Güthric pounds his chest again, a hungry, toothy grin curling his lips. “I win.”
“Let’s find out.” Dimitri cracks his neck and rolls his shoulders.
And just when I think his ruse has worked, just when my nerves have finally started to calm, Alphonse throws his hand in the air. “I think not. I have no interest in seeing you gut one of our initiates.”
“I wasn’t going to—”
Alphonse silences Dimitri’s protests again by raising his hand higher and glaring at him like he can melt him with his eyes alone. Only once Dimitri has stopped talking and the murmurs are hushed throughout the group, does Alphonse summon me forward.
“Halira, Güthric, come. We don’t want to keep everyone here all day. Your match begins now and ends when one of you yields. The victor will earn an afternoon of freedom and lounging. The loser earns a night in the catacombs.”
Frowning, I stride forward, arms splayed at my sides. “This is absurd. I don’t know how to—”
“Begin!” Alphonse shouts.
At the pounding sound of footsteps, I glance over my shoulder to see Güthric already advancing. He swings a heavy arm and I barely have time to dodge it. But I have no coordination. I’m not the skilled warrior the Shadow Crusade needs. I’m a beekeeper’s daughter, a girl whose only experience with fighting is cowering long enough for my bullies to lose interest.
I trip over a rock and stumble to the frozen ground.
“Yield?” I say up at Güthric who pauses mid-swing to glance over his back to Alphonse. The man’s so large I can’t even see past him to see my cousin’s response, but when Güthric begins advancing again, that’s answer enough.
“Wait,” I beg, scooting along the dirt. “Wait!”
Güthric reaches his thick fingers down for me and hoists me up by my collar. He holds me high, feet dangling, unable to reach the ground no matter how much I kick and stretch. He cocks his arm back, fist clenched and solid as a brick.
“Come on, Halira! Imagine he’s a demon!” Fox yells from the sidelines. “Better yet, imagine he’s one of the mages who fled with half of our country. He’s the one who condemned all Arcathainians to misery when he created Illashore. He’s the reason you lost your loved ones!”
And just like that, determination and rage are triggered. I start swinging, wildly, at Güthric’s rigid arm, trying to break his hold, trying to break anything. But wanting something and having the skill to do it are two different things. For all my efforts, my strength is outmatched. I can’t break out of Güthric’s hold, no matter how hard I thrash.
His fist flies forward and I watch it like time has slowed around us. At the last second, I pull my gaze away and whimper just as his bones collide with my cheek. Blinding light throbs my skull. My cheek shrieks, ringing in my ears like the boiling water of a kettle.
The force sends me flying through the air and back to the snow-drift ground where I land with a hearty gush of wind that bursts from my lungs. Head spinning, I try to make sense of where I am—who I am. I try moving my jaw, but another searing poker of agony twists inside my face and I stop.
Blinking, I start to push myself onto my hands, but something solid drives up into my ribs. I lose my breath again as I’m flung to my back. My head cracks against the frozen dirt, but the pain is nothing compared to the throbbing of my torso.
A shadow crosses over me. I can make just enough sense out of the moment to open my eyes. Güthric stands over me, a foot on either side. He reaches down and takes my breastplate into his hand again. When he pulls me up, my head lulls back, eyes flickering.
“Sorry,” he says, and I think I really do detect an ounce of remorse in his tone before he puts it out like a flame pinched between his thick fingers. “But I fight.”
He cracks me in the face again, just above my cheekbone. Pain seers through me, hot and liquid. I feel it trickling down my face, down my chin, and I realize I must be bleeding somewhere.
“Stop!” someone shouts. “She’s had enough. She yields.”
I recognize Dimitri’s voice, the concern lying in wait beneath his calm exterior. But even in my delirium, I’m surprised to hear him speak up for me, for outright disobeying his superior twice.
My head rolls heavy on the ground, and because I don’t know what’s good for me, I still try to sit up. I’m mostly unsuccessful and just wind up slamming back against the dirt. Everything rings; everything is on fire.
“I’ll say when she’s had enough,” Alphonse sneers. “And she seems fine to me. Güthric, continue.”
“No,” Dimitri shouts.
A second later, the man towering over me is knocked over. He’s too burly to fall like a tree. Instead, he staggers away from me, Dimitri leaping over me to lunge again. I can barely open my eyes to watch, but I hear the blows they exchange. The cracking of knuckles on chins, the solid thumping of shoulders to guts. I hear them panting, feel the rhythm of their footwork on the ground, and wonder if they’re close enough to trip over me or worse.
“That’s enough!” Alphonse yells out. His footsteps come quick and resolute. I manage to get my eye open wide enough to see him pull Dimitri off Güthric, who he’d apparently managed to pin to the ground. “You will do well to remember your place, initiate. I will not tolerate disobedience. In the Shadowthorn, the only voice you adhere to is your commanding officer. Not yours. Not your friends. Not anyone’s but…”
“You okay?” Fox whispers in my ear.
As she cradles my head into her lap, the chain around her neck falls free, a thin, silver ring looped through it. It pendulums above me, making my head spin and throb all the more until I have to close my eyes.
“I don’t know. Do I look okay?”
There’s a pause before she answers, “You don’t look great, but I’ve seen worse.”
Beyond us, Alphonse continues his lecture. “For your disobedience, today will be treated as your loss. After training, you will take Halira’s place in the catacombs this evening. You are not to aid with the bloodletting; your duty will be disposing of any of the bodies the Spirit Keep asks you to. And I expect that, from here forth, you shall never cross me again. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Dimitri growls through his self-loathing.
“Well, in case I haven’t, let me be explicit. Should something like this happen again, your initiation as a Crusader won’t simply be postponed. I won’t return you to Gravenburg like discarded pig lard from a slaughter. I will send you to the Capital to be tried for insubordination and mutiny.”
If I could breathe, I might’ve gasped at such a threat, but my chest still aches from one of Güthric’s blows. I want to run to my friend and thank him for stepping in when he did, but the grey quiet of my mind pulls me under, and as Fox drags me out from the training grounds, the last thing I hear before succumbing completely is Alphonse saying:
“Now, who might we pair next?”
The Dead
Infirmary, Castle of Nigh, Arcathain
Despite the hours of rest I seemed to have secured for myself due to my unplanned incapacitation, I wake up feeling just as horrid as I did when I blacked out. My head doesn’t even feel like a head, but rather a gourd that’s been hammered into nothing more than a great heaping pile of pulp.