“Combat is Combat.” I drew a shallow breath. My apology was long overdue, ever since that night Ian had found me and confessed… Even the third-year had admitted the prince was right. In war, we’d be expected to put the good of the whole over friendship if that friend was a part of the other side. Hadn’t I said something similar in my first-year trials?
“You’re not heartless,” I added. “You were just doing what was best for our team.”
“I know.” His lip twitched at the side. “I’m not apologizing for that.”
Really? I stared at the prince, arms crossed at my chest. This is his apology?
“I’m apologizing for hurting you, Ryiah.”
I sucked in a sharp intake of breath. What?
“I hurt you by hurting him, and for that I’m sorry.”
My jaw dropped.
“I’m not like you.” He exhaled. “I don’t care about keeping relationships or sparing people’s feelings. All I’ve ever cared about is power: how to get it and how to keep it.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself—”
“But I do.” He ran a hand up along his neck. “Eve was my sole exception to that rule, until you.”
My throat was as dry as sand.
“I care what you think of me… I wish to gods I didn’t, but there it is. Making you miserable and angry makes me miserable and angry.” His laugh was bitter. “I’ve spent the last month hating myself.”
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t if I wanted to. I didn’t know what to say.
The prince groaned. “I don’t want to be the person to make you mad or cry, Ryiah.”
The words repeated, over and over in my head. I was stunned.
“I want to make you laugh,” he said. “I want you to make me laugh, because gods know you are the only one who can.”
My heart was in my throat; the pulse was slamming my veins.
“I don’t want to lose you.” The words were so quiet I almost missed them. “Our friendship means too much.”
I don’t want to lose you. Why were those words taking root in my chest? Why were they seeping into my bones, becoming an aching part of me I didn’t even understand?
“You can’t lose me, Darren.” I don’t want to lose you, either. But I couldn’t admit to that second thought aloud. I already cared for him too much as it were.
A lump rose and fell against his throat. “Do you really mean that?”
I nodded and then bent down to adjust a bootstrap, more to busy my hands than anything else. When I finally straightened, Darren watching me, a strange expression on his face.
It made blood pound loudly in my ears. I bit down on my lip, hard. My eyes were glued to his, and I was hit with an overwhelming desire to close the distance between us, to reach out and take his hand in mine…
It’s Ian that I want.
Was it? Was it really?
“Ryiah.” Darren suddenly dropped my gaze, looking anywhere but my face. “If things were… If they were different—”
Screams broke out across the other side of camp. The moment was gone. I dropped the shovel and took off with Darren toward the others.
We caught up to the rest of our faction to find several Mahj soldiers retreating from the northern trail, large burn marks spotting their arms. And blood. Lots of blood. It was pouring down their faces, chests, legs, everywhere.
Bile rose to my throat.
“The raiders,” one of the men wheezed, “they have magic!”
“O-only ten of them,” a female soldier choked. “But t-too much p-power.”
“Where’s Master Byron?” Caine questioned one of the knights. “We need to alert the regiments.”
“With C-Commander Ama’s m-men.” Ten miles away helping the regiment recover the southern mines.
But it wasn’t the southern mines the raiders were attacking. They needed help now.
The crowd broke out in distress.
“We can’t hold them off—”
“We can fight!”
“Wait for reinforcements.”
“They are destroying our m-mines. C-can’t wait.”
“Apprentices, gear up.” Darren’s voice carried over the chaos. The prince had stepped into command. “We are going to help.”
ELLA and I saddled our horses with trembling hands. We were still working up the courage to speak. But what did one say before battle? The masters had never taught us what to say in those final moments of restless silence, the pressure beating on your chest like a drum.
I didn’t feel so sure of myself. All this time I’d been so eager to fight, and now I didn’t know why. There was nothing exciting about battle.
Any injuries we got would not be so quickly attended to. This wasn’t a drill.
I tried to soothe my frantic nerves as I re-checked the reins and tucked my sickle blade into its curved sheath, hiding a dagger in the padding of my left ankle.
