The Summons #3
Collin parted his lips to wish him luck, but the guard’s gaze cut through the air like a saber.
Fine. His mouth was desert-dry anyway.
The door shut behind Lekyi.
Silence thickened again.
Collin checked his watch. The minute hand had moved—barely. He checked it again, thirty seconds later, willing the sliver of metal to inch forward. Still barely. Time here wasn’t broken—it was warped, bending like glass left too long in the sun, curving inward toward some terrible center.
He looked around. James had his chin tipped upward, staring at the ceiling like it might blink back. Tym’s fists clutched his waistcoat so tightly the fabric strained. Their silence wasn’t passive—it was sharpened, held taut like wire.
Whatever this was, it was collective. A quiet disassembling. The kind that didn’t show up in screams or sobs, but in how breath slowed, how stillness turned violent.
The room had teeth. The air shifting like muscle. The shape of something unseen locking into place. The jaws were closing, and they were all inside the beast.
Half an hour later, the door creaked open and Lekyi stumbled back into the hall.
His shirt clung to his back with sweat, his face slick and colorless.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t so much as glance their way.
He just strode for the front doors, jaw locked, spine stiff—but something in his step faltered like he was still catching his breath.
Collin tried to read him. Nothing. A grim silence and a ghost of pain in the way he moved. God, what were they in for?
A few aching minutes later, the door opened again.
“Niall of Black Timber Forest.”
Niall threw a wink at Uriah—casual, but a hair too quick—and vanished through the sunlight.
He returned twenty minutes later, lip split and one eye blooming purple. His shirt was torn across one shoulder. Like Lekyi, he said nothing. Just passed by with a bowed head and bloody hands. Gone.
Collin’s stomach twisted in on itself. Sweat beaded at his hairline.
What in the name of the gods were they being asked to do?
Sparring, sure—but that didn’t explain the blood.
The silence. Were the guards being told to maim them?
And what of the Daughters of Venus? Delicate, unarmed girls in laced bodices—what had they walked into? What about Dragonfly?
His thoughts spiraled.
“Collin of Chroma.”
The voice cracked through the chamber like thunder.
He flinched hard. His name echoed and wrapped around him like a trap snapping shut around his foot.
This was it.
His chest seized. Heart slamming into his ribs, sweat slicking his palms, he reached for Lumen and his old bow. His knees didn’t feel like his own—more like reeds trying to fake solidity. Each step toward the doorway felt like a betrayal of self-preservation.
The door waited—a mouth about to swallow him.
Then it closed behind him with a heavy, echoing thud.
Sunlight stabbed into his face. He blinked against it, expecting a sword, a blow, a voice barking! But there was only a patch of worn grass—the schoolyard.
Captain Sol stood in the center, arms folded. Three guards leaned against the wall, utterly still. A table nearby bristled with weapons: bows, blades, a spear leaning like it had seen better days.
“Is your name Collin of Chroma, son of Jiah of White Wood?” Sol asked.
Collin’s throat closed. The man’s voice sounded colder out here, like it had absorbed the chill off steel.
“Yes,” he managed.
“What weapons do you have?”
He held them out—Lumen and the bow—without a word.
Sol took the sword. Drew it. Examined the edge with steady eyes. Then gestured. “Put your bow on the table.”
Collin obeyed. Hands jerky, too tight around the weight. He moved like he was afraid the motion itself might splinter. The ground felt unsteady beneath him—slick with scrutiny.
As he turned, a flick of movement snagged his eye. One of the guards, mouth tilted in a crooked leer—amusement, contempt. Hard to tell in the blur.
The heat came fast. It crawled up his neck, settled behind his ears. He blinked once, hard. Kept his gaze low. His gate nearly faltered. He didn’t look at the guard again, but he felt the smirk like a stamp on his skin.
He swallowed. Not because he wanted to. Because the fire in his throat didn’t know where else to go.
Sol returned the sword to him—no sheath.
“Center of the yard. Show me what you can do.”
Collin held Lumen like a lifeline. The grip was familiar—the way the hilt settled against the curve of his hand, the slight give where his fingers curled around leather worn smooth.
It didn’t stop the tremor entirely. But the weight answered him.
Solid. Present. Real, in a way so few things felt lately.
He walked to the center. Waited. No further instructions came.
His mind sprinted in circles. Fight? Demonstrate forms? Stances? Polishing techniques?
Fine.
He took a deep breath and moved into the motions Grandfather had once taught him. The blade sliced elegant arcs through the air—figure eights, spirals, pivots. He moved with focus, letting the rhythm guide him. A dance of control. A performance for judgment.
He stopped, breath coming too fast, chest rising.
Sol didn’t respond. Just motioned.
One of the guards peeled off the wall. Bare-chested. Mountain-sized. Muscles stacked on muscles. He selected a blade—massive, brutal—and walked to face Collin.
“Do not hold back,” Sol called out.
Who was the order for?
No time to ask.
The first blow came without warning. Steel on steel. Sparks.
Collin reeled back, stumbling, barely blocking in time.
Another strike.
Then another.
Then another.
No breath between them. No room to move. No chance to think.
His instincts clawed upward, and he latched on, parrying, spinning, bracing. Lumen shook with every impact.
