By now, I’m used to being trounced in practice. A Thrower howls with laughter when her waterspout sends me sailing into the dirt. I can barely scrabble up a breeze to soften my fall. My chin scrapes along the ground and my eyes sting with angry tears as mud drips over my forehead. My tunic is slick with the stuff and I lock my eyes on the horizon as I march away, humiliated.
“Ekaterina? Are you all right?” Elena’s voice is alarmed when I blow past her.
“I’m fine.”
Her hands tear at my arms, trying to stop me. “Don’t put me off—”
“Leave it, Elena!” I snarl. I whirl away from her and use my pitiful gift to put some distance between us as I lope away.
I will change things. I can do more. I am more. I will make sure that the title of “Rider” is given the respect it deserves.
Rider
The king is coming.
Camp is alive with the scrambles of my compatriots. We are stiff in our uniforms, black hooded things that are ill-suited to the dry desert we train in, lined up by rank and element.
The king wants to rally us for his upcoming campaign on Clavins, the commanders told us. I care naught for it, but I’ll welcome the action. I only fear that they’ll send Elena’s squad somewhere else.
We wait for our ruler for hours and sweat glazes my forehead by the time the king and his company thunder into our camp.
I straighten as the young king dismounts his horse. He’s handsome. For some reason, this surprises me. His gray eyes are the color of melted steel and his crown looks soft upon his wiry red hair.
Another young man sits proudly in his seat beside the king’s mount. His black hair is thick, as is his cloak, but not one bead of sweat drops from his brow, even in this heat.
“His Majesty and His Grace are here to observe you. They will spend the next week with us.” Our commander’s voice rings out over our lines. We stand at attention while the king’s eyes sweep over us. “Let him see what his troops are capable of that he may have faith we will carry Egria to greatness!”
The cheers quake the ground beneath my feet—though to be fair, I see the Shakers stomping enthusiastically.
The king and his companion—a duke, I think— slip between the squads as the day goes on, watching us. In the distance, I see them nod seriously at the healer, who’s developed a new technique for keeping the tents cool by a single breeze that keeps spinning.
I need to focus on my own training. I grit my teeth and pummel the practice dummy before me with blasts of air. One punch, one gust. Another fist forward for another. The dummy wobbles in my wind, but settles back easily.
It’s not enough. I need to do more or I’ll never see battle. Where is the strength I had just after my Reveal? Have I gained control only to lose the brute force that I felt within me then?
“Shouldn’t you be with the other Riders?”
The voice behind me makes me whirl, my ineffectual fists battle-ready in front of me. The king’s companion leans against a post, head tilted curiously at me. One hand snaps to my side as the other executes a stuff salute. “Your Grace.”
“Adept.” He nods an acknowledgement. “You didn’t answer my question.”
My hand fumbles at my brow. “I am the only Rider here excepting the healer, Your Grace.”
“I see.” He purses his lips. “At ease, Adept.” His eyes move to the dummy as I relax my stance by a fraction. “Doesn’t look much worse for the wear, does he?”
“No, Your Grace.”
He taps his thumbnail with his index finger, nodding to himself. I wait for instructions. Am I supposed to stand here until he dismisses me? Do I continue with my drills?
Apparently not. The duke grins widely, looking as though he’s come to some conclusion, and removes his coat.
He flies at me then and I dive for the ground. His arms whirl, his legs scissor, and I catch my breath in the sand. The duke is insane. What possibly provocation have I given him to attack me?
His boots thump back onto the ground and title or no title, I bolt up to confront him. “What is wrong with you?”
Still grinning, he nods to where the dummy stands—or… where it stood. For as I turn, I see that the post that supported the dummy has been ripped from the ground and it lays, rumpled and disheveled, a good ten feet from where it began.
