3. Raya
RAYA
“The fire burned for hours and yet touched nothing but the enemies surrounding us.”
- AN ANONYMOUS ACCOUNT FROM THE SAGE GUARD. THE DAY OF THE FOOTHILL’S AMBUSH.
Covered in snow and ice, the Foothills could never be our home. It would never be a place to feel truly safe or calm. I supposed that is why they trained us here, to create warriors that did not balk from fear. Despite my first impression of the magnificent building, I realized the realities were much colder.
Snow frosted the grass into stiff peaks that jabbed my palms, and running on icy cobble stones brought on blisters and bruises. During the day, my body ached painfully from our grueling exercises and at night, my mind longed for restful sleep.
But it was too quiet.
Sharing a home with up to twenty other children all at once, with most of them being younger, did not make for a quiet, peaceful home. When living at Matron’s, Alias and I would take trips to the tall grass of our field and wish for peace and quiet. Now all I wished for was company instead of silent nights and endless space.
When I finally dropped into sleep my mind conjured up nightmares. They were fuzzy and out of focus, as though someone had dipped them in water. They were all, in many ways, showing me the same thing.
Everyone around me was dead or dying, I couldn’t breathe for the scent of blood. The Earth was cloaked in darkness and the sun dared not to rise. My feet would not move, and my body was slack. I felt my insides roar and scream, louder than they ever had before. Louder than they did on that Gods forsaken day all those years ago.
But I could do nothing, for I did not know how.
“If he speaks another word to me,” Alias leaned over and whispered to me during breakfast, “I’ll be forced to kill him.” The sound of Alias’s voice pulled me from my daydreams and into the real world.
But the darkness still lingered.
“Are you quite alright, Raya?” he asked, nudging my shoulder with his hand. I forced a smile.
“Yes, fine. Just not getting much sleep,” I said, yawning for emphasis. “Anyway, who are you going to kill?” I asked with a smile.
“Opal. You know the asshole you punched in the face?” Alias raised a brow.
“Hmm,” I fake pondered for a moment, “No, sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The side of his mouth curled up.
“Why are you going to kill him?” I asked, pushing my porridge around the bowl.
“He stabbed me,” Alias said calmly, as if describing a pony he had seen in the forest.
“What?!” I choked on my porridge.
“Yep, stabbed me! Right here!” Alias laughed as he lifted his shirt to show me his abdomen. An angry, red scratch sat in the middle of his stomach. I looked at it carefully, it was a nasty scratch, caused by hand-to-hand combat, probably a dagger, but it was a scratch, not a stab wound.
“So, you’re planning on killing him… because he nicked you with his dagger?” My tone was light and mocking. He began to argue but after looking down at himself, he stopped.
“Yes, I am going to kill him because he nicked me with his dagger.” He smiled as he spoke and I couldn’t help but mirror his expression.
“I suppose you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do, kill him.” I shrugged. “I’ll help,” I joked, laughing into my bland porridge.
“Anyway, how was training yesterday?” Alias asked, looking up from his dry toast.
I paused briefly, wondering if he had already heard and wanted to hear me admit it. I huffed a sigh.
“It was fine, you know training. We run, we fight, we conquer the world…” I trailed off, shoving a mouthful of porridge into my mouth.
“Yes, same for me too. Although I thought I heard something about a tall girl breaking a red-head’s wrist?” he teased.
“I did not break it!” I said defensively. Alias stared at me with a grin. “Well, not on purpose!” I sighed dramatically and looked up at Alias.
“The only truthful thing about that statement is that I am tall. And she was a red-head,” I said. Alias rolled his eyes.
“Who knew you were so lethal?” Alias asked.
“Maybe you were just slowing me down,” I joked. “To be honest, I’m glad to be rid of you!”
“Glad to be rid of me?” Alias countered softly. “I was getting bored of handing you your ass every day on the sparring mat.” He winked, and I faked a shocked expression.
“In your dreams, Alias,” I muttered, using my spoon as a catapult to fling porridge at him but he ducked, and a pregnant pause sat between us.
