Chapter 14 #2
Days are for stealing seconds when I’m cleaning random classrooms to read through the books I’d be beaten for touching. I’ve been careful to keep on the lookout for Evie but so far, the pretty girl hasn’t made a repeat appearance.
It works in my favor.
Next time, she might not have Kieran with her to stop her from slapping me again. And I might not have an audience to keep me from thrashing her within an inch of her life. I call it a winning situation for us both.
I push up on my hands, arching my back, before shifting into a low pushup.
The stretches clear my mind before I hop up and widen my legs. The anger which is always present drops to a low simmer, Mom’s necklace heavy around my neck.
The sapphire is a constant reminder.
And the second I tune into its presence, the second I recognize the weight, my eyes burn.
If Elspeth caught me crying, she’d laugh, which only made me angrier than when I started.
She’d say something like “little Morgi has no way to control her emotions. She might be furious, but she’ll end up sobbing instead.”
I hear her voice in my head, and the tears let loose, dripping onto the mat. Her voice is clear as day in my head, which is the only place I’ll ever hear it again, until eventually even the memories fade.
I’ll have a hard time recalling the specific contours of her taunts or the gleam of manic energy in her eyes.
I force my way through the movements, through the languid arm circles and stances designed to test my balance.
I’d give everything for Elspeth to be here. For her and Mother to have brought me to DragonSpear themselves and the three of us engage in one of those awfully embarrassing goodbyes where no one wants to admit they’ll miss the other.
They’d have the proverbial stiff upper lip, and I’d make some off color joke about how Elspeth wishes she were accepted, too.
Then she’d tell me I’m ridiculous.
My newfound determination to train flickers, ebbs, and leaves me carved out. I drop to my knees, and the sobs erupt, heavier and louder than safety dictates. There’s no stopping them. There’s no more holding out against a mountain of grief. I’ve done my best for as long as I can.
“I should have been there with you.” My voice is wet, my throat clogged.
I sniff and wipe the tears away, but new ones take their place. “I should have died with you.”
Survivor’s guilt is just as awful as grief. If I’d been chosen by a unicorn, then I’d be dead, and none of this would matter. I wouldn’t have to sneak out in the middle of the night to train myself. I wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that I’m alone.
There is no one left.
There’s only me, in this terrible place, where I’m forbidden from reading.
Where I have to force myself into a state of exhaustion every night to do something, to stop being so blasted helpless. I miss my sister. I miss my mother, more than I ever thought I would.
Mother’s face flickers in my head and a fresh wave of tears scalds me inside and out.
The training channels my grief into purpose. Into power.
Get up and become someone they’ll regret underestimating.
It’s my own voice screaming at me to stop being helpless. There’s a time and a place for everything in this world and right now, breaking down doesn’t get me closer to my end goal.
Sniffling, I draw the sobs back into my body and rise.
I’ll lose my cool when I’ve brought down the general and made him pay for every inch of pain he’s inflicted on me. For what he did to my family and my village.
When it’s done, I’ll sink into a sorrow so deep I may never recover. Unable to breathe through my clogged nose, I resume my movements, slower than before.
Until that day, I’ll forge myself into a weapon they never saw coming.
Willpower and rage are the only two things capable of drying the tears.
The following night, I force my body through another series of warm up exercises, from my stomach to the tips of my toes, before moving through combat forms. I work through combinations my mother taught me, then flow into the sequences Elspeth drilled into me.
Each punch, each block, each pivot, muscle memory fights against the tremor in my hands.
The stronger I get, the less of a chance I’ll fall to my enemies.
The mantra plays in my head on repeat.
Who needs a mount?
Mounts die the same way humans do, like my mother did. Flames spare nothing and no one and eat up the land until there is only dust left. Maybe a new world will rise from it or maybe not.
It’s not up to me to figure it out.
When my muscles are limp and the moon has arced across the sky, I end the final sequence and drop my guard. Sweat drips from my brow down to the corner of my mouth with the same salty tang as my tears. My stomach gives a low rumble.
There’s still hours until sunrise. I’ve always been good at getting by with little sleep, or maybe I just know how to suffer well.
It’s a gift.
The door to the private gym closes softly behind me and the coolness of the hallways quickly turns my sweat soaked skin tacky.
It’s harder to navigate without the proper light but the windows are ample, the stars shining even if no one is awake to see them.
I slink along the main passageways of the castle past wooden doors leading to classrooms or the wild mountainside beyond.
A few twists and turns take me to the same classroom I’d cleaned last week and the book I’d had no choice but to replace on the shelves.
The door is locked.
It’s never been locked before.
Frustration rises, sliding like sand against my nerves.
I glance over my shoulder to both sides out of instinct and twist the knob hard but it refuses to budge. Kicking it in will draw a crowd. Chewing on the inside of my lips, I grab a pin from my hair, keeping my bangs out of my face while I work out.
This was Elspeth’s deal, not mine.
She could pick a lock faster than most people could draw a breath. She was a master of most things mechanical and many of the hinges on the unicorns’ armor came straight from her imagination.
Many nights she and the armorer worked with the blacksmith to make more durable, flexible, strong armor for our herd.
I’m a bumbling fool in comparison. My fingers are fat and the movements unrefined as I twist the pin, listening for the whisper soft clank of the lock twisting.