The duke is a Rider? Interesting. He’s so different from the camp healer. This is a man who knows manipulation, power, and strength; things that I’ve been taught not to see in other Elementals of my ilk. I’d love to learn how to take down an opponent that way. “How did you—”
“Duke Ardin of Secan at your service.” He bows. If it were possible to bow sarcastically, I’d say that Duke Ardin had just done it. He stands straight again. “And you are…?”
“Ekat—“ I stop. My name hovers on my tongue. My very Clavish name.
This man, this confidant of the king, could get me places. Could get me a standing in the empire, could teach me more to Riding than simply how to heal or help with temperature regulation. But if I am to wage a war on Clavins—the land where I was born, but a land I hold no loyalty to—I cannot be Clavish. I must be Egrian.
“Katerine,” I say instead, concentrating so that my syllables hold no trace of a Clavish accent.
“Am I right, Katerine, in supposing that you’d like to do more with your gift than filter someone’s cough out of their lungs?”
I feel a twinge of guilt. Someone like that saved my sister’s life, I think. But he’s right. I itch for more. Battle may be where I belong. Or at least, where I can start.
There is no power in hope, but there is plenty in fear, and I never want to find myself sleeping in a shack again.
“Yes.”
He measures me with his eyes. “Let us see what you can do.”
And so, I find myself under the duke’s tutelage. He puts me to drills: focusing the air on each of my limbs, mastering which currents to send a spiral over in order to hear whispers across distances. I twist the wind around each turn my body makes, and it lifts my heels with every step I take. I move soundlessly, manipulating the air, until my movements are only betrayed when I want them to be.
I brush past Elena for days, then weeks in favor of my training sessions with Duke Ardin. The duke stays longer than anyone expected to him and the king is in and out of our camp more often as a result.
Part of me is aware that this is far beyond the training that soldiers receive. The other Elementals are learning marching formations, signal flares, and which terrains to avoid. They’re training for group work. But my lessons have taught me to sneak about; how to fend for myself.
They are lessons for a spy.
One night, Elena settles herself onto the bench next to me in the mess tent.
I nearly choke on the charred meat I’m scarfing down. “Elena!” I wipe my lips on my sleeve. She usually eats with the Torchers and I’ve been so busy with the duke that I’ve not seen her in weeks. I’ve barely noticed
Guilt assaults me. But I’ve strict instructions to report to Ardin as soon as I’ve finished my dinner. I look down at my empty plate and start to rise.
“Sit.” Elena smacks my dishes back down onto the table. “And talk to your sister, Ekaterina.”
I flinch. Lately, Ardin has called me ‘Katerine’ so often that I all but forget it’s not my real name. Sometimes, he even short names me: Kat.
Elena softens for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t mean to speak so harshly. It’s just— I miss you.”
The smile that I give her feels foreign on my lips. “I miss you too,” I say. “How are you?”
She grins back, reaching through the air between us to touch my arm. “My squad is ranked top in the camp,” she confides. “The commanders think we’re likely to join the next wave of troops sent to Clavins. I’ve never been thought of so highly. Things are wonderful… with just a few exceptions.”
“Exceptions?”
Reluctantly, Elena�
�s eyes drift to Watchman Jack. He sits at another table, tucking into his meal. I suck in a breath, and duck my head down to hers. My hand tightens on her wrist. “Elena. What has he done?”
“It’s nothing,” she says quickly. “Little things. He trips me during meals, points out my uniform irregularities to my ranking officer, and— ” She hesitates.
“And?” I say.
“A dog came after me one night,” she blurts. “One of the patrol dogs. I don’t know for sure that he was the one who gave it the command, but it was… it would have killed me.”
I stand slowly, summoning the wind to my palm. “I’ll kill him.” I’ll cyclone a knife into Jack’s chest. No, better still, I’ll fly him into a pack of dogs. They’ll tear him limb from limb.
“Ekaterina!” Elena tugs me down to my seat. Her eyes are wide and she grips my shoulders. “Look at me.”
I keep my eyes on Jack and she gives me a little shake. “Look at me.”