“You could never be rid of me, Raya. I’m not going anywhere,” Alias whispered softly. I smiled but it didn’t quite reach my eyes. The sound of one hundred other people eating and talking poured in from around us, enveloping us.
“Matron did not raise us to be weak.” My words were hard. “The red-head and I were sparring, and I broke her wrist,” I said nonchalantly. “I’ve done worse to you.” I stood up from the table and ruffled his hair roughly, knowing exactly how long it had taken him to style it.
Alias smiled fondly, before stuffing burnt toast into his mouth.
“Hey,” a female voice called from behind me as I wondered slowly to my shared room a few moments later.
I turned and sucked in a breath; it was the red-head from the fight. My eyes darted to the small array of bandages on her wrist.
“Hey,” I replied. “Look, I am sorry about your wrist,” I began, tucking my hair behind my ears. She looked confused for a moment as though she had forgotten all about it.
“Oh, don’t worry about that, accidents happen, right?” She smiled brightly and I nodded awkwardly.
It was not an accident. She bit me during our fight. Bit me! Did she really think I would let her get away with it?
“I was actually wanting to ask you a question.” Her voice cut through my thoughts, and I raised an eyebrow. “About your friend… Alias?”
My mind paused for a moment. Questions? About Alias?
“Ask away,” I muttered, looked down at my standard issue trousers and boots.
“Are you two…? Well, are the two of you… a couple?” the girl stammered and ended with a smile. I choked on a laugh.
The thought had never crossed my mind. Alias was my best friend. I couldn’t imagine him as anything more.
But then I thought of our fields of wildflowers and our home with Matron Clara. I thought of the way he always made me smile. I thought of how I dreamed my life would be, and he was always there, his strong arms and lovely face. I wasn’t sure how I felt because I had never let myself so much as daydream about it. We were family, the only family each other had. I could not risk that. I would not risk that.
“No. Alias and I are not… together. But he is my best friend, he is my family,” I responded, finally able to find the words.
“Okay.” She narrowed her eyes slightly, as if not quite believing me. “Thanks.” A few tense seconds passed slowly. “It’s not me who’s asking, by the way, Alias is great to look at and all but… he’s not really my type.” The girl smiled and walked away.
“As you know,” Captain Jala’s voice boomed across the crowded room, “Next week you will be sent on your first mission across the battle lines.”
I glanced across the room and locked eyes with Alias, he smiled uneasily. We had been training relentlessly for three months. My tall body now lean and corded with muscle.
“These tasks may be supply runs to our safe houses in the battle field, weapon distribution, or intel collection. Each group of six will be provided with a seasoned leader and the necessary tech for the job.”
My palms began to sweat as Jala’s words slithered from my ears, into my brain, then down my back.
“You will all be tested on your ability to work as a team in the field. These missions will be dangerous, and it is likely you may be harmed if you are not careful.”
I glanced at Alias again and he pulled an exaggerated fearsome face, making me smile.
“But this is war, and you are soldiers. We have trained you for this.” Her words were curt and lacked empathy. She strode from the podium and out of the door.
A small, plump man waddled to the podium once she was gone, pulling a list from his clipboard.
“Group one… intel,” he began, and I realized that these were our groups for the missions.
Fear overtook me in one sharp sweep and my knees began to shake. Anxiety reared its ugly head within me, and panic spread around my chest. The night I lost my mother flashed behind my closed eyes. Alias would be sent out on mission, into Goddess knows where. He could be captured, killed by the savage Sorcerers. I couldn’t stand to lose anyone else, not after I had lost so much already.
“Pullman, Gracie, Lucy, Gen, Adria, Fordo.” The squat man took a deep breath. “Group two… supply run.” He took a large, bored intake of breath once more. “Alias…” My ears pricked up at the sound of my best friend’s name.
“Opal, Lea, Kida, Lexa, Raya.”
