Saving the Immortal

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Never Judge By Ordinary Looks

I found the boy in the courtyard the following morning, a bow clutched in hands that had not yet fully grown into the height his frame promised, muttering under his breath with visible frustration each time his arrow sailed wide of the target.

Fennick's son — I had learned his name to be Bram, a boy of perhaps fifteen years, tall already in the manner that suggested he would one day rival his father's stature, though his skill with the bow had clearly not yet caught up to his ambitions. I watched him loose another arrow, which struck the outer edge of the target rather than anywhere near its center, and observed the particular fury that crossed his young face at the failure.

"Might I try," I asked, approaching slowly.

He turned, looking me over with the specific dismissive skepticism only a fifteen-year-old boy could properly muster toward a woman offering unsolicited assistance.

"You," he said, scoffing openly. "With a bow."

"If you would permit it," I said, undeterred.

He shrugged, clearly certain the demonstration would prove nothing beyond my own foolishness, and held the bow out toward me with the particular condescension of someone anticipating an easy victory in whatever contest he imagined this to be.

I took the bow.

It had been years since I had properly practiced, but the weight of it settled into my grip with a familiarity that returned swiftly enough — my eldest brother had insisted, as a girl, that I learn alongside him, over my mother's initial objections, and the lessons had apparently not entirely abandoned me despite the long absence.

I nocked the first arrow, drew, and released.

It struck the target's center with a satisfying thud.

Bram's expression shifted immediately from smug amusement into something considerably more startled.

"That was fortunate," he said, though his voice had lost some of its earlier certainty.

"Was it," I said simply, nocking a second arrow.

I drew again, sighted carefully, and released — and this time the arrow struck the first one dead center, splitting the shaft cleanly in two, the two halves falling away from the target with a small clatter against the ground below.

Bram stared at the target, then at me, then back at the target, his mouth opening slightly without any words emerging to fill the silence.

"How," he managed finally, "did you know how to do that?"

"You should never judge by ordinary looks," I said, handing the bow back to him with a small smile. "People are rarely only what they appear to be at first glance, Bram. I imagine you have learned that lesson already, given your own family."

Something flickered across his young face at that — a flash of recognition, perhaps, given whatever cruelty he had likely witnessed among his father and uncles, though he said nothing further on the matter directly.

"Where did you learn," he asked instead, his earlier skepticism entirely replaced now by genuine curiosity.

"My eldest brother taught me," I said. "Against my mother's wishes, though my father never objected. He believed a princess ought to know how to defend herself, whatever propriety demanded otherwise. I practiced with him for years, before marriage and other duties claimed most of my time."

"Would you—" Bram hesitated, some of his earlier pride clearly warring against the request forming on his tongue. "Would you teach me? Properly, I mean. My father has little patience for it, and my uncles only ever mock my aim rather than correct it."

I considered him a moment — this boy, cocky and frustrated in equal measure, clearly starved for guidance that did not arrive wrapped in cruelty, the particular loneliness of growing up within a family that seemed to specialize in humiliation rather than encouragement.

"I would be glad to," I said.

His face broke into a grin, considerably younger and more genuine than the scoffing expression he had greeted me with only minutes earlier.

"Truly?" he said.

"Truly," I confirmed. "Though I warn you now, I shall expect proper effort in return. I have little patience for wasted arrows, and considerably less for complaining about missed targets rather than correcting the stance that caused it."

We spent the better part of that morning together, Bram's aim improving steadily under correction I offered with far more patience than his family had apparently ever extended him. I adjusted his grip, his stance, the particular angle of his draw, and watched with quiet satisfaction as arrow after arrow began finding the target with considerably more consistency than his earlier frustrated efforts had managed.

"You are rather good at this," he admitted, once several arrows in succession had struck near the center. "Better than my own father, I think, though I would never say such a thing where he might hear it."

"Your secret is safe with me," I said, smiling.

"Aunt Ivy," he said, testing the title with a small grin of his own, "I think I like having you here. Considerably more than my own aunts, if I am honest."

"That," I said, "is very kind of you to say, Bram. I believe I like being here considerably more, myself, now that I have found someone in this family worth teaching."

He beamed at that, and I found myself, watching him nock another arrow with newly corrected form, glad of the small, unexpected friendship that had grown from a morning I had not anticipated spending in the courtyard at all.