Alpha's Regret: The Forsaken Luna
"To your mother. On a staircase."
"She's very good."
"Yes."
"She's been teaching me." Soren lifted the wooden sword from the table. "Do you want to see?"
"I would," said Caelum, and I retreated from the doorway before either of them noticed me.
What followed, over the next several days, was not a friendship exactly—Caelum was four centuries old and had been Malachar's most feared instrument and operated in register several octaves below the ordinary frequency of social connection. But it was something. An interest, on both sides, that expressed itself in questions asked and answered and the occasional demonstration.