Steel rang off stone, echoing through the cellar beneath the Var Attre estate. The torchlight danced across walls and the sweep of a training sword as Rosa carved invisible enemies from the air, again, and again, and again. Her braid was loose, her breath heavy, but her grip never faltered.

The door opened and someone came down the steps. A man with the look of a warrior. She looked him up and down with a fencer’s precision, then tilted her chin slightly.

"You the man my father hired to be my new fencing instructor?"