“They’re the best unit. The strongest. They train only the best.” Sara threw herself on the cot closest to the window, punched her sorry excuse for a pillow, crossed her ankles, and eyed me critically. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
Her jaw dropped. “That old?”
Twenty-five wasn’t that old. My grandmother was in her seventies. That was old. I rubbed at the sudden tightness near my heart. How would she manage without me? “I’m twenty-five.”
Sara’s gaze shifted to her blanket, where her fingers worried at a loose thread. “At least you got part of a life. I’ve been here for three years, since I was fifteen. Alina is the same. As soon as we turn eighteen, they’ll send us to the front.”
Alina sank onto the cot next to Sara’s. “Shields don’t come back from the front.”
At eighteen, I’d been complaining to Grandmother about schoolwork and the tutors she hired for me, not contemplating my death. Shields were immune to magic, not violence. The enemy could shoot us with an arrow, slit our throats, gut us with a sword, or sink a dagger between our ribs. In a battle, Rymarian soldiers directed their first wave of violence at the shields, often dragging the survivors behind enemy lines. Rape or violent death—that was the future Alina saw for herself.
Alina picked up a strand of her hair and studied the ends as if she’d never seen anything more fascinating. “Most girls last less than three months.”
Shields’ lives didn’t matter. They—we—were disposable. We were women. And women were treated like dirt beneathmen’s feet. “If Grayson’s unit is so strong, why aren’t they at the front?”
Alina’s gaze scanned the gray walls and the closed door, then she leaned forward and whispered, “The rebellion. They were called back to destroy the rebellion.”
The blood in my veins ran cold. Grandmother and I weren’t involved. First, we refused to risk the girls in our care. Second, we didn’t entirely agree with the rebels’ vision for Legacia. It seemed to me that one set of men wanted to replace another. Women would remain second-class citizens. That said, we had friends in the rebellion. Good friends. I would not allow my powers to be used against them. “What do you know about the rebellion?”
“Only what we hear. They want to destroy our way of life.”
A way of life that included ripping women from their homes, forcing them to the front, exploiting their powers, and letting them die, all while treating them as chattel. My gaze traveled the bleak walls, iron cots, and thin mattresses. “Maybe the rebellion has a point.”
“Don’t say that.” Sara’s whisper was high and reedy, and her gaze scanned the room as if the blank walls might conceal a spy. “They’ll kill you for less. They’ll kill us for listening to you.”
She made my point.
“But—”
“Please don’t.” Her fear was palpable. I could taste it in the air.
Rather than upset her further, I changed the subject. “Grayson told me to be ready for training at five in the morning?—”
“Be ready at half past four.” Alina glanced at a clock that sat on the room’s only table.
“What happens in training?”
“They’ll teach you to fight.”
I knew how to fight.
Sara grimaced. “They’ll make you wish you were dead.”
“Sounds delightful.”
“Just do as Grayson tells you, and don’t talk back.” Alina barely covered a yawn. “Maybe you’ll be okay.”
Sara rubbed at her wrists, and I couldn’t help but notice the crosshatch of raised scars. “About tomorrow …”
I waited for more.
Her gaze fell to her lap. “Some of the guards will …”
My stomach tightened.
“They may treat you with disdain.”
