Chapter 21
“You have determination,” Ser Stratford said from the nebulous blackness somewhere ahead of Alara’s closed eyes. His voice was distorted by the slowed time that laid over the world like a blanket, and Alara had to struggle to find the meaning to the strange sounds the man spoke. “I think we have figured out that at least. Would you like to know what else I think you have?”
He was trying to distract her, she knew, and after receiving several blows to her stomach for letting her temper break her concentration, she had learned to keep her silence during the exercise. She stood in the room the man had inside his manor for the martial training that he inflicted on unwitting students whose parents had more money than sense. She held the iron pose: feet shoulder-width apart, knees be
