progress

me to do something against my will would find a foot of steel in his or her belly."
She paused, her eyes momentarily dark and grim once more, then wrinkled her nose and raised one hand, palm uppermost, as if tossing something away from her.
"Whatever my motive for learning might have been, I soon realized I had a natural aptitude. My progress pleased Dame Chaerwyn, though she was always ready to cut me down to size when I got too impressed with myself, but she and Mistress Sherath were firm. If I wanted to continue my weapons lessons, then I had to spend at least an equal amount of time with my other studies, which is how I came to lose the wretched Moretz accent I'd brought to Morfintan with me.
"I don't think Mistress Sherath picked Dame Chaerwyn because she felt I was destined for the Order. It was just that she was the best weapons master in Morfintan who also happened to be a woman, and Mistress Sherath wasn't about to put me into a training salle with a man with a weapon in my hand. I don't blame her, either. There was still a lot of hate in me, and I think—no, I know—that bothered Dame Chaerwyn. But she taught me self-discipline along with weapons' skill, and by the time I was nineteen, she was prepared to sponsor me to the Order.
"I almost refused. She was the only woman in the Morfintan chapter, and she'd already told me how few women there were in the Order as a whole. I also knew she still had problems y