Artemis

  Pain woke me before sound did.

  A low, steady hum crawled up my spine, ghosts of the current that had torn through me the night before. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if I was still on the plank, still bracing for another round, but then the cold ground under my cheek steadied into something real.

  Dawn pressed dimly against my closed eyes. Someone groaned nearby. Someone else coughed. The air smelled like wet earth and smoke and a hint of something pungent, like scorched hair.

  I tried to move.

  Every muscle protested. The jolt I’d taken hadn’t just thrown me down, it had sunk into the bone, even after Healing, it still lingered like a reminder not to stand up too quickly. I swiftly Healed the parts of my body that were still tense from shock.

  Around me, the others were stirring too.

  Jarl lay on his side, half-conscious, his legs jerking now and then with leftover tremors. They’d pulled him from the mud sometime during the trial. They had their Healer tend to him to keep him from seizing. The worst of the bruising was gone, but only the worst. His face and arms were mottled with the same raised welts the rest of us carried. I kept my own untouched. Better to look wounded than noticed.

  Aeris was curled on his knees, palms pressed over his eyes. I wasn’t sure if he was awake or if pain alone kept him moving. They’d healed the burn along his ribs, but not his sight. The flash had hit him full-on. Half the night went by before he was able to see again.

  Viola slept near him, curled against herself for warmth. Her skin was clean. They’d Healed her fully, down to the last bruise and split lip. Her “reward” for being the last one standing was simply being pain-free.

  They’d tried to offer her more.

  I remembered the voice, the smug curl of it, promising her a night in a soft bed if she was willing to be agreeable, saying they could convince an officer to let her sleep in his. She’d refused flatly and gone back to the ground with us, lying beside the people she’d faced the trial with.

  She’d slept. Eventually.

  I hadn’t.

  They’d kept the current running even after the game ended. Everyone who fell into the mud took every surge the Casters sent, whether they could stand again or not. By the time the soldiers got bored, the new boy could barely breathe through his sobs, and one of the other men had vomited into the pit.

  Only then did someone bother to pull us free. A Healer came after, mending broken ribs and stabilizing spasms, but leaving the rest. Cuts, welts, burns from stones and flame… all “part of training.”

  They skipped me, of course. Passed me by without a glance.

  A boot scuffed against the dirt somewhere behind me. I straightened as much as my back allowed.

  A soldier passed through the line of conscripts without looking at any of us. He kicked one man’s foot to see if he’d stir, then moved on.

  My vision steadied. The village was still gray with morning, the earliest hours before the rooster crowed. Smoke still drifted from dying fires. A few soldiers slept sitting up, heads against their armor. Others were already packing, their voices rough from drink.

  The Lieutenant stood near the well, speaking with one of his sergeants. From the set of his shoulders, they’d be moving soon.

  Which meant I needed to as well.

  A door thudded open across the square.

  The Magister stepped out from the elder’s house, cloak half-fastened, expression carved from stone. He crossed the square without hurry, boots cutting a path through trampled mud. His eyes passed over the conscripts, the bruises and welts.

  He didn’t comment. He didn’t so much as frown.

  Whatever had been done to us in the night, he didn’t care to ask.

  He reached the Lieutenant and spoke low, too far for me to catch the words. The Lieutenant stiffened, then nodded once. The Magister didn’t linger. As soon as his point was made, he turned and walked toward the front of the column forming beyond the well, leaving the rest to fall in behind him.

  The Lieutenant’s voice carried a moment later, cold enough to slice the morning air.

  “Up! All of you.” He jabbed a finger at the younger soldiers still asleep around the fires. “On your feet. Now.”

  A handful groaned, one cursing under his breath, but they stumbled upright all the same. The Lieutenant wasn’t finished. He pointed to a man near the wagons.

  “Wake the rest. Any house where one of our soldiers is quartered, get them out. Move.”

  The soldier jogged off toward the village lanes, pounding on doors, shouting names through shutters. One by one, the stragglers emerged. Some still fastening their belts, others wiping sleep from their faces.

  None of them acknowledged the state we were in.

  Just orders and obedience.

