His mind suddenly swarmed with the possibilities. Luc had been eligible for the exam for years, but he had never considered it before. He belonged in the farm with his father. He was bright, but not bright enough, and he didn’t want his father worrying about where to get the coin to fund his studies. A proper education was Alun’s forte, as their mother had drilled into them since childhood. Alun was the scholar, Alun would bring fortune and carry the family name up in time. Luc was just a worker, which never troubled him before. But now—
“You don’t need to pay to get into military school,” a soldier near the door had been saying. “The kingdom will pay you all throughout basic training. King Elrend rewards his own.” He caught Luc’s eye and smiled. Luc felt…visible, for the first time. His Gorenten blood didn’t bother the man. It felt like fate, like that one shining moment in time when the stories say it felt just right and glory lay waiting for those brave enough to dare.
“Hafod is building up her army,” the soldier continued, puffing his chest up, his well-polished uniform gleaming brightly under the sun. “But there’s no wars, and you won’t be called into battle until you’ve got years of experience under your belt. It’s the perfect time to join. How about you, young man?”
Luc realized he was talking to him. After a moment of uncertainty, he came up the steps, and the soldier looked him in the eye with what appeared to be approval. “You’d do well in the military, my lad,” he said. “Have you ever been to Tilarthan?”
Numbly, Luc shook his head. He had as an infant, but he didn’t remember any of it and didn’t think it counted.
“You’d love it,” the soldier said. “There’s no city in all the western kingdom like it. Grey cliffs all around, and foamy waves that tower higher than the buildings sometimes.” He was clearly trying to stir up Luc’s blood, ignite fire in his veins at the prospect of adventure. “And the markets! More wares than you could imagine, and food from every corner of the continent, made possible by open trade and the busiest harbour in all the Kag. Exotic seafood fresh from Jin-Sayeng, the best dried fruit from Gaspar, or…” He dropped his voice an octave. “They have some terrific brothels too, if you’ve got no lass waiting for you back home. Or even if you do…they cater to every taste, get your cock hard like nothing else. Women with breasts like melons.”
Luc swallowed, trying hard to ignore the distracting image that conjured. “After the exam—”
The soldier’s eyes brightened. “Yes. You’ll be transferred straight to the Tilarthan Military School. Training is six months, and then you’ll be allowed to go straight home after before you’re assigned to a unit.”
“And we’ll get paid immediately?”
The soldier smiled. “One of those types, eh?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“Well, lad,” the soldier said, crossing his arms. His tone had shifted. “Not for me to judge, but money shouldn’t be the only reason to choose this life. You represent the long arm of the King, and even as the lowliest soldier, you’re tasked with upholding his honour. Honour, lad. Imagine!”
And he painted a picture that involved saving lives and getting paid and protecting the weak and getting paid. Luc was drawn to his words and the fervour in his voice, which nearly shivered in his excitement. About a half dozen other boys and at least two village girls were now gathered around him, listening. The soldier spoke of the great Hafed hero, Agartes, who helped carved the Kag from the wild, untamed land it had been to the bastion of civilization it was now.
“Agartes came from a farm, didn’t you know?” the soldier said, passing Luc a glance.
Luc did. Every child growing up in the Kag did. “What does that have to do with us?”
“Everything!” the soldier laughed. “If one man could do it, why not one of you? You—you smell like pigshit, lad. You reek of it. You come from a farm too, don’t you?”
“It’s goat, actually.”
The soldier’s nostrils flared. “Goat. Pigs. Sheep. And how long until that works out for you? I had an uncle, tried to trade in roosters in Kago. Killed by Jins in his sleep. There’s no soldiers in Kago, nothing but dirty mercenaries hired by merchants to keep them safe from everyone else. Of course—” He stabbed Luc’s chest with his finger, half-grinning at the muscle he felt there. “We don’t cater to cowards. You could die in the army, too. But it’ll be a glorious death, one that will have people singing you praises down to the grave. People will look at your family and think, yes, those wonderful folk gave their son to the king, they honour us with their presence…”
Honour.
He found himself at the line, scheduling himself up to take the military exams. Holding that piece of paper felt like a dream. After he found himself shuffling down the stairs, past the late-comers from the villages further south, he held the yellowing parchment up against the afternoon sun and felt himself tremble at the sight of his name there. Luc, military trainee. The excitement ran through him the whole way back to the farm, beating like a pulse.
When his father saw the paper and the lines of grief on his face was replaced with a look of both genuine puzzlement and pure joy, Luc felt like his heart would explode.
~~~
“Everyone’s story is the same,” Grandmother liked to say. “It’s the details that change.”
Luc didn’t really believe her—not when he was the only Gorenten foundling in the village—but he supposed he got a sense of what she meant when he found himself in the hall amongst the crowd of military hopefuls. People chattered with excitement, their hopes and dreams splayed out in a frenzy of words. Not too many people from Luc’s village had taken the exam with him, but he spotted Ceri at the end of the hall and had to stop to think about that. He didn’t remember her being in the exam room at all. The last few days had rolled over like a whirlwind.
“Ceri,” he called out, swimming against the tide of bodies to reach her.