My breath is ragged when I do. “I’m fine,” she says. “I am whole. Unbroken and alive.” Her smile is grim. “I’m a Torcher. I fried that dog and I’m certain Jack knows I’d do just the same to him.”
I grasp her arms at the elbows, overcome. How could I have been oblivious to something like this? Elena could have been killed and I’d never have known. “You have to tell me things like this,” I tell her, leaning my forehead against hers, grateful for the contact. Her breath across my face is a relief after what she just told me. “I’m your sister.”
She pulls away slowly, detangling her arms from mine. Her eyebrows are arched in a challenge. “When was I meant to tell you? When you were running past for another meeting with Duke Ardin?”
I harden, drawing back from her. “My lessons are important.”
“You are important. We are important. Healing would be important, but this…” She shakes her head, trailing off.
She doesn’t understand. I rise, expressionless. “I really have to get going.”
“Yes, off to your training again, I know. The whole camp knows how the duke’s twisted your power.” Elena makes a disappointed ‘tch’ sound and crosses her arms.
“Exactly what does that mean?”
“They talk, you know,” she says lowly. She stands so that we’re at the same level again. “The other trainees. They watch you. It’s wrong, how you and the duke train. Riders are meant to be healers, are they not?”
“I must have missed that bit in the Creation Scrolls,” I say coolly.
She stares at me for a long moment. “Would it have been so bad to be a healer, Ekaterina?”
I realize that she has no idea what it was like for me. To be mocked, thought less of for my power. The air wants to rise, I want to tell her. It wants respect and so do I.
I say none of that. My fingertips feel hot as I snatch my plate from her grasp and leave. “Yes,” I tell her with a sweetness in my voice that I do not feel. “It would.”
She doesn’t follow me when I leave the mess tent and storm to the practice grounds to meet Ardin. My steps slow as I approach. The king stands with the duke.
I have a moment of hesitation—but only a moment. With a twirl of my finger, I bring their words to me on a breeze.
“I need you back in the capital, Ardie.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Ardin’s tone is carefully deferential. “Only, I’m not certain my work here is finished.”
The king scoffs. “You’re still preoccupied with the girl?”
“I believe she’ll prove useful.”
“She’s a pretty piece, I’ll grant you that, but we’ve prettier among the courtiers. I’d be happy to have one sent to your rooms.”
“I have a wife, sire.”
The king waves a flippant hand. “She need not know.”
There is a pause—a silence that speaks so loudly that even I, ignorant from this distance of the expressions Duke Ardin and the king may be wearing, can tell its volume. An interruption here seems prudent for my new friend, so I hurry between them. Ardin looks at me in surprise when I twine my arm through his and lay my head on his shoulder.
“I’m flattered you think me such a distraction, Your Majesty,” I purr, making my voice silky. “In truth, I doubt there’s a woman who’s my equal on the continent.”
The king stares at me and for a breathtaking moment, I fear that I’ve incorrectly gauged the situation. But he throws his head back and bellows his laughter to the sky, the glint of his red hair catching the light of the torches. “Very well. Let’s see what you can do then.”
Ardin slowly turns to face me and I stand at attention. His brown eyes are so fixed on me that it makes me think he’s trying to forget that the king is watching. “We have one lesson left to us, Kat.”
I do my best to follow his example, focusing on my teacher and forgetting our royal audience.
“We are fortunate that our element is all around us. Throwers need an atmosphere heavy with moisture, or at least a water skin at their hip. Torchers are helpless in the rain, and Shakers caught at sea can do naught. But if you can breathe, you can Ride.” His eyebrows slam together. “Yet, our kind is often underestimated in Egria. Made to play nursemaids to the other Adepts.”
I nod, approving of his words. Ardin understands. He’s like me. He knows what our power can be.
He begins to pace as he speaks. “It’s foolish that we’re relegated to the role of healers, even as it makes sense. Air gives life.
“But air can take life too.”
He faces me once more, expression determined. Despite myself, I glance at the king. Ardin’s voice is soft as he takes my hands in his. His lips quirk up in a quick smile of encouragement. “None of that. Look at me now, Lady Kat.”
