Dahlia Rowe's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Dahlia Rowe wanted to teach highborn daughters to fight, but she had just proven she couldn't. She stood in the half-built stable at dusk, three noble girls watching her. She'd promised them a first lesson. She showed them how to hide a knife in a bodice, how to slip a grip, how to strike from a curtsy. Then the biggest girl grabbed her collar for real, and Dahlia froze. She had learned everything alone, from stolen books and mirrors. No one had ever taught her the ugly parts. The girl shoved her into a beam. The lesson was over. The girls left without a word. Dahlia sat in the dirt and pressed her sleeve to her split lip. Her fine gloves were torn. Everything she knew looked like dancing, not fighting. She could not teach what she'd never been taught. "You dropped your chin when she grabbed you," a rough voice said. A broad man stepped from the shadows near the unfinished roofline. His shirt was torn, and through the holes she saw old scars. She knew him as the builder raising this stable, a quiet man who'd left the town young and come back changed. "That's how she got your throat." Dahlia stood fast and reached for her knife. "You watched all of that." "I watch everything I build near." Marcus Thornwell didn't look at the blade. "You move pretty. But you've never been hit by someone who wants to hurt you. It shows." Behind him a girl appeared in the doorway, small and sun-browned, in patched work clothes. Faint gold light leaked through her skin like a covered lamp. The stablehand, Sylva Kael, had clearly been listening too. She said nothing, but she stepped inside and set down her tools. "I need to teach these girls," Dahlia said. "Or the school dies before it starts." "Then learn first," Marcus said. "Come at me." She did. She struck the way her books taught, clean and quick. He caught her wrist, turned it, and put her on the ground in one motion. It didn't feel like dancing. It hurt. "Again," he said. She got up. He knocked her down. Her elbow tore open. Sylva watched from the wall, arms crossed, her glow steady in the dark. On the sixth fall, Dahlia stopped trying to be graceful. She bit his arm, drove her knee up, and slipped free. Marcus grunted and grinned through his beard. "There," he said. "That's a fighter. Not a dancer." Dahlia stood, gasping, blood on her teeth. She finally understood what her lessons had been missing. "Teach me the rest," she said. "All of it. The ugly parts." Marcus wiped his arm and nodded once. "Every night, here, after dark." He glanced at Sylva. "She'll help. She's got her own reasons to stay hidden." Sylva's jaw tightened at that, and her glow flickered. Dahlia now had a teacher, a hiding place, and a secret she didn't yet understand.