The Third Solstice

Adam, with Cringer's eyes on him, paced his room. Finally it was time, and he walked down the hallways faster than usual before forcing himself to enter the dining room at a slow walk. There was no way he wanted to let Mat, Andio, or Kurrin know how excited he was. He'd been nervous about their reactions to Teela and felt protective of her. Would they treat her like the help? Or try to flirt with her? Adam had thought through all of these scenarios and how Teela might react. As he entered, he saw his mother and father coming through the opposite door. His mother immediately beckoned to him, and he strode over to her.

"Adam, I wanted to let you know that Teela and her father won't be joining us for supper tonight," his mother said softly. "We didn't think it was fair to make her sit at a formal dinner on her first night back, when she should be catching up with her father and readjusting to the palace."

"Oh." Adam hoped his face didn't show as much disappointment as he felt. "I was looking forward to seeing her."

His mother smiled. "I thought as much. That's why I'm going to invite everyone – including Man-at-Arms and Teela – to play chess in the library after dinner."

Adam grinned. Mat, Andio, and Kurrin all disliked chess, and there was almost no chance any of the three would elect to join the royal family for a game. "Mother, as always, you have thought of everything."

XXX

As predicted, the visiting youths took their leave of the royal family after dinner, each finding a suitable excuse not to continue to the waiting chess boards. Adam walked to the library between his mother and father, a warm feeling flowing through him as he looked forward to an evening spent in the company of his favorite people.

The door to the library already was open and a fire lit in the hearth. Teela and her father, who had been sitting on a couch near the fireplace, came to their feet as the royal family entered. Queen Marlena immediately went to them and took Teela's hands, and King Randor, right behind her, gave her a hearty welcome. Teela, for her part, greeted them with a bow and addressed them with polite formality, more poised and distant than the Teela who had left them nearly two years ago.

As their parents moved to the chess board at the far end of the library's long table, Adam stared at the girl in front of him. Her hair just brushed her chin, and her cheekbones were more pronounced. Under the blouse and trousers she wore, it was obvious she had both more muscle and more curves than when she left. She sketched another bow, murmuring "Your highness." Adam could feel a goofy grin forming on his face, which he tried to hide. She was here! He took her hand, saying softly, "It's good to see you, Teela. Remember, my name is Adam, right?"

"It's good to see you too," she gave a brief wide smile and squeezed his hand before letting it go. He suspected that his mother and father, who had just made their opening moves, were watching the two of them out of the corner of their eyes.

"Game of chess?" Adam asked after a few beats.

"I haven't played since I left, so please don't rub it in if I lose," she said, her tone still a little formal, and her smile was back to the polite one she'd worn when greeting his parents. He gestured for her to lead, and as she walked over to the table he noticed her erect posture. The rigorous military training was evident.

Adam did beat her in both games they played, and at the other board his mother handily beat his father, then narrowly held off Man-at-Arms. She smiled down the table at Adam after her second match, where Adam and Teela were quietly talking about the Academy's culinary program (or, rather, lack thereof) after Teela had refused a third match. "Like mother, like son," Marlena said with a smile. "I think I will stop while I'm ahead."

"And I think it's time for me to get to bed. I must admit, the anticipation of Teela's arrival had me waking long before the sun this morning," Man-at-Arms said with a yawn.

The three adults stood and moved to the door. "Don't stay up too late," the Queen admonished as she left, pulling the door half shut.

Adam and Teela exchanged grins, their first unguarded expressions since their initial greetings. "I thought I wouldn't be able to get any time to catch up with you, the way Father was talking," Teela said, learning back and stretching. She now seemed like the Teela he knew. "He told me we likely weren't going to have dinner with you the whole time, given the illustrious guests you're hosting these days."

Adam made a face. "All three of their families decided to come here for Solstice to visit their sons. Not coincidentally, two have eligible daughters and the third is trying to get father to fund some waterworks project. So starting tomorrow, the palace is going to be full of strangers."

Teela frowned. "Then I can't even spar you to see if you've gotten any skills with a sword yet? I might as well have stayed at the Academy."

"Nah, I think you still should come to the training courtyard early in the morning. It's the most fun part of the day. And with all the guests arriving, there may not be many chances for any practice for me in the next week."

"Good, and maybe we can find time for target practice too." She gave him a taunting smile. "I bet you still aren't good at that, either."

She proceeded to tell him the details of how she had won the first-year Cadet marksmanship tournament, despite some attempted sabotage by a rival, and then they discussed whether learning to fight with swords still made sense, given how blasters were improving and becoming more common.

