Chapter 6
Six
Swords and Tension
Rough blankets were torn off me, and the embrace of the early morning air enveloped my body. I tried to grab them and yank them back over me, but my fingers came up empty. I groaned, struggling to open my eyes against the haze of sleep.
“Rise and shine, initiates!”
My eyes snapped open to the dim torchlight.
Orin paced the length of the barracks, all sharp angles and severity, while the others laced boots and buckled themselves into grey uniforms.
His gaze softened when it landed on me, just for a breath, and it made my chest ache with the memory of before. But the warmth vanished as quickly as it came, his face shuttering into the cold mask of a sergeant. The mask of a stranger.
“Welcome to your first day in the Iron Guard. Get dressed, initiate.” I glared up at him, not used to hearing him speak to me with such bite in his voice.
“I can’t wait,” I said, voice seething with sarcasm and snatching the folded uniform from my nightstand. Why would the Gods spare me from drowning for this?
Kragthorne had said the Iron Guard was where fear is forged into obedience. I hated being told what to do.
I slid the stiff material of my pants on under my nightgown, stopping to frown at a band of material that sat on top of my tunic.
I was used to getting dressed by maids, shoved into corsets, silks, and jewels. Made to gleam for the court. Not whatever this was.
I cast a glance over my shoulder. Dreya was tying her boots on the bunk next to me, indifferent.
With one swift movement, I yanked the fabric over my head, hugging it to my chest.
The angry silver lines of punishments were laid bare beneath the dim torchlight.
I picked up the long piece of fabric and tried to wrap it around my breasts, fumbling with the material. I cursed under my breath as the material slipped.
“Here. Lift your arms.” Dreya’s voice came from behind me and I stilled. My eyes slammed shut against the panic. This close, she would be able to see every echo of pain etched into me. Please don’t ask about my scars.
Hesitantly, I lifted my arms. Her fingers moved with practiced ease, binding me in firm, even pulls. It wasn’t cruel like a corset. It felt purposeful. Strong.
She pulled harder and I gasped, adjusting to the way it squeezed air from my lungs. Dreya huffed a laugh.
“Lyra?”
The sound of my name spoken softly turned me rigid. Riven stood a few paces away, grey eyes churning like storm clouds as they traced the scars across my skin. He looked haunted.
Cold sweat prickled down my spine. My stomach knotted. I clutched the tunic to my chest as dizziness threatened to pull me under. No. No. No.
“What happened to you?”
The air thinned. A dull ringing swallowed the world. My chest seized against the binder as memories coiled around me like inescapable chains, ready to drag me under the surface of sanity.
“Shut up,” Dreya muttered to him, but she sounded far away. The priest’s voice slithered through my memories, haunting me from beyond the grave.
You’re evil. I’m doing this to fix you. My cherished. Let me fix you.
“None of your fucking business,” I snapped towards Riven, my voice too sharp.
Too frayed. I kept my eyes fixed on the ground, but it did nothing to dull the pressure of his gaze pressing into me as I shouldered past him.
My hands curled at my sides, fingers tightening until my nails bit into my palms. The image of them closing around his throat flashing through my mind. The urge spiked, sudden and ugly.
Run.
The voice echoed through my head, low and insistent. Not the priest. But the one that belonged to my curse. My darkness.
Run. Run. Run.
My jaw clenched. My vision tunnelled. For a heartbeat, I wanted blood on my hands. I wanted to give in to the primal urge I had to end an innocent’s life. Riven’s life.
Slit his throat and drown him in the blood that spills from his body.
“Stop!” I shouted, the word tearing out of me as I shoved my hands through my hair.
I gripped the strands as though I could rip the voices free along with it.
My pulse thundered. My muscles coiled, ready to lash out.
I turned before I could act, shoving past Riven and the stunned stares of the squad.
I yanked the door open and slammed it behind me, the impact rattling the frame as I staggered into the empty hallway, breath coming hard and fast. The stone was cold against my back as I pressed myself into it, fingers re-tangling in my hair.
The ringing in my ears drowned out the world, leaving me alone with the darkness in my heart.
My hands trembled as I forced myself upright, counting my breaths to calm my racing heart.
The door creaked open and Orin’s large build filled the doorway. His arms were crossed, and his gaze cut into me with warning, but there was a softness there. Reminding me of the man who was once mine.
