“They’ll be fine,” Sig promised, nudging the tray of food closer to me.
I shook my head, edging it back. I couldn’t eat anymore.
“This world isn’t a good place.” I sighed, pushing up to my feet and stretching out my sore body. “It’s a world with a demon on its back. Bad things happen here. Especially to good people.”
“Calder will also be fine,” he promised, somehow hearing the pain hidden beneath my words.
I tried to smile at him, but it wobbled and fell. “Let’s train,” I said instead.
We left the tower, finding Christian in the octagonal room. He had a small mirror in a foldable silver case bouncing on his knee, and he snapped it shut as the door opened. I lifted a brow as he slipped it into his pocket.
“They’re selling them in Edelsten,” he explained. “A man came back this morning with a whole cart of them. Anyway, you should do the thing with the mirrors again, we’re getting a course set up for you and people are going to want to see it.”
I slowed my walk, unsure how to respond. I didn’t know Christian past the few brief interactions I’d had with him.
Sig patted my shoulder. “Christian brought the Sentinels to us last night. He’s promised to help anyway he can.”
“Oh.” I flicked my eyes between them. “Sure.”
I pulled the beetle from the small pocket in my training shorts, placing it against my chest. Christian didn’t say anything else as he led us from the main buildings of the Keep and into the gardens winding to the second gate. We split off to the east, following the pathways through the cultivated grounds until we reached the barracks Sig, Herra, Frey, and Bjern had been staying in.
There were already people crowded around the gates, held back to the edges of the pathway by Sentinels in the King’s guard uniform. I wondered if Vidrol had seen how his guard had taken to helping me, and if it annoyed him or infuriated him. It had to be one of the two.
“Fjorn!” a sectorian woman yelled out, causing me to edge behind Sig’s tall frame.
I ducked my head down as another called out, and then another. The Sentinels began thumping their weapons into the ground—the butts of their spears setting a rhythm that the sectorians began to chant to, the word Fjorn changing to my Fated name.
Tempest. Tempest. Tempest.
A folded sheath of paper flew through the gates to the barracks just as they closed behind us. It was narrowed to a point at the top, the edges flattened into wings, so that the paper would fly like a bird. I picked it up, unfolding it to reveal a portrait of my face. Beneath it, were six words,
Vold.
Sinn.
Sjel.
Eloi.
Skjebre.
Steward.
I smiled, tucking the paper back into a bird and stashing it in my pocket. Only a steward would have thought to make themselves the sixth sector.
A steward boy jogged over, lugging a pack on one shoulder. He dropped it on the ground in front of us, unsure who to speak to.
“What’s this, Dag?” Christian asked, bending to open it up.
Relieved, the boy faced Christian, who he was clearly familiar with. He must have been the son of an attendant at the barracks.
“It’s what the Tempest said she needed,” he explained, as Christian extracted a flask, a few stoppered bottles, and a ragged dress with flowers sewn into patterns over the bodice.
“I think I’ve seen your mother wearing this dress,” he said, a wide smile flashing over his face.
Dag kicked the ground, delivering me a sheepish look before mumbling something. Christian laughed, packing the items back up.
“You better take these things back to your mama before she finds out they’re missing, little thief.”
“Oo-kay.” Dag dragged out the word, sneaking another glance at me as he hefted the pack back onto his shoulder.
He walked away slowly, exaggerating how heavy the pack was. He glanced back every three steps, until I finally burst out laughing.
“Wait!” I called, and he raced back, his wares suddenly weightless. I knelt down, taking his shoulders in my hands. “I could really use your help with something.”
“I can do it!” He stretched his arms out and put his hands on my shoulders, looking like he was about to pee himself in excitement.
He must have thought this was some kind of special greeting, like how the Vold clasped forearms.
“Good.” I smiled. “I forgot my boots, and I can’t train like this.” We both looked down at my bare feet, already dirty from our walk to the barracks. “There’s a sentinel around here somewhere who has the key to get you where you need to go. Do you think you can do this for me?”
He nodded, and I could see that these Vold men had rubbed off on him. He almost acted like a sectorian boy. I whispered to him that my boots were in the dressing room on the second level of the tower because I didn’t want the whole of Fyrio to know where to find me, and then I released him. He ran off without his pack, and Christian sighed, tossing it to a bench alongside the hall leading out to the training yard.
“Let’s do this.” He drew me over to the side of the hall, where someone had propped a large black board on the outside wall, detailing their training schedule.
The “course” they had set up was comprised of many of their own training routines, and I soon discovered that they fully intended to put themselves through the course with me. There were so many of them who wanted to train that they ended up having to split into groups. They assigned different groups to different exercises, and the rest settled about the perimeter of the yard to watch as we started.
We began by running laps of the yard, and then we repeated those laps with iron weights strapped to our arms and legs. I was out of breath already, and needing to draw on my Vold magic sooner than I intended.
“Stop holding back.” Sig laughed at me, running beside me. There was sweat dripping down his face. “You’re not supposed to be able to do this without magic for long.”
I grunted back, because it was all I could manage. When Dag returned with my boots, I accepted them gratefully. I couldn’t stop thinking about the stewards who had stood along the borders of their properties after my battle with the Spider. How they had waited with their remaining scraps of food, how they had walked with me to the edge of the town, drawn to me through their helplessness, searching for a purpose through my purpose. I didn’t want them to feel powerless in this war. I wanted them to feel needed. I wanted to give them something to hold onto the next time the Darkness attacked.
Because there would be a next time.
The rest of the day passed in a gruelling whir of back-breaking activity. At one point, I was given an artefact that they used for training—an iron cuff that blanketed a person’s magic—and made to fight an endless stream of Sentinels. I had never felt so thoroughly beaten before in my life. It was at the exact moment I was considering sneaking back to the tower to pass out for a single, precious hour, when Helki appeared. Immediately, the Sentinels scattered, clearing out a wide circle around us.
“Twig,” Helki greeted, crossing his arms and rocking back on his heels.
“Beast.” I matched his stance, though I didn’t look as fierce as he did.
My hair was a sweaty, tangled mess. My training clothes were torn, and I was bleeding from several shallow cuts, thanks to the sword-play course the Sentinels had proven to be far more skilled in.