“Where’s my mom?”
Isla was eight years old, and in the middle of dueling with her guardian, Terra. Dappled rays of sunrise peeked through the forest in broken fragments.
Terra’s metal met hers, and Isla’s teeth sung with the force. Her guardian’s sword was much bigger, but that didn’t mean she held back.
“She’s dead, Isla. You know this.” Terra’s voice was flat, though a rush of emotion filled her eyes before it withered. She turned, and Isla barely blocked her blade in time.
Isla did know that her mom was gone. But sometimes, she wished that when she asked, the answer might be different.
After all, the Wildlings could turn dry seeds into flowers. Dirt...into life. She always wondered if, somehow, the same could be done for people.
“And my dad?” Isla asked, gasping when she stumbled over a vine, then parried hard against her guardian’s next knee-rattling strike.
“He’s dead too.” Terra’s next hit was fast as lightning, easily outmaneuvering her defenses. Her unchecked sword sliced down Isla’s arm, right through the fabric of her training clothes, and Isla gritted her teeth against the pain. Hot blood gushed from the wound. She didn’t dare whimper. That would only make Terra wait an extra hour before she’d be allowed to heal her wounds of the day. “Stop with the foolish questions. You’re wasting time.”
Everything besides training, to Terra, was a waste.
Shewas a waste.
No. She was worse.
Isla was the reason so many Wildlings were dead. She was the reason why she overheard her guardians saying their realm had no chance of surviving the next Centennial.
She was born powerless. Wrong.
Her eyes stung. She fought to breathe, panic clenching her chest the way it sometimes did. Taking hold of her mind.
What if they were right? What if all this training was for nothing? What if she failed her people, the same way she had failed everyone around her since she was born? What if—
She didn’t see Terra’s blade until it was too late. Until the hilt slammed against her temple. And when her head hit the forest ground, only then did her mind quiet.
When her eyes finally opened again, the sky was the pink bruise of sunset.
Sunset. An entire day wasted.
She had to move. But everything hurt. Slowly, she reached to feel the side of her head. She winced as her fingers slid through crusted blood. There was a thick puddle of it in the dirt beneath her sore arm.
The world turned as she tried to sit up. It took several minutes before she was able to finally stand. Even then, she leaned against a tree for support.
“Weak.”
The word seemed to echo from the woods themselves. But when Isla blinked away the remaining blurriness of her vision, she saw Terra across the clearing. Arms folded in front of her in disappointment.
A pang of regret pierced her heart. “I’m sorry, I—”
“You.” Terra took a step toward her. “You will be the end of this realm.Youwill be its ruin.”
Isla’s eyes burned. She didn’t want to be weak. She would be better. She would try harder tomorrow.
No day could be wasted. There were only so many years before the Centennial. The number always felt large in her head, but Terra and Poppy insisted that it was no time at all.
Terra was right in front of her now, frowning at the blood on her temple and long wound down her arm. “Do you think I train you so hard because I enjoy watching you fail? Seeing you bleed?”
Isla wasn’t sure if she should answer.
“I do not enjoy it. I do it because you are our only hope. And you...you...” She didn’t finish the sentence, but Isla saw that look in her eyes. The one she noticed often.
Like Isla was not just weak. But like...she had done something unforgivable, simply by being born.