A polite cough at the door interrupted their discussion, and a servant apologetically asked if she could clean up the snack trays that had been brought into the room earlier. Adam and Teela exchanged glances – this was an obvious message from the parents that it was time to go to bed. After thanking the servant, they stepped into the hallway. "Walk you to your room?" Adam asked, not wanting the conversation to end.

Teela looked at her wrist chronometer. "No, because we'll just end up talking all night in the hallway, and we need to be up early tomorrow."

"Fine, mother," Adam teased. She really did sound like a grown-up when she said it.

"Remember that when you're losing to me tomorrow because you didn't sleep enough," Teela answered with a laugh and turned to leave. Adam watched her walk to the end of the hallway, idly admiring the view. He shook his head when she disappeared around the corner. He hadn't looked at her like that before she left for the Academy, had he? He was being a creep. She was basically his sister, so the last thing he should be doing is admiring her figure.

XXX

Adam had a hard time falling asleep that night, and his dreams were full of enemy combat next to Teela and, in one case, her rescuing him during a swordfight by using her blaster. His alarm seemed to ring earlier than usual and he groggily pulled out some clothes as he rolled out of bed, hoping they weren't too mismatched as he dressed in the dark. Cringer yawned at him, rolled over, and fell back asleep. "Good morning to you, too, Cringer," Adam whispered as he stepped over him.

Teela already was in the courtyard when he arrived. He peered at her in the weak early-morning light. "Are those your Academy training clothes?"

"Yeah, it didn't seem worth it to buy many civilian clothes given I'm only here for two weeks. Basically, I only have three non-Cadet outfits, including the one you saw last night. I had thought that maybe some of my old clothes would fit, but they're almost all either too tight or too short now." With an evil grin, she lifted up the practice blade she'd been swinging. "Ready to lose?"

Adam grinned back, shoving aside the mental pictures that her casual comment about too-tight clothes had caused. "Let's see you put your metal where your mouth is."

They sparred until the sun was above the palace walls and its first rays were starting to warm the courtyard. Teela's moves were faster and more precise than when she left, but her gains couldn't match Adam's, as he too was faster and had new moves, and now he had significantly more muscle and reach. She conceded defeat once and they battled to a draw in their second round, possibly because his stomach was grumbling and the thought of breakfast was distracting him. As they put down their swords, he looked around and saw that their second match had had an audience.

"That was chivalrous, not beating her," Andio said, striding over to them. Adam closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. He wondered if everyone watching would be able to tell he hadn't been as hard on Teela as he could have been.

Teela's eyes narrowed and she started to reply, but then she seemed to remember herself and firmly closed her mouth before she could respond. Adam swooped into the breach. "Andio, this is Teela, Man-at-Arms' daughter, who is here for the holidays. She's in her second year at the Academy. Teela, this is Andio of Gar-Isbo, heir to Duke Mario of Gar-Isbo, who has done us the honor of staying at the palace and studying with me for the last eight months."

Teela bowed. "An honor to meet you, my lord." Her formal mask was back.

Andio responded with a wide smile and sketched a bow. "The honor is all mine." Adam was pretty sure that if Teela weren't holding a sword, Andio would have taken her hand and kissed it.

"Teela and I were just finishing practice. But if you'd like, I can stay for a few rounds with you," Adam said, although he wanted nothing more than to leave and eat breakfast.

"No, that's fine, I arranged to meet Mat," Andio answered. "But perhaps tomorrow Teela would consider crossing swords with me instead?'

Teela inclined her head. "I am honored by the invitation, my lord, and would like nothing better than to test our skills against one another."

"I look forward it," Andio said with another courteous bow.

"C'mon, let's go before I have to introduce you to everyone," Adam said in a low voice to Teela, taking her practice sword and handing it along with his to a guard as he grabbed her elbow, pulling her out of the courtyard.

As soon as they entered the hallway Teela halted, her face red. "How dare he insinuate that I couldn't reach a draw without your giving it to me!" she exclaimed. "Please tell me you didn't," she continued, swinging to Adam. "Were you really pulling back? Because I don't want you to humor me, I want to stand on my own feet and earn everyone's respect, and your patronizing me is only going to make me look like an idiot."

Adam blew out the breath he was holding. How could he tell her that he thought he'd be able to beat her 9 times out of 10? It wasn't that she lacked skills – quite the opposite – but he was much bigger than her now and had spent significant time practicing in the past two years. "Swordsmanship is my best combat skill," he began lamely. "So maybe I would be able to beat you every time I'm not tired or hungry. But how often does that happen?" he ended with a please-forgive-me smile.

