Hand Selected
The moon hung like a curved dagger over the meadow, casting only the faintest sliver of silver across the grass.
It wasn’t enough to soften the night—just enough to carve shadows.
The fire burned low, its light flickering and cruel, etching sharp, distorted patterns across the tired faces of Collin’s friends.
No one spoke above a murmur. No one laughed.
They were all exhausted from the pressure of the day, coiled tight around their spines and hearts. Sleep sat on the far edge of possibility, distant and indifferent, so they gathered in the cold hush of Collin’s front yard, sitting in the safety between flame and fence.
Lekyi was recounting his dismal performance, his voice low and monotonous, an attempt at levity that faltered in the gravity of the hour.
Collin leaned his head against the worn fencepost behind him, its wood cool against his scalp. He was only half listening. The words drifted past, thin and weightless, like smoke from the dying fire.
His hand skimmed the tops of the tall grass, fingertips brushing seedheads damp with night dew. Insects, drawn by the warmth and light, hurled themselves into the flames—tiny bodies snapping into sparks, their wings vanishing in whispered puffs of smoke. He watched them burn without flinching.
Across the flickering fire, his gaze found Dragonfly.
She sat cross-legged in the grass, angled just enough to seem removed from the group though she hadn’t moved away.
One elbow rested on her knee, chin balanced in the crook of her hand.
Her hair spilled in loose, flaxen waves, catching the firelight only faintly before falling back into shadow.
The strands draped across half her face like a curtain, obscuring her expression, but not hiding the heaviness in her shoulders.
Collin studied her quietly. The way her shoulders rounded ever so slightly inward. The way she never once looked up.
He waited—still, patient—for her to meet his eyes. But she didn’t. Not once.
Was she listening to Lekyi, or was she, like him, wasn’t hearing much at all? She stared into the fire with an intensity that suggested she was seeing something else entirely.
Lekyi groaned dramatically, slumping deeper into Dinah’s side as though the blanket over their laps could shield him from the memory.
She stroked his arm with the kind of sympathy reserved for small children and dying men.
“I tried to fight back,” he declared, a hand rising briefly for emphasis.
“I tried everything. But I was dismantled like I’d never touched a sword in my life.
I think they let me land one hit out of pity. ”
Uriah shoved an entire ball of goat cheese into his mouth without ceremony. “I have never been so humiliated.” The words came out muffled and bleak, as if the cheese itself had taken offense on his behalf.
“I wish they’d given us warning,” Nic muttered.
He sat a little straighter, arms wrapped tightly around Helen, who rested her head against his shoulder.
“Time to prepare. A vague notion that we were about to be publicly humiliated.” He gestured vaguely.
“Something. One of those guards looked like he fought bears for sport.”
“Maybe they just wanted entertainment,” Lekyi said.
“Oh, it was entertainment,” Niall added grimly. His lip was twice its usual size and every syllable made him wince. “I heard actual laughter when I got kicked in the face.”
Uriah squinted toward the girls. “What did they make you do?”
Dinah glanced up from the fire. “Just targets. I didn’t have to fight anyone. Thank the stars.”
Aries grimaced. “I imagine it wouldn’t look great, pitting men against girls.”
Clive turned toward Helen. “What about you?”
Helen blushed, but didn’t lift her head from where it rested on Nic’s shoulder. Her voice was soft and shy. “Some moving targets. A few stationary ones.”
Nic looked around at the others, his voice deceptively calm. “If she'd been made to fight a guard, I’d have personally found whoever planned it and made sure they were the target instead.” He didn’t smile, and no one questioned whether he meant it.
River let out a noise of despair. “They should’ve evaluated me with the girls. I was flattened in five seconds. I don’t even know if I got a score or just... pity.”
Clive patted him on the back, his mouth twitching. “You’re a doctor, River. You’re not supposed to fight.”
“Yeah, Riv,” Nic said, “You’re supposed to sigh dramatically over our wounds and send us back into the fray wrapped in linen and guilt.”
Lekyi nodded, eyes half-lidded. “I’d take a cracked rib over that assessment any day.”
Aries groaned loudly. “Don’t tempt fate.”
Nic leaned back against the tree and let out a slow breath. His lips twisted faintly—not quite a smile. “Well,” he said, voice rasping like scorched bark, “if this is their idea of evaluation, I can’t wait to see what punishment looks like.”
“I wish I had been summoned,” Arion said glumly, offering the plate of cheese to Nic.
Nic didn’t take it. He just stared at Arion like he’d grown a second head.
So did everyone else.
