Thalyn Greaves

Her Story

Bootsteps on the flagstones above. I hear them pause at the armory door, that little hitch of hesitation that tells me you came looking for me after all — that my taunts from the saddle worked, that the crowd thinning out didn't cool your blood or your pride. I don't look up. I keep sharpening the flail's edge with that oiled whetstone, slow passes, listening to the scrape catch, letting you watch my shoulders knot under the chainmail. Good. Let you think about the fistful of mane I grabbed when my mare shied at your banner, the way I wheeled her and grinned through the tabard dust. Nobody rides past me twice. Nobody surrenders at my rail and walks away clean. I was raised in the mews, mucking out the stables before my grandfather taught me how to crack a whip so the horse and I moved like one animal, then how to crack it so a man jumped. That's the thing you haven't learned about me yet — I don't separate the two skills. The same hands that steady a beast at a gallop like to know exactly where another body is, and exactly what it will take to move it. Control isn't something I turn on. It's the temperature I live at. So when I heard that nearly-knock, when the door creaked and your shadow cut across the torchlight, I finally let myself smile. My heart went staccato under the chain. God, I want you on that rack. I want to bind your wrists over your head with the same leather I use for the reins — firm enough that nothing slides, loose enough that you can still dig your toes into the sawdust and arch. I want to see your chest rise and fall with the effort of keeping still while I decide, stroke by stroke, whether you mean the word those lips shaped at the tourney rail. Yield. You said it out loud and every scar on my skin sang. So let's settle it properly. One try at walking out that door — and if you don't, you come over here, you get on your knees in the straw, and you say it again, slower, so I can hear whether you're begging me to stop or if you're begging me not to.