I obey. His eyes are warm. Patient.
“Close your eyes,” he says. Focus on the air around us as we breathe in and out. Feel how it cycles around us and dives down into us to sustain us.”
I do. The current of air lazily rotates between us, drifting in and out of our lungs, almost playfully-- like a child’s toy, going only so far before it’s snatched back like an invisible string. It’s soothing, just ‘listening’ to the air like this. My shoulders relax. My mouth curves.
“Excellent.” Ardin releases my hands, steps away from me. “Do you still feel the air as I inhale and exhale?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now take it.”
My eyes fly open. “Your Grace—”
His gaze on mine is steady and he extends a placating hand. “You’re ready, Katerine. This is the final step in your training. It’s the secret of our power, this ability.”
My heart pounds, and I’m not certain if it’s nerves or excitement. “Ardie,” I whisper. I shake my head. “This isn’t wise.”
He steps forward again quickly, lowers his voice, so we won’t be overheard. “Katerine. If the king doesn’t have a use for you, a healer is all that you will ever be. The kingdom has enemies, ones that you could protect against. If you want to be more than the lowest rank of soldier, this and only this is your way out.”
A way out. A way to rise.
I’ll do it.
I nod and he steps away again.
Inhale. Exhale. I take deep breaths to center myself, closing my eyes again to focus on the air.
I’m ready.
My hand clenches in a fist. Ardin chokes.
And slowly, I pull his breath from him.
It’s terrifying. It’s nerve-wracking. But it’s also seductive. It’s power and it’s strength. I hold his life in my tightly clenched palm and I revel in it.
Ardin’s face purples as he falls to his knees. He motions frantically, and tendrils of his control snake into the air. It frees him enough to gasp. “Kat—” before I seize it back, strangely livid. The air is mine, and I have to prove myself to it—to myself, to my teacher, to the king—to the world.
“That will do, Adept.”
One sentence from the king breaks my focus and I shake my head as though
clearing a fog.
Ardie. His hand scrabbles at the dirt while he fights to breathe. I release my hand quickly and Ardin doubles over, wheezing.
The way that he’s looked at me has changed. It used to be patient, and just a little patronizing. He looks wary now as he massages his throat. “I have nothing left to teach you,” he says.
I salute, heels snapping together. “I merely demonstrated the skill of my excellent teacher, sir.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Ardin.” The king is thoughtful as he considers me, two fingers resting on his chin. “Yes, I do believe your instincts were correct. The Lady Katerine may be useful.”
“I am not a lady, Your Majesty. Only a soldier.” It’s false modesty. I know very well that the demonstration of my abilities proves what a useful tool I can be. The king and I are of one mind on power: if you have it, it makes you. If you’re too weak to wield it, or worse—if you don’t have any power, you can easily be broken.
The king’s voice is soft, but power cloaks him and I am drawn to him like a wave to the shore. “Not a lady?” he repeats. “Well, we’ll have to do something about that.”
✺✺✺
Not much more is said before I’m dismissed to my tent for the night.
I’m elated as I walk away. I did it. Ardin was right. Impressing the king has served my purpose well and I’ll finally be free of my poor upbringing, of the mockery that came with joining the army’s ranks as a Clavish Rider.
“That was quite the performance.”
My steps halt, stuttering in their path.
Elena. Damn the Makers for throwing her in my way tonight. She wasn’t meant to see that, not yet.
Her eyes are filled with disappointment when I face her. “You could have killed the duke, Ekaterina.”
“It was merely a training exercise,” I scoff, ignoring the prodding of my conscience that says she’s right. “You’re overreacting.”
She folds her lips into a white line and I swallow as memory assaults me. She looks like Mama, stern and in control, back before… everything. “I don’t like it,” she says. Her eyes crackle at me. “You have to stop this before it gets out of hand.”
Sisters of Wind and Flame Page 2