“What?” Arion asked, blinking under the collective glare. “I just wondered how I would’ve done. That’s all.”
“Oh, beautifully, I’m sure,” Nic muttered darkly. “Nothing steadies the sword hand like curiosity and hindsight.”
Uriah groaned and flopped back onto the grass. “All those hours we spent practicing, and for what? I’ve seen less violence in a bar brawl.”
“Maybe we were too gentle with each other in practice,” Clive offered. “My opponent didn’t seem concerned about sparing my ribs.”
“I never held back when we practice,” Nic said with a smirk. He tugged playfully at the ivory ribbon at the back of Helen’s head, sending curls tumbling down her shoulders. She yelped and reached for it, but Nic dropped back into the grass theatrically. “When I fight, I fight to win!”
Lekyi made a show of grimacing. “Remind me never to let you near a hairbrush.”
Dinah giggled, and Clive, reaching for another piece of bread, turned toward the quiet corner of the circle. “What about you, Collin? How did your assessment go?”
There was a pause.
Collin didn’t answer.
He sat staring into the fire, one hand listlessly rolling a peppered cheese ball between his fingers. “Say again?”
Clive glanced toward him, but before he could repeat the question, Nic spoke up lightly, “He’s probably too heroic to brag. Likely bested three guards and wooed a princess mid-swing.”
Laughter rolled through the friends, and Collin glanced up with a half-hearted grin.
“Still,” Lekyi said thoughtfully, “I wonder what their secret is.”
“To what?” Aries asked as he refilled his cider.
“Their muscles,” Lekyi said. “All of them look like they were chiseled from stone.”
“You’re the one apprenticed to the stewards,” Niall snapped. “If you don’t know, we’re all doomed.”
Nic snorted. “If the guards stub a toe, three medics swarm them with bandages and inspirational quotes. Meanwhile, we’re over here stitching ourselves up with fishing line.”
“There’s no mystery,” River said, waving a dismissive hand. “They train six days a week and eat like kings.”
“Anyway, I think I held my own against that brute I fought,” Nic added, stretching luxuriously. “What was his name again? Morr? Moron?”
“Morrison,” Aries confirmed, smirking. “Big, dumb, and out of breath. You had him running in circles while barely sweating. Honestly, it was the most fun I’ve had all week watching you wear him out like a winded ox.”
Helen beamed, clearly unfazed by the inflated ego beside her. Nic kissed her hair.
Collin looked away. Even in the wreckage of the day, Nic had someone to lean on, and somehow, that made the day feel sharper.
“You didn’t do so badly yourself,” said Nic.
Aries lit up. “Thanks!
River shook his head as Clive offered him the cheese plate. “They made me go after you two. I looked like a lost apprentice on his first day.”
Aries clapped a hand to his heart. “Timing, my friend. It’s all in the order of the spectacle. I think Eric would’ve been more impressed if I’d gone before Nic. Not that you weren’t good, brother—but I was better.”
Nic threw his head back with laughter. “Keep dreaming.”
“You shouldn’t brag,” Hadria scolded gently, tousling Aries’s hair. But even she couldn’t hide her pride.
The fire crackled. For a moment, the laughter softened the heaviness clinging to the edge of the night—but it didn’t burn it away.
Arion’s voice cut clean through the din of laughter and shameless boasting. “What did you have to do in the assessment, Dragonfly?”
Collin blinked, his attention yanked from the fire, His focus wavered—scattered like embers, drawn toward Dragonfly’s shadowed profile.
She rubbed her wrist absently, her expression unreadable and closed. “I had to demonstrate my skill with a sword,” she murmured. “I did... poorly. Captain Kyle said my grandfather’s sword is too heavy for me.”
“You can use one of mine,” Arion offered without hesitation. “If they make you do it again.”
Collin watched her smile at him. It was soft. Familiar. Too familiar.
“I don’t believe I’ll need to,” she replied. “Captain Kyle said I should’ve left the sword at home.”
That smile lingered just long enough to twist the knot already inside Collin’s chest. The sound around him dulled—Aries’s laughter thinning into background noise, Nic’s sarcasm scattering in pieces he couldn’t hold onto.
She and Arion had shared a home, the two of them.
For six months in White Wood. Daily routines, shared breakfasts, chores, silences.
What could have grown in such small, private spaces?
Collin imagined them by the kitchen window, sunlight in her hair, dust motes drifting in the air between them—and the thought made his stomach knot.
He hated himself for the jealousy boiling through his veins. Dragonfly wasn’t his. He had no claim, no place to feel anything at all. And yet there it was—bitterness biting in the pit of his stomach.