“Yes, ma’am?” I turned.
“Cremation or burial?”
I frowned. “Excuse me?”
“When you die in the trial, would you like your remains buried or cremated? Aerlyn pays for all the funeral costs, so your family won’t have to worry about that.” She smiled, and the sight made me sick to my stomach.
I spun, not giving her an answer. Whatever guise Corvessa gave off of possibly not caring that I was in the trials had just been dashed.
She wanted me dead.
When we finally made it into the training room, I peered around.
Itwas a room with four walls, padded mats over a stone floor, and some weapons. Nothing fancy.
“Okay, I need to know what I’m dealing with. Have you had any sort of training in physical combat?” Kaelric said, completely ignoring the fact that the Magistrate of Aerlyn was planning my funeral.
“No.” Obviously not.
His jaw twitched. “But you’ve grown up in the Dregs. Did you get into fights, have to steal to survive, that kind of thing?”
“I survived by working two jobs since I was twelve and three jobs since I was sixteen.” I tipped my chin high. I didn’t fight anyone. What would be the point of that? We didn’t steal from each other in the Dregs, only from the Elite if we were willing to risk our lives for it.
“What jobs?” he asked, some compassion in his voice.
I sighed. “I sort metal scraps in the morning shift and put them in the melter.” I held up my fingers. “Burned the prints off years ago.”
His eyebrows raised as he examined my fingertips.
“Then, in the afternoon, I work in the sewer processing plant. I’m small, so I crawl into the shaft tunnels and add vinegar or… remove blockages.”
All that magic and the Elite couldn’t figure out a way to make their crapdisappear.
He nodded, not seeming phased by one of the most disgusting jobs in the Dregs. “And the evenings?”
Shame burned my cheeks. It was the most gruesome job among us, but it paid well. “A few nights a week, I retrieve corpses and bring them to the morgue. I’ve had the pox, so I’m immune.”
He reached up and stroked his chin. “You have a helper with that?”
I shook my head. “It’s all me for the night shift.”
“So you can lift a lot of weight?”
I remembered trying to get Mr. Hannah into the wagon after he died. Nearly broke my back.
“Yep.”
He reached out and squeezed my arm as if checking for muscle, but I pulled away, growling, which only caused him to grin.
“You’re strong. I didn’t expect that. And small, so you can hide. Are you fast?”
“Fastest in the Dregs, second to Mason McCorory.” We raced every summer festival, and I always came in second.
“Alright, we can work with that. In the trials, there will be times when you are up against magic that you can’t fight, that I can’t protect you from, that Valkaryn either chooses not to engage, or will be out of your reach. In those cases, you will need to run, hide, and stay alive.”
Chills ran down my back. I had forgotten that he’d been through the trials before. They were different every time, but he knew what to expect more than any of us.
I opened my mouth to speak when the door to our training room opened.