She sighed and looked down. "Well, it's one of my worst skills, but it's embarrassing to have it be pointed out in front of a courtyard full of guards. I might be their colleague somewhere in a few years, and this is going to be what they remember of me!"

Adam slapped her arm. "Well, then, you'd better made a good show when we get the opportunity for target practice!" She openly glared at him, which meant she forgave him – he would have been more worried if he'd gotten an icy stare. "See you at breakfast!"

XXX

After breakfast, however, Adam found himself closeted with his father for several hours getting briefed on Antwel's western border problems with raiders who managed to wreak havoc, then disappear into the Mystic Mountains without a trace.

After a morning closeted with his father, maps, and correspondence, Adam was glad to slip out and take a walk. He found his way to the Training Courtyard, where several matches were underway. Most were guards, but he noted one pair at the far end in different clothes. He walked over and saw that it was Teela and a young man he didn't know engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Andio was standing to the side under an arch and Adam joined him.

Andio explained to Adam that his younger brother Elvem had ridden ahead of the rest of the family, who would arrive that afternoon, and upon arriving and seeing Andio and Teela sparring, had asked if he could join. Somehow Teela and Elvem, who was in his first year at the Academy, had decided on hand-to-hand instead of sword fighting.

As they spoke, Adam watched the match with a critical eye. Elvem had about two inches and twenty pounds on Teela, but she was much faster and excellent at evading grips. As Elvem finally used his longer reach and grabbed at Teela's arms, she twisted her wrists and ended up grabbing his forearms. Adam knew that in actual combat she likely would follow this with a sharp kick to the groin, but in this situation she just snaked a boot behind one of Elvem's knees and pulled his leg forward as she released his arms, causing him to stagger back and fall.

Teela glanced over at the observers as she resituated herself and immediately went stiff, then indicated to Elvem that he needed to stand up. Adam strode over as the two of them went into deep bows. He still felt uncomfortable with Teela's bowing to him. "Congratulations on a bout well-fought," he said, a trifle too loudly, but it caused them to both straighten back up.

Andio stepped forward. "Your highness, please allow me to present my brother Elvem, second son of Mario, Duke of Gar-Isbo."

Elvem bowed again, the straightened as Adam clapped him on the back. "Well met."

Adam grinned to put him at ease. "So you're in your first year at the Academy, I hear. It must be nice to take a pause and have this opportunity to visit your family during your first year." He looked over at Teela, who was standing next to Andio. "Teela got to spend her first-year Solstice wrestling snakes in a swamp."

His attempt to get Teela's attention worked, but not the way he wanted. She shot him a look that showed she was still sore at spending last Solstice away from family and friends. "I'd better go get changed before lunch," she said, bowing to each of the youths in turn. "I hope we can fit in some more matches in the next week."

Elvem and Andio hurriedly assured her they most definitely would like to do that, and she strode away.

"So, the Teela you introduced me to this morning is the famous Teela?" Andio asked a little too casually.

Adam had a hard time keeping his voice neutral, remembering their parents' cautions about revealing his and Teela's bond. "Famous? When did she get famous?"

"You should have seen Elvem's face when he realized that his big brother was sparring with none other than Teela, the most amazing cadet at the Academy, as he tells it," Andio said in a teasing voice.

Elvem turned pink. "It's just that I wasn't expecting to see her here. She is amazing, though – she's the best shot in the Academy, and one of the best in all years at flying and hand-to-hand combat. And she's good at fixing and programming things, and she's brave. When the upper classes have to choose teams for field practices, she's always the first one chosen." He turned an even deeper shade of pink, then shut his mouth.

"What Elvem left out is that besides all that, all the first year males have a crush on her because she's beautiful, too," Andio said laughing as his brother went fully red.

Adam clamped his mouth shut as Andio kept egging on his brother. Teela? The object of others' desire? He felt a hot pang of something start in his stomach and move up to thicken his throat. It's not jealousy, he thought to himself. I just don't want anyone to disrespect her. People shouldn't be allowed to think of her in that way.

"I'll meet both of you in the dining room for lunch," he quickly said. "I want to check something in the armory." He hurried back and, seeing that the guards already had left for lunch, spent several minutes attacking a leather punching bag. Panting heavily and nursing a sore hand but feeling better, he headed to the dining room.