  The kind of morning where the night before was no one’s concern.

  The conscripts moved first, or tried to. Those still bruised and half-healed pushed themselves upright with stiff, trembling arms. Joints cracked and faces tightened. Some rose slow as old men, breath hissing when a rib or shoulder reminded them what last night had taken from them. No one offered a hand or asked if they could stand.

  They stood anyway.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The column began to form, rough at first, then tightening as the Lieutenant barked for order. Packs were buckled, straps hauled into place, helmets clamped down over half-combed hair. A few men still smelled of sleep and stale drink, but they moved all the same.

  “Form up,” the Lieutenant snapped. “We march now.”

  The sky was black when we left the square.

  The fires guttered low behind us, dying embers drawing out thin threads of smoke that clung to the air like ghosts of the night before. Boots thudded through mud as the platoon pushed toward the village road, conscripts herded near the center like livestock kept from wandering.

  No one spoke.

  Shutters stayed closed. Doors remained barred. The village wasn’t awake yet, not in any way that mattered.

  We marched until the dark thinned and the cold eased. By the time the sun climbed overhead, we’d left the village and its ghosts far behind.

  Morning had found us still moving.

  The conscripts settled into a weary rhythm as the road stretched on. Aeris walked with one hand still brushing Viola’s arm now and then, as if making sure she was steady. Jarl kept to himself, jaw set, limping only when he thought no one was watching. The older men trudged in silence, sweat already gathering at their brows despite the cool air. Even the new boy stayed upright, though he limped almost as much as Jarl did.

  I scanned the line for my horse.

  It didn’t take long to find him. A soldier I didn’t recognize rode on top, sitting high and loose in the saddle as if he owned the animal. The sight twisted something in me, but I forced it still.

  I’d known the moment they’d taken him that I wouldn’t be riding him again.

  When I escaped it wouldn’t be on horseback. Too loud, too easy to track. They’d widen their search for a rider, but for a man on foot?

  They wouldn’t look nearly as far.

  Viola said something quiet to Aeris, drawing a tired laugh from him, soft but genuine. Then she squeezed his arm once and fell back in the line until she matched my stride.

  “You doing alright?” she asked.

  Her voice was low, but her eyes were clearer than I expected. The healing had done that much for her.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “You?”

  She let out a breath that wasn’t quiet a laugh. “Sore. Tired. Still seeing that pit when I blink.” Then she hesitated, her steps slowing just barely. “I wanted to thank you. For last night. You kept me from going over more than once.”

  “You stayed on your feet,” I said. “You did that on your own.”

  “Not alone.” She glanced back at Aeris, then back to me. “I remember that much.”

  I didn’t answer. There wasn’t much to say. I hadn’t stepped in for thanks.

  The road dipped, dust lifting around the marching boots. Far ahead, the Magister’s horse snapped its tail, its rider remaining tall and unreadable.

  Viola walked beside me in silence for a few breaths, then she shifted her pack higher with a soft grunt.

  “You really alright?” she asked again, quieter this time. “You look like death tripped over you.”

  “I’m better than I look,” I said.

  “So… worse than you sound?” she shot back, a hint of unusual sharpness surfacing.

  I huffed a breath with slight amusement. “Something like that.”

  She nudged her chin toward the back of the line. “Aeris says he’s fine, but he flinched when the sun hit him. I think he’s lying to me.”

  “He probably is.”

  “Lying to me?”

  “Telling you the truth.”

  As if summoned, Aeris drifted toward us, his steps still uneven but steadier than they had been earlier. He rubbed at his temple.

  “What are you two talking about?” he asked.

  Viola arched a brow. “You showed up fast.”

  “That’s because my ears burn when people talk about me,” Aeris said.

  “You should get that looked at,” I murmured.

  “I’ll have the next healer look them over after he’s done with my eyes,” he said dryly.

  I studied him a moment, still blinking too hard at the light, but upright. Better than he should be.

  “Where are you from, Aeris?” I asked. “Before all this.”

  He shrugged one shoulder, the motion small. “Little place near Harborin. Blink and you’ll miss it.”

