Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
This is my first wardcall, and I’m exhausted.
The kind that makes your limbs feel like rusted steel and your thoughts swim like they’re treading water in a bog.
We trained in the Stormriven yard well into the night, until the moon had climbed high and the rest of the world had gone still. We used no weapons, no armor—nothing to “fall back on,” Thalric said. Just hands and bodies and pain. We never even made it back to the barracks to sleep.
Ryot was merciless. He calls it foundational. My only consolation is that Leif and Kiernan are as exhausted as I am, as we wait in our rigid formation for the archons’ inspection.
The wards at the Synod gather each month when the moon turns, before the sun fully rises over the cliffs, when the first hints of daylight start to soften the night and the stars fade.
Here, the archons conduct inspection on any wards in residence.
Today, Archon Robias walks through the lines, taking roll.
There’s a nasty-looking whip hanging at his side.
I’m in the middle of a small group of wards, and some of the boys keep shooting me nervous glances. The one to my left even went so far as to edge slightly more to the left, one step out of the neat column. Like if he stood too close to me, he was at risk of being struck down by the gods.
“Aeron,” Robias calls out.
“Present,” the boy to my left calls out.
I hate to use the term “boy,” since “girl” has been used so pejoratively, but in this case I think it’s accurate.
Aeron still has a spattering of acne across his nose and forehead; he’s that kind of skinny that means he recently had a growth spurt, and his weight hasn’t yet caught up with his height.
The whip flies out and snaps Aeron across the shoulders and the back of his neck, the tip missing me by the slightest margin. His cry is muffled, because he bites his own lip until it bleeds. He doesn’t react otherwise.
“Fix the line, Ward Aeron.”
Aeron shuffles precisely one step to the right, the column of Fellsworn wards now perfectly even. “Archon,” he answers. The back of Aeron’s neck starts to ooze blood, and the tang of it is sharp on my tongue.
Satisfied, Robias moves on.
“Velorin.”
“Present,” Velorin replies.
Robias moves to the front of my row.
“Leif.”
“Present.”
I’m already sad that Leif is in his last year of ward training before he becomes a sentinel like Faelon.
I only have a few months left with him. There’s shockingly few of us—only 6 wards in Stormriven and 41 total in the entire Synod.
Faelon told me last night they’ve already lost half of the boys who are in their first year of training.
They will lose about another quarter of them before the year is over.
Lose them. Like they’ve been misplaced.
“Leina,” Robias calls out, standing in front of me with the book he’s making notes in.
“Present,” I answer, and I’m proud that my voice doesn’t quaver.
I brace for a strike from the whip. The guys warned me they’re aggressive with whipping and a plethora of other physical punishments for even the most minor infractions.
They want to desensitize us to the pain, so that when we’re in a battle we’re not immobilized by it.
Robias pauses to look me up and down, and he makes a scribble in his notebook, though I don’t dare move a muscle to see what he’s writing. He taps his quill against the pages, examining me.
I’m not dressed like the other wards. Not quite.
Like them, I’m wearing a black tunic, black leather pants, black boots, and a simple chainmail that covers my chest and shoulders.
But a silver scrawl crawls down the seams of my tunic and pants, the boots lace up to my knees instead of stopping at my ankles, and the chainmail is a shimmering gold instead of black adamas.
But it is as strong as adamas and is much lighter.
“This was gifted to you by Thayana?” Robias asks, using his quill to gesture at my attire.
“Yes.”
“Mmm.” He tries to curl a finger into the chainmail, but it’s too finely woven for him to get a grip. He takes the shredwhip from his side and whips it out. I can’t help the flinch as the whip cracks across my chest, but I don’t feel anything when it strikes. I hiss out a breath of relief.
Robias scribbles in his notebook. “I want you to bring your chainmail to the armorer for examination. I don’t know what this metal is. It’s way too strong to be gold.”
Then he crouches down to examine the boots closer, using the other end of his quill to test the lacings. He even pulls out a dagger to test the strength of the leather. Oh goddess, what is happening? But I stand there without moving, even as he pokes a dagger at my toes.
When he stands, he starts writing in the book again. “I want you to get an alternate pair of boots made by the cobbler, and a set of training clothes from the tailor,” he says. “Once you have the alternates, I want you to bring these to the archons for us to study.”
