Chapter 6
Training in Tarlah
Ethlin: Tarlah City
Four days after King Urmillian and Queen Corina took ill, Ethlin sneaked a glance over her shoulder at the Head Cook bellowing at a servant who had left the kitchen door open and admitted a cat into her domain. Ethlin took advantage of the distraction and slipped out the back door, then down the servants’ corridor towards Tarlah Castle’s main training courtyard. She paused at the corridor exit to hang her apron from a peg she had appropriated from the castle kitchens and checked that her flyaway brown hair was at least partially braided, then slipped outside.
The clanging of iron on iron rang in her ears, as did muffled thuds suggesting leather armoured soldiers were smacking into each other. Ethlin breathed in the scent of leather and s
