated, then
reached back and pulled the necklace over her head. “It was my
mother’s.” Adrienne held the necklace out for Louella’s
examination.

“
It’s beautiful,” Louella
said, tracing a finger over the intricate design inset on the
pendant.

“
It’s supposed to provide
protection,” Adrienne told her, looking at the lines of the artful
knot.

“
That’s lovely,” Louella
said, handing the necklace back. “You must have been very young
when you received this.”

“
I was four.” Adrienne ran
the cord through her hands. “My father gave it to me before he sent
me away.” She put the necklace back on, ran her thumb over the
pendant once, then tucked it back under her blouse, where it would
remain hidden from prying eyes. “I think he gave it to me because
he felt guilty sending me away.”

“
Adrienne—”

The back door opened and
Pieter strolled in, interrupting whatever Louella had been about to
say. He seemed momentarily surprised by Adrienne’s presence but
recovered quickly. “Hello. Adrienne, I didn’t expect to see you
here so late.” He smiled at Louella.

“
Adrienne’s been too busy
to come by lately,” Louella said, standing to get Pieter a cup of
tea. She passed close to him on her way, and Adrienne thought she
saw Pieter’s hand brush Louella’s golden hair as the slender healer
moved past him.

“
Yes, she hasn’t been by my
shop either,” Pieter said, taking a seat between Adrienne and
Louella. “How have you been?”

“
Not so bad,” Adrienne
said, studying him. “You?”

When Pieter accepted the
cup from Louella their fingers brushed together and Louella’s face
pinked.

Adrienne was not
experienced when it came to relationships, but she was not
completely blind. She watched her friends with interest.

“
I got a commission for
barrel hoops,” Pieter said when he finally looked away from
Louella’s flushed face. “An easy job. If I had a proper apprentice,
I would give the assignment to him.”

Adrienne looked over and
found Louella staring at the blacksmith, her teacup forgotten in
her hand, as if someone ordering barrel hoops was the most
interesting news in the world. Adrienne nearly smiled. They seemed
such an unlikely couple, but from the way Pieter had walked right
in the back door of Louella’s shop—the private entrance—Adrienne
got the idea that she was the intruder there, and that Pieter was
likely the reason Louella had still been up at this time of night.
Which meant it was time for her to leave.

“
It’s getting late, and I
was up early,” Adrienne said, standing. “Louella, I’ll stop by at
lunch tomorrow and see if you’re free.”

“
Of course.” Louella and
Pieter stood to see Adrienne out, and she almost smirked at their
eagerness to have her gone. “Have a good night.”

“
You, too,” Adrienne said,
holding back the chuckle until the door was closed behind
her.

“
Are you still trying to
form fire balls?” Louella asked as yet another ball unraveled as it
left Adrienne’s hand.

“
I’m getting better,”
Adrienne insisted. She formed another ball in her hand, made a
throwing motion, and with a tremendous force of will managed to
keep the ball lit until it was nearly a foot from her hand. After
that point, nothing she could do kept it from falling
apart.

“
That’s better?” Louella
asked skeptically.

“
I just need more
practice.”

Louella shook her head. “I
can see the effort it takes you to throw one of those. You’re
spending too much time and energy doing something that is not
natural to your Talent. What you should be doing is practicing
things you
can
do.”

“
But if I could throw
flames in battle—”

“
I don’t know about
battle,” Louella said, “but I know that if the person has to be
that close to you for you to hit them with a fireball, you might as
well not be able to throw fire at all.”

Before Adrienne had a
chance to form a response to what she had to admit was a logical
point, Pieter let himself into Louella’s kitchen.

“
What’s going on?” He
leaned back against the counter where Louella busied herself with
the meal she was putting together. He had come for lunch, as it had
become habit for the three of them to eat together whenever
possible. It could still surprise Adrienne that she was friends
with Louella and Pieter, even after months of knowing
them.

But Adrienne had come to
realize that she had a special bond with Pieter and Louella. They
were not as different from her as Adrienne had assumed the first
time she met them. The bond forged between soldiers who trained and
fought together was strong—they had to trust each other with their
lives—but the bond Adrienne shared with the other Talented was even
more exclusive than the bond Adrienne shared with the ranks of
other soldiers she’d trained with. Maybe Louella and Pieter had
never risked their lives to save hers, but they could relate to her
in a way few others could.

“
Look,” Adrienne said,
turning to show Pieter the ball of light. She went to throw it, and
it unraveled before it had even left her hand.

Pieter cast Louella a
sideways glance, then smiled unconvincingly at Adrienne. “You’re
getting better.”

Adrienne sighed. Perhaps
Louella was right. “No, I’m not.”

“
You will be.” Pieter
seemed confident that she would improve, and Adrienne was grateful
for his support.

“
I was telling Adrienne
that she should move on from fireballs,” Louella told Pieter. “Find
new ways to use her Talent.”

“
It was easier for us,”
Pieter said. “We more or less knew how to use our Talents. Using
fire as a weapon…it will take some thought.”

The fact that Louella and
Pieter had come to accept Adrienne’s purpose here was one of the
things she was most grateful for. Adrienne only wished that being a
soldier did not distance her from the rest of the Talented. The
distance between herself and Ben had grown since the night she had
unexpectedly developed her Talent, though they worked together
every day trying to find the limits of Adrienne’s power. But Ben
was not the real problem, nor were the other Talented who avoided
her the cause of Adrienne’s dissatisfaction. Adrienne was beginning
to wonder about the commission’s long-term plans. They had not
mentioned again what her Talent was to be used for or how she
should focus her ability, and there was no sign that another
soldier was indeed going to be brought to Kessering. One of the
groups that had been sent out to find a soldier to train had
returned without a soldier at all, and the other group had yet to
return to Kessering, though they had been gone for nearly a
year.