Relief pressed down on me so fiercely I thought I might pass out. I could almost feel Alias’s excitement from across the room. The rest of the groups and names were rattled off in a series of minutes, but I couldn’t hear them. Despite Alias being on the mission with me, the anxiety would not stop running through my veins.
I could not be any less then exceptional on this supply run. I could not lose Alias on this supply run. There was no telling what was going to happen out in the field.
The plump man excused us, and I ran from the building into the icy fresh air. The grassy land around us had become my safe heaven. The place I was so keen to be rid of had somehow become the only safe place in a land of such destruction. All of a sudden, my lungs were no longer big enough for me to inhale the air I needed.
“I know that face.” Alias sauntered up to me with a smile.
His smile soon dropped as I turned to face him.
“Raya, are you alright?”
“I… don’t know I-I’m having… trouble breathing,” I gasped between short breaths. The empty land surrounding the Foothills became smaller and my back began to sweat. I keeled over, resting my hands on my knees.
“Make it stop,” I whispered into the cool air.
“Raya, we’re prepared for this. I am here and you are too. Imagine everything else is simply melting away. This feeling, it doesn’t control you,” Alias began the same speech he always gave me when I felt this way.
His words were calming but they did not stop my legs and arms from shaking, rattling as though something inside them begged to break free. I was a trained warrior, prepared to kill and fight until my last breath with flinching. I had bested everyone in Matron’s barrack, won countless fights here already, but the thought of Alias leaving on a supply run had the ability to break me? It didn’t make sense. I breathed quickly at first but then slower as the seconds turned to minutes and my palms stopped sweating. On shaking legs, I stood to my full height and sighed. Alias swiped the sweat-soaked hair from my forehead and smiled softly.
“There, easy,” he joked, and I choked on a laugh.
“Uh huh, so easy,” I said as he rested his arm over my shoulders and guided us toward our rooms.
Safely tucked beneath Alias’s arm, I sent a quick prayer to Astrid, the Goddess of Strength, and decided the darkening clouds above were not an omen of our oncoming mission.
My mother would have disagreed.
“Again,” our captain barked after each pull up.
My muscles screamed at me, feeling as though my body might split in half. Sweat stung my eyes and soaked into my hair. The training was grueling and brutal.
We woke before the sun and finished long after it had returned to its slumber. I had expected this, but I had not been prepared.
I heaved my body up to the bar again, ignoring the captain as he reached up and tugged on my foot, my breathing heaved and my blood boiled.
“Stay there, Orphan, if you drop you’ll be doing pull ups until you die.” His grip, although soft, felt as though it was breaking every bone in my body, and my heart hammered so hard I thought it was going to explode. He removed his grip with a smug smile and moved. “Alright, troops, rest,” his voice boomed, and the entire group fell to the floor at the same moment.
My muscles echoed the pain over and over again. I was getting stronger, there was no doubt about it, however, my mind was becoming more uneasy, food made me nauseous, and hunger made me want to die.
Sleep was welcomed but always plagued with hideous nightmares. Most nights I ran and ran and ran around the track, narrowly avoiding the snow, until my body couldn’t physically run any longer, and only then did I have deep, dreamless sleep.
The days seemed to ebb and flow and merge into each other. Every day the same, come rain or in shine.
I stood in the training center one morning, my eyes fighting exhaustion when the captain strode in confidently, a spring in his step.
“Pair up.” His voice was loud and ugly. “Now!”
I edged toward the nearest person, a boy around my height with almost white hair. People did not make friends here; we could have done all of our training together but, to me, he was a complete stranger.
I dipped my head in a nod, and he repeated the gesture. Today we were fighting; it was supposed to be training but everyone here was playing against each other.
My life here was a competition.
And I was losing.
My body was so tired, and it felt so weak. Nightmares clung to my skin like the sun and each day chipped away at my hope for a better life. I found myself longing for Matron’s overbaked pies and the smell of burning bread. Matron was born to protect the weak and the ones who could not protect themselves.
She was a terrible cook, but we forgave her for it because she loved us when our parents could not