My tired brain is struggling to catch up. “Study?”
He nods once, clipped. “The boots appear to be made of simple leather, but it’s possible there’s a design advantage we’ve overlooked in combat. It’s worth analyzing.”
“Yes, Archon Robias.” I answer, though I’m nearly hysterical with exhaustion and …
Sweet Thayana, is that humor? In any other setting, I would be laughing right now at Robias wanting to examine my boots for combat efficiency, when I’m pretty sure the goddess designed them this way because she wanted to look pretty.
But I keep that to myself. I love these boots.
He eyes my weapons next. My scythe is strapped to my back diagonally.
I have one dagger strapped to my thigh, the other at my waist. He touches the blade of the scythe and whistles, pulling his finger back already bloodied.
“And the next time you’re scheduled for hand-to-hand combat, take your weapons to the armorer for the same purpose. ”
His eyes land on my new leather wrist cuffs with the Stormriven insignia.
I hadn’t even had time to look at them properly during wardcall, not really.
But now, under the quiet scrutiny of Robias’s attention, I finally take it all in.
Each cuff is made of dark leather but dyed subtly enough that when it catches the light, a pattern emerges—fine, swirling embossments, like wind and water caught mid-chaos.
Above the storm, an inscription of our cast’s motto—Rav’eth or all for honor—sheens in painstaking black stitches.
It’s the only piece of my uniform not gifted by Thayana. Ryot handed them to me before Leif, Kiernan, and I left for wardcall.
Robias wings up an eyebrow at the cuffs, tapping them with his quill. “He made those extraordinarily fast.” Robias raises his eyes to mine. “He must’ve started making them when you first arrived.”
At first, I almost ask who? But I realize the answer before I can open my mouth.
Ryot. He said nothing about where they’d come from, just shoved them into my hands and walked away. I assumed he’d ordered them from a tanner after I’d asked him to be my master, that someone else had spent endless hours crafting them.
But Robias’ tone says otherwise.
He walks away without another comment, his inspection complete. He calls the name of the boy behind me, but I don’t catch it.
My eyes drop to the cuffs. The stitching is artwork. They fit perfectly, as if the maker already knew the shape of me. Ryot made these. For me.
My thoughts stumble, trip, spiral into places I don’t have the time—or clarity—to explore. I should be thinking about how to overthrow a king. About what the gods want from me and what it will cost. About faravars and battle formations and blood and survival and the Kher’zenn and rebellions.
But every time I try to push my mind toward those monumental tasks, it slips. Because I’m thinking about soft, storm-marked leather cuffs made by a man who’s supposed to be my master, and might even be my enemy.
“Wardcall is dismissed,” Robias calls from the front of the courtyard. “Report to your masters for training.”
As one, the boys—men—around me click their heels and turn to file through the large columns separating the courtyard from the field beyond. I don’t manage the click with my boots quite like they do, but I do make the turn and start to file out of the courtyard behind Leif and Kiernan.
We return once more to the Stormriven training area to find Ryot, Caius, and Thalric—our masters—leaning against the columns that separate the smaller pits from the larger grounds.
Nyrica and Faelon are with them. Maybe they managed a nap while we were in wardcall, because none of them look as exhausted as the three of us.
Ryot’s arms are crossed, and he’s leaned a shoulder against one of the pillars.
Even relaxed like this, he’s intimidating.
There’s something about the stillness of him that’s measured and watchful, so that you know violence pulses under the calm.
A fresh bandage wraps his cut from the unnaming ceremony, a mirror to mine.
Nyrica brought bandages and an ointment to the training grounds last night, since we didn’t take a break.
Thalric pushes off the column he’d been propping up, standing to full height with the kind of subtle authority that makes you want to stand straighter without realizing you’ve done it.
Leif manages a tired grin. “I don’t imagine we’re getting a nap, eh?”
Thalric curls his lips up. “Do you get a nap in battle?”
Leif sighs a little, running his palm over the hilt of his sword. “What’ve you got for us today, Master Thalric?”
“The galehold,” Thalric says without hesitation.
Leif chokes on a laugh. “What? For them?” He jerks a thumb toward Kiernan and me.
“The galehold?” Kiernan echoes, eyes wide. “Now?”
“I didn’t go until my fifth month. Kiernan hasn’t even been yet , ” Leif protests. “It’s not safe until?—”