Rangers of Linwood (The Five Kingdoms Book 1) by LeAnn Anderson Page B

with you who has already earned his or her bow or blade, you can be on the ropes course.”
     
    Chapter 10
    So it was that Tesni ended up adding a new part to her routine. Now, every morning after her run, she could be found on the ropes course. She still did the rest of her chores and tended to the horses in the evening, but the morning was her time on the ropes course.
    Once in a while, one of the other Rangers would join her, urging her on. Word had spread quickly through the camp about Ryder and Tesni’s newly discovered relationship and Cliona’s deathbed confession. Tesni suspected that she should mourn her mother, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Though she had lived with her for the first four years of her life, her memories did not go beyond a smiling face and a few notes from a lullaby.
    She supposed that her earliest days must have been happy ones. Ryder had assured her that Cliona had loved her dearly and had searched for her every day from the time Tesni was four until the day Cliona died. How could Cliona have known that Tesni had been found and taken in by Alastar Redleaf?
    Somehow, though, the darling of the Ranger camp could not bring herself to cry for the lost mother she didn’t truly remember, and in the end, she gave up feeling any sort of guilt about it and just chose to enjoy now knowing her father and the mother she would gain in Arya when the bow mistress and horse master wed.
    The proposal had been a very informal one, and when Tesni heard that Ryder had made his intentions clear while she was still under the curse and that Arya had accepted, she was slightly resentful if only for the fact that she had not been there. Still, a week later, she had been there when Ryder had given Arya an engagement ring, slipping the silver band, as was tradition amongst Elves of any type, onto Arya’s right forefinger, and Arya placed a similar one onto Ryder’s hand. They had also promised that they would not hold the wedding feast if, for any reason, Tesni would not be able to be there, and so the girl was satisfied.
    “And who knows?” Arya had said. “It is traditional to wait a year. Perhaps by then, Agrona will be defeated and the true heir to the throne found.”
    Arya and Ryder set the date for the summer solstice after Tesni’s tenth birthday. Because his was a tent made for a bachelor, Ryder decided to just let Tesni stay with Arya, an arrangement both girl and bow mistress were comfortable with. It would do, at any rate, until a tent fit for a family could be put together.
    And that was what the three of them had become. A family. Alastar visited regularly, never begrudging Ryder for gaining what had once been his, happy merely because Tesni and Arya were both happy. He became a favored uncle and brought Tesni treats on a regular basis, though he was never allowed to give them to her unless he solemnly swore that they were obtained legally. He complained about this regularly, but it was well understood that it was in a joking manner.
    In the meantime, Tesni’s friendship with Fiona also continued to grow. The older girl had quickly become proficient with throwing knives, and Branwen regularly beamed with pride at her protégé’s skill.
    “She has me working on a swinging target, now,” Fiona said one day. “She also wants me to pick a close-range weapon.”
    “I already know what kind of close-range weapon I’ll take up,” Tesni said. “Arya says that it’s common for archers to take up dual blades.”
    Fiona blinked in surprise. “Truly?” she asked. “You have more than two years before you can even start training, yet. How do you know that you will even be suited to archery, let alone that you will have a secondary preference for dual blades?”
    “How did I know that I was meant to come here instead of stay with the Thieves Guild?” Tesni asked in return. “I just know.”
    The truth was, of course, that it was Arya’s influence, as always, that had Tesni knowing