She looked troubled at the sight of him, though she gave a soft smile, just enough to tug at the corner of her lips.
“The military, Ceri? You never told us.”
“I…” Ceri shuffled her feet and glanced at the results in the distance, posted on the wall where a mob swarmed the entire corridor. “I didn’t want anyone to know until I was sure I’d passed,” she finally blurted out. Her cheeks turned red. “I saw you last week. I made sure…to sit in the corner away from you…”
“You sly fox,” Luc said with a laugh. “Whatever for? It would’ve been fun studying together, all three of us. You should’ve seen Loma. Feeding us raw eggs by the hour, some sort of Jinsein remedy for stupidity. Sent me to the shitter like you wouldn’t believe.”
Her face remained sombre. “My family doesn’t know, either.”
“Why are you keeping this a secret?”
“Because I wasn’t sure my father would let me,” she murmured.
“Well, he would’ve been surprised, for sure. You’ve never talked about this before. I didn’t even know the military life appealed to you. Wouldn’t you find it too dirty? You used to scold us for not taking baths.”
She drew her shoulders forward. “We didn’t know you wanted to join, either. And then Jak just strolls through the tavern one night and tells everyone that you’re doing this, you’re running off to Tilarthan and…” She fell silent, fingers clutched around her arm. “I signed up the next morning,” she mumbled.
“Are you scared of me being on my own?” He laughed again, remembering his own worries about Alun.
“No, you idiot. I just wanted…” She glanced away. “The farm could really use the money, too. Thought it was a great idea, anyway.”
“I think I see an opening. Let’s check our results.”
She said something under her breath as she followed him. He pushed his way through the crowd, squeezing between bodies until finally he found himself in front of the wall. He started scanning for her name first. “Cat…Camder…oh, here you are! Ceri afen Pol!” He jabbed his thumb against the
paper, turning to her with a grin.
Her face was all red. “You don’t say?” she murmured. “Are you sure?”
“Read it for yourself.”
“Blessed Yohak,” she breathed. “It’s done. It’s really—”
They heard a commotion down the hall. Luc caught the note of a thin cry, a familiar one. He dashed through the corridor without a second thought. Right beside an alcove decorated with a statue of Agartes Allaicras, Champion of the Kag, Michell had Alun by the shirt collar with one hand and a raised fist in the other. Alun’s nose was bleeding.
That was all it took for Luc to see red. He charged Michell like a bull.
They crashed into the alcove, knocking candles and incense to the ground. As Luc scrabbled to get up, Michell slammed an arm against his windpipe and struck him on the head repeatedly.
Senses swirling, Luc managed to connect his fist with Michell’s jaw. It felt like striking a post. He felt blood drip down his brow, tasted it inside his mouth. He spat, kicked out, caught Michell on the groin with his knee.
The next blow near-rattled his brains. Luc was starting to see black. His breath wheezed out once, and then he felt the weight lift from his chest as Michell was dragged away.
“Fighting here, of all places!” a man cried. “Expelled before you began! Bloody idiots!”
Someone hauled Luc to his feet. “I’m all right,” he said, pushing himself to the wall. It felt blessedly cool against his sweaty skin. “Where’s my brother?”
“I’m here. I’m fine, Lucky. He got you worse.” Alun appeared by his shoulder. His nose was a little swollen, but the bleeding had stopped.
“He’s gone and done it this time,” Luc hissed. He managed to look up and saw the crowd gathered around the alcove. He wiped his face, grimacing at the amount of red he saw coating his fingertips. “What set him off?”
“We were at the builders’ hall. I was telling people I’d passed—I passed, Lucky! I’m going to study to be a builder!—and he came up and said, ‘Don’t be so smug, Apn Jak. They probably just felt sorry for you.’ And I snapped. I know I wasn’t supposed to but I couldn’t help it—I told him off. I called him names.”
“So you’re the bloody idiot.” Luc tried to sigh, but his head was starting to hurt again, as well as every single joint in his body. He managed to slump on a bench against the wall.
“I didn’t think he’d attack me,” Alun said. “We’re not kids anymore.”
“Did he pass?”
Alun scratched his cheek. “He did. He was just telling his friends and they were all so happy for him! So I don’t know why he got mad at me. Hey, is that Ceri?”
Luc looked up just as she shoved a wet cloth against his forehead. He felt a crawling, stinging sensation above his right eye, which explained where all the blood was coming from. “You are lucky,” she hissed. “People saw what happened and they put everything on Michell. They’re taking him up to the guardhouse now. Nobody even asked about you. Hullo, Alun. Getting your brother in trouble again? Nothing’s changed, I see.”
“It wasn’t me,” Alun said. He was red up to his ears. “You think he would’ve learned by now. What are you doing here?”
“She took the test,” Luc replied, taking the cloth from her to press it against the wound himself.
“The builder’s? No, I would’ve seen—”
“The military,” Ceri grumbled, looking away like she was still ashamed of it.
Alun’s eyes widened. “What? Why? What for?”
Ceri shrugged.
“She passed, too,” Luc broke in with a grin, even as it hurt his face. “She’ll be heading off to Tilarthan in spring for basic training. Congratulations, Ceri.”