“I said don’t hold back, Colter!” Sol roared at the guard.
“Fight, boy! Show me what you can do!”
I’m trying! Collin wanted to scream—but he couldn’t spare the breath.
Colter drove him backward with terrifying ease. Every step Collin took was dictated by the man’s assault. He had no room to counter.
He couldn’t see an opening. There was none.
Sweat poured into his eyes. His arms were burning. His ribs ached. His fingers felt raw from the hilt. He was being pushed around the yard like a leaf caught in a gale.
Over and over, Colter came at him. Slam, parry, retreat. Slam, parry, stumble. Collin barely avoided the fence—twice.
And then—
Pain.
A burst of fire below his shoulder. A raw cry tore from his throat. Lumen slipped.
Collin barely caught himself before hitting the ground—but the hilt of Colter’s blade smashed into his chest. Air whooshed out of his lungs. He hit the ground hard, his sword skittering from reach.
And then—cold steel pressed against his neck.
Collin froze.
His heart was still racing. His limbs trembling. Chest throbbing.
“You have good skills,” Sol said calmly, “but you need better discipline.”
The captain motioned.
The guard backed off.
“If that had been a real fight... you’d be dead,” Sol said.
Collin shoved himself upright. Breath tore through his chest, ragged and uneven, the air thick with sweat and acid. His vision swam—not from pain, but the burn of fury unraveling fast beneath his skin.
His gaze locked on Colter’s back, a silent snarl beneath his eyes. Heat pulsed at his temples, curled tight in his chest. He swiped at his brow—quick, careless.
“On your feet!”
The command cracked through him like a slap. What now? His limbs protested as he scrambled upright, fingers stiff with exhaustion as he retrieved Lumen. His face stung where the blood had smeared. Wet. Sticky. Great. Now he looked as defeated as he felt.
Sol didn’t so much as glance at the gash on his arm.
“Go get your bow.”
Collin didn’t hide his sigh. Of course. Why stop at one humiliation?
He stomped to the table, every step dragging.
The old bow lay where he’d left it—weathered, splintered at the grip.
Barely serviceable. He picked it up anyway, shoulders aching.
He selected a few light flint-tipped arrows.
It didn’t matter. He hadn’t practiced for this.
Bowwork wasn’t his strength. He mostly used it for setting traps or keeping wild dogs off meat stores.
If he couldn’t hold his own with a sword, what chance did he have here?
He returned to the yard’s center. A target had been set up—round, white, a tiny red eye staring back like an unblinking omen.
Sol gave no instruction. Just one raised eyebrow, carved deep into a face forged from stone.
Alright then.
Collin loaded an arrow with shaking fingers. The string felt foreign today, unfamiliar. He drew back, squinting. His arms trembled from fatigue, from pain, from humiliation he couldn’t shake off. He released.
Thwack.
Half an inch off the center.
Damn. Close wasn’t good enough. Not here. Not today.
He gritted his teeth and glanced at Sol, waiting for judgement.
The captain didn’t respond. Instead, he retrieved a lumpy sack, thickly bound with a rope knot at the end. A practice dummy—filled with straw. Without a word, Sol began swinging it over his head.
Collin came alive all at once. No thought, just motion. A moving target. This—this he could do. Like hunting.
He reloaded in a blur. As the sack arced high into the sunlit air, he released.
The arrow ripped through the center. Straw exploded, golden motes raining across the grass.
His chest heaved. He looked to Sol.
The faintest hint of a smile curled the corner of the old captain’s mouth—but it twisted unnervingly against the hardened lines of his face, like something old learning how to grin.
“You are excused.”
Collin didn’t wait to be told twice.
He rushed to the table, snatched up Lumen, and headed toward the hall door.
But the guard blocked his path, eyes like chipped stone. “Keep your mouth shut. Move.”
Collin nodded quickly, breath rasping. The door opened into cool dimness. His vision swam. His friends—still waiting, wide-eyed—and did what the others had done.
He ran.
Straight through the hall, past the silence that felt like pressure—thick, watchful. Each step pulled at something raw beneath his skin, an echo he couldn’t shake.
The doors loomed ahead. Heavy. Ornate. Indifferent.
Now he understood. It wasn’t just the order to keep quiet. It was how it stripped him down. Left him open. The shame didn’t roar—it whispered. Crawled. Settled in his gait, in the hitch of his breath, in the blood tacky at his temple.
He crossed the square.
The steward barely looked up. “Name?”
“Collin of Chroma,” he said, breath still short.
The steward rifled through a stack of papers. “Return at noon, second of May for your results.” He slapped the letter into Collin’s hand.
Collin turned to leave.
“Bring your weapons with you,” the steward called loudly.
Collin froze. His heart stuttered. “My weapons?”
“You may be required to be assessed again,” came the gruff reply.
Collin didn’t answer. He didn’t have words left.
He thought about waiting for the others—but he was too wrung out to make conversation, too bruised to offer comfort or ask for any. Besides, no one else had stayed.
He trudged toward home, pain blooming with every step. By the time he reached his road, a single thought looped in his mind—
What would tomorrow bring—and who amongst them would still have something left to give?