“You can’t do that here, Lyra, they kill things they can’t control.”
“Good,” I sighed, leaning my head back against the wall and closing my eyes. Death is all that was left for me.
He was suddenly close enough to me that I could feel the heat of his body, his face inches away from mine.
“Not good, Princess. I’d be the one who’d have to kill you, and the rules are something I will not bend. Even for you.”
His hands wrapped around my shoulders, holding me in place as he leant his forehead against mine. For a quiet moment, I let myself melt against his touch.
“Do it then,” I begged quietly, opening my eyes to meet irises as green as the forests the Gods stole from us, before they froze them bare and left only ruin behind.
“No,” he whispered, pushing my hair behind my ear with a tender brush of his fingers. “Promise me you will try to stay in line.”
The door to our quarters opened. The hallway filled with initiates as the other doors slammed open.
Orin stepped away, putting distance between us, and I breathed out in relief.
At least I didn’t have to lie to him. The cold claimed the space he left behind, and my chest tightened with a longing I could not afford.
I followed my squad, and the truth sank deeper into my stomach.
I had swapped one cage for another. Dawn was little more than a bruise behind the thick, oppressive clouds that never cleared as we walked into the training pits.
My breath misted in front of my face as I kept my eyes down, not wanting to see the judgment in the gazes I could feel on me.
No one spoke. The only sound was boots crunching against iced cobblestone and the comforting roar of waves.
The Dead Sea battered the rocks nearby, each hollow crash of the waves echoing up the cliff from the beach where we had washed ashore last night.
A hand rested on my shoulder, and I jumped.
Bohdi smiled down at me, his eyes an endless blue filled with nothing but kindness. A look I was not used to seeing.
“The past can only touch you if you let it,” he said. The words slipped past my defences like salt in an open wound, stinging and soothing all at once. My throat tightened, but no sound came. I only stared up at him, afraid that if I spoke, the cracks would show.
Orin shoved Bohdi aside, breaking his contact with my shoulder and asserting himself next to me.
“Don’t make our squad look weak out there today,” Orin addressed everyone, but his eyes stayed on me.
“You will be assessed from the moment training begins. And you are a reflection on Orin now, which is why he is so uptight,” Bohdi said with a smile that Orin glared at.
“Initiates!” Commander Kragthorne enhanced his voice to boom as though he was yelling directly into each of our ears. Orin and Bohdi walked towards the other Iron Guards lining the edge of the pits.
“Welcome to the first day of training. Some of you won’t make it out of the pits, but that is the Gods’ grace. The weak will be broken.”
A steely-looking woman with a greying dark braid and frown lines stepped up beside Commander Kragthorne. No one dared to speak.
“I am Captain Bronwyn. It is my job to turn you pathetic initiates into Iron Guards,” she barked. “You will grow faster, stronger and grow your Sanctum by my training. Now run! Laps around the barracks until I say stop.”
For one suspended heartbeat, the world held still. Then the first initiates stumbled into motion, their boots crunching over ice. The sound jolted me, and my body obeyed before my mind could, legs moving and heart beginning to pound.
Cold air scorched my throat with every breath as we ran out of the training pit.
The moment I stepped off the cobblestone, I inwardly groaned.
My boots sunk through slush that seemed to swallow my feet whole.
I hated the snow. The cold. Everything about the never-ending winter of the Mortal Kingdom.
The wind lashed needles against my face, each step dragging and slowing me down.
“Sorry for upsetting you,” Riven said easily beside me, not winded in the slightest. “Your scars are none of my business… it just took me by surprise.”
I stumbled, almost falling into the snow. Apologies were something I was not used to hearing. The kindness coiled like guilt in my chest. It was a foreign feeling that made my words lodge in my throat.
“It’s fine,” I managed between laboured breaths.
We both knew he could run much faster, but he kept pace with me.
For a heartbeat, the quiet loyalty only worsened the guilt.
I had wanted to hurt him less than an hour ago.
We rounded the corner of the barracks, where the island expanded into dense trees.
Somehow, I could sense the ocean was further away in that direction, like an inner compass.
The blackened limbs of the trees rustled from a breeze I couldn’t feel, and snow dusted towards the ground.
An unnatural stillness prickled over my sweat-soaked skin.
Find it. My steps faltered.
It’s here. A piece. Find the pieces.