“You’ll be leaving?” Alun gasped. He looked like he was about to cry.
“They do send us home after six months,” Ceri replied.
“But you’re leaving.”
“Well, yes.”
“With him?” Alun pointed at Luc.
“Let’s go and see.” Luc felt well enough to get up and began to make his way back. Alun shuffled restlessly behind him, followed by Ceri.
The hall was empty now, the crowd dispersed by the little show—most must’ve followed Michell and the school officials out to the guardhouse. Luc managed to limp his way to the list of results. He leaned against the wall and scanned through the names, stopping where his ought to be. Where he expected it to be.
It wasn’t there.
Cold fear gripped his heart, but he ignored it, reasoning that they must’ve spelled his name wrong or perhaps wrote it out of order. He started at the top of the list and worked his way down, imagining, all the while, what it would feel to tell his father what awaited them this spring. That Luc would be able to borrow money from the pawnshop in town using his papers to prove he had the means to pay them back, which meant they could buy flour and dried venison for the winter and maybe even a bit left over for something else. Amazing, almost, how the mind could disassociate itself from the heart at a time like this. That he could still somehow pretend he was in full control of reality, that things would fall into place just because he wanted them to. Because he needed them to.
He needed his name to be there.
“Well?” he heard Alun call out.
The sound broke the delusion, all of Luc’s hopes and dreams shattered with the realization that the world would keep churning, with or without him. Luc turned to meet his brother’s eyes. His whole body was numb. He had failed, and he didn’t know how to say it.
Chapter Two
Before two months ago, Luc hadn’t entertained much notions about the kind of life he wanted to lead.
He liked the farm well enough. It got a little too cold in the winter, but that only meant more time at the tavern after all the chores were done, listening to stories from the villagers and any travellers passing by while sipping a mug of ale by the hearth. The stories always lit his imagination on fire. Their village was right at the edge of the road that connected Tilarthan to Cael City, and so travellers had often gathered an impressive array of stories by the time they arrived to sample Old Bacher’s famous garlic-apple pork stew with potato dumplings.
They brought tales of majestic creatures from the wilderness—dragons and griffons and serpents that could light up the sky with shimmering scales. They spoke of the ka-eng and kusyani, the mysterious people who lived in seclusion in lands few have ever seen. Of the strange Laidari and Saldu, the tribes who lived among the ka-eng and even mated with them, or so some say. Of the ever-choking blackness of the Kag wilderness, what some called haunted, filled to the brim with crazed beasts and monsters that could drive a man wild just looking at them. There were also tales of Dageian mages and the blood magic that powered their ships and armies, straight from the north. Scary folk, the Dageians—if Agartes had never saved Hafod from an attempted invasion about a century or so ago, they would all be mindless slaves by now.
Luc especially loved listening to the stories about the Dageians. The shipwreck that brought him into his father’s arms had been a Dageian slave-ship, and he liked that the stories often brought his own out from the woodwork. Jak spoke of it whenever travellers asked about him, what a Gorenten lad was doing all the way down south.
Jak would tell of how the sailors had crowded around him, staring at the infant, soaked to the bone but too young even to shiver. How fog gathered around their mouths as they breathed and prodded Jak with bony fingers that stank of fish. “What’re you going to do with it? It’s not a dog you can just raise to be useful. And it’s a Gorenten! Must’ve been born in the ship, from the looks of it!”
By this time, the travellers would turn to gaze at Luc with an expression that was one part admiration, two parts fear. Luc didn’t understand it at first until a wandering bard, kinder than the rest, explained to him what that meant.
“You were born as Dageian property,” the bard had said. “That’s nothing to take lightly. There’s a reason you don’t see many Gorente
n in these parts. Nothing’s stopping them from moving to the Kag—you see a few now and then—but it’s always hard for them to live out here, what with people becoming suspicious of them, especially when more than one show up. The chances of running into a potential mage-thrall is higher among your kind, and the Dageians like that about your people. I’m surprised your father managed to hide you away all this time, that you weren’t reported and no one came for you in the middle of the night. Lucky,” he added, with a grin.
Well, Luc thought, glancing through the window and at the grounds right outside Skellcilan Academy, where young men and women were thumping each other’s backs and screaming out in joy. I think my luck just ran out.
He swallowed. Alun was staring at him in silence while Ceri scanned her way through the list. “His name’s not here,” she said, giving form to his fears.
Alun looked stricken. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” Ceri said.
“Wait. In the builder’s hall, they had another list for people who failed. A smaller piece of paper. It told them when and where they could try again.” Alun pressed his hands against the wall and looked around. “Oh hey,” he said. “I think I see it.” He scampered down a few steps.
Luc felt the blood pounding in his ears as he watched Alun tear out the small parchment. “Re-tests is in spring,” Alun read out loud. “They have a list of names here, too. Luc…Luc…where’s Luc?”
His mind started working again. “It’s not there either?”
Alun shook his head.
A spark of hope lit itself inside him. Luc found himself reaching for the parchment. He read through the paltry list of names. “They’ve left it out,” he murmured. “The scribe must’ve forgotten it.”
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