  I nodded as if I knew the region. I didn’t.

  “Quiet place?” Viola asked.

  “Was,” Aeris said. “Still is, I guess. Just… without me.”

  A breeze lifted the dust along the road, carrying the silence between us.

  Viola nudged him lightly with her elbow. “Well, you’re stuck with us now.”

  “Lucky me,” I muttered, but the corner of my mouth twitched, betraying my smile.

  Viola gave a me sidelong look. “Is that your version of affection? Because it needs work.”

  “Trust me,” I said, “this is the polished version.”

  Aeris hummed under his breath. “That was affection? Huh. Good to know.”

  Viola snorted, and I shook my head, but the banter lingered between us, light and easy, the kind that asked nothing more than to keep moving and stay upright. We walked like that for a while, trading jabs and half-smiles, the road stretching long beneath our boots.

  Eventually the trees thinned, and the path split into two winding trails. The Magister lifted a hand, calling the column to a halt. Soldiers peeled off their packs with practiced motion. The rest of us followed more slowly, stiff from the march and from wounds that hadn’t been worth a Healer’s time.

  “Break,” the Lieutenant barked.

  We settled in the dust near the fork while soldiers took to shade or checked their gear. Breakfast was thrown our way. Strips of meat, tough enough that half the group had to wrestle with it before it tore.

  I chewed a corner and nearly laughed.

  Celeste had mocked mine for being too tough. If she tasted this, she’d come find me just to apologize. I bit off another piece, working my jaw against the dryness, when movement caught my eye.

  The Magister had stepped away from the column. He stood a few paces off the road with both Lieutenants, their heads bent together in a low, clipped discussion. No one else dared drift close enough to overhear, but even at this distance I could read the tension in their shoulders.

  The conversation ended abruptly as it had started.

  One Lieutenant peeled off toward the front ranks. The other turned toward the middle of the company. Both began calling names.

  Soldiers straightened. Confusion flickered across their faces as they were pointed into two groups, one on each side of the fork. Some men looked at each other as if trying to understand what qualified them for one side versus the other, but no explanation came.

  The divide widened quickly with two tight platoons.

  The Lieutenant nearest us finally lifted his gaze toward the conscripts, his expression flattened into something like irritation.

  “You lot,” he barked. “Stand over there.”

  We scrambled to our feet, slower than the trained soldiers but fast enough to avoid a boot in the ribs. Jarl swayed once before catching himself. The other men grunted through clenched teeth. Even Viola’s jaw tightened as she forced herself upright.

  The Lieutenant didn’t bother sorting us. He simply swept his arm and pointed to the open space beside the road. A place where neither of the two neat platoons stood.

  “Conscripts to the side. Form there. You’re your own unit now.”

  ‘Unit’ was generous. We gathered in a loose, uneven line, some hunched, some still shaking. We looked less like a platoon and more like a handful of villagers told to stand still and pretend they belonged.

  I didn’t bother pretending. I watched instead – how the soldiers shifted uneasily in their reorganized ranks, how neither Lieutenant looked pleased with the new formation. The Magister took his place at the front of the fork, cloak trailing behind him.

  When the two Lieutenants finished dividing their men, they stepped out before their respective groups, mirroring the Magister in stance, but not in assurance.

  One detail caught my eye as the lines settled.

  Rusk stood in the platoon closest to the Lieutenants. He wasn’t the only one. Two of the younger soldiers who’d struggled with the march were there with him, along with a few others I’d already marked in my head. Men with small but obvious weaknesses. Vulnerabilities I’d noticed. The kind that might give me an edge if I ever needed one.

  Patterns began to form.

  I shifted my attention to the platoon in front of the Magister. Thames was there, front of the line, posture rigid as a spear shaft. No surprise. He hadn’t beaten me during the Warden Stone trial, but he was still one of the more capable men here.

  My gaze drifted back to the Lieutenants’ platoon. They carried more of the fragile ones. It wasn’t a certainty, just an assumption, a quiet suspicion building in the back of my skull.

  But I’d survived long enough by trusting those.

  Finally, the Magister turned to face all three groups.

  “This march changes today.”