“Not if that someone is useless,” Ashley answered, her voice unaffected, easy as always.
“What?” Carolyn breathed the word out.
“If they recruit you, keep you fed, train and pay you,” she began counting on her fingers. “Surely they are allowed to expect something in return? Now, if you can’t kill a mage… what good are you?”
There it was, the plain and raw truth, right in the open. None of it was fair, yet it made sense.
“If they waste food on someone who’s useless, they might not have enough to feed someone who could save dozens, you know?”
Carolyn turned pale, staring wide-eyed at Ashley.
“I see you’ve made some friends,” a familiar voice sounded, before an arm leaned on my shoulder.
My eyes darted up only to meet with Lionel’s brown eyes and a teasing smile. I curled my hand into a fist and sent it into his ribcage. “I thought you failed,” I snapped at him.
He retreated quickly, waving the white flag. “Easy there, I simply upgraded.”
“What?”
“Yeah, they wanted me as a sniper,” his smile widened.
They what?
“You can’t aim even if your life depended on it,” I snorted at him, clearly I was jealous. Snipers were treated with care, not all of us were blessed with incredible eye-sight.
“Ouch,” he pouted, pretending to take my words to heart, but really, he was gloating.
“Your brother?” Mey asked, cocking a brow at us.
“Gods no!” we echoed out.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Nathanial coughed, hiding his laughter.
I sent him an ice cold glare, but he simply averted his gaze and started talking with Mey.
Lionel placed his hand on my head, warmth spreading through it as I felt embarrassed. I tried to brush it off, but he resisted.
“I’ll be heading out now,” he said with a lowered voice and I froze.
“Now? It will be dark soon!” I slowly spun around, meeting his soft gaze.
“I’ll be back before you know it,” he smiled, as he began patting my head.
He turned to walk away and my hand reached out and grabbed the back of his jacket, before I realised it.
Lionel stopped, but he didn’t turn, he simply waited and I had no idea what to say to him. We were exactly where we both wanted to be.
“Be careful,” I muttered, releasing my grip.
I saw him nod, before he darted off to catch up with his own group.
It was fine, really. It was better this way,for him.
I barely got any sleep, with Ashley taking up half the tent and Carolyn mumbling in her sleep. It was awful and I prayed that this was only a temporary solution before we got our own rooms inside of the main building.
A new face awaited us outside of our tent once we were ready, guiding us to the large dining hall for breakfast. The main building was flat, built with stone bricks and with no decor or anything flashy about it in the slightest. I guess it fits its purpose. The building was large, and upon entering we ended up in a broad corridor, with only a dirty old rug that ran down the long hallway. To the left was a broad open archway, leading to the dining hall. The smell ofwarm stewed potatoes and carrots struck us and all of our stomachs growled in desperation.
Not even a second passed, before we lunged into a sprint, fighting like animals to be first in line, grabbing a bowl and filling it with the stew.
