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 asthough 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 tryto 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 voiceto 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 bymytraining. 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.