We were already dressed for battle in pale linen breeches, a riding shirt, and a vest. I tightened the belt at my waist and futilely wished desert regiments wore armor. I felt exposed with no chainmail and only a thin wooden shield to carry.
“Ella!” My brother crashed into the stables, with bloodshot eyes and ashen skin. “Tell me it’s not true? Tell me you and the rest of your faction aren’t going after the raiders on your own?”
“We have to.” Ella gave the saddle one final tug of the straps and then swung her leg into the holds. “They could destroy the northern mines, Alex. You know how important those are.”
Salt was Jerar’s most precious commodity; the mines in Red Desert produced over half the country’s coffers. Every single history book mentioned this.
My brother gritted his teeth. “You need to wait for the regiment. Those soldiers can handle it on their own.”
“The raiders have mages.” I placed a reassuring hand on Alex’s wrist. “They need us, Alex.”
“But what if they hurt you?” His voice was hoarse. “Or Ella?”
My poor brother. As a healer, all he saw was blood.
“They won’t.”
“Ella, please…” My brother broke my grip to stand in front of her horse. “Please don’t go out there.”
“Ryiah’s a good mage, Alex. So am I.”
“I love you,” he rasped. “Don’t do this.”
The stables were silent. A pin could’ve dropped and we all would’ve heard it.
Alex in love? My jaw almost hit the ground. Had the world ended?
“We’re not going to die, Alex.” Ella’s mare shifting restlessly in place but the girl’s expression was soft. “You can tell me when we return. If you still mean it then.”
He swallowed and stepped back so that we could pass.
Neither one of us were going to die.
I prayed to the gods she was right.
WE’D BEEN RIDING for almost an hour when we finally located the entrance to the mines.
“There!” Caine pointed to a herd of slaughtered camel. They were heaped in a pile of bloody carcasses next to a pair of toppled caravans, and just further west were two large mile-long pits surrounded by chunks of rock and large slabs of white. Salt.
Deep fissures ripped across the salt beds like the claws of a beast. Tremors rattled and groaned, scattering Mahj soldiers and their horses along the ground. The air was lit with battle cries and great flashes of light against the blackening desert night.
I saw blood everywhere. Young men and women were sprawled across ditches and sand, soldiers’ garb in tatters and shreds.
There were still twenty or so knights fighting. They fought to press a handful of darkly clad raiders back away from the precious mines and their people.
But it was a losing battle.
The raiders continued to draw closer, bright flares of magic spilling from their hands. They seemed more intent on destroying the mines than on the men fighting them. Already one of the mines had collapsed.
Salt twisted and danced in the wind.
I
t made no sense. Why were the raiders attacking the mines? How could ten untrained individuals possess so much magic—unless they really were mages as the locals had claimed?
The raiders didn’t wear notable robes. They were dressed in loose desert garb, muted browns and blacks with hoods that shielded their eyes. Scarves hid the rest of their faces from view. It must have been how they’d been able to sneak up on the Mahj regiment undetected, blending into the night.
One of the raiders spotted us. “Leave us.” His command cut across the wind. “I give you the same choice we gave these men here. Return to your camps, and we will let your people live.”
“Relinquish our mines, and we will let you live,” Tyra hollered back.
“This land belongs to the Crown.” Darren joined Caine at the head of our party. “We give you one chance to retreat.”
The man threw back his head to laugh.
“You filthy bandit!” Caine snarled. “How dare you mock a prince of the realm!”
The man stopped laughing and his eyes snapped to the three apprentices who’d spoken, focusing on the prince.
“Well, well.” The gruff raider smiled wide, white teeth flashing. “It’s an honor, Your Highness.”
Oh no, panic flared in my gut. Stupid Caine—
“Brothers,” the bandit roared, “the orders have changed: kill them all. I want that prince’s head on a pike!”
“Apprentices, fall back!” Darren roared.
Thunder rolled over us, and then the air lit up with golden light. Bright yellow shards of lightning tore across the sky, and then we were galloping a retreat.
Screams filled the din as Mahj soldiers toppled to the ground; twenty new bodies writhing in the sand.
Men thrashed against the sand as flesh and bone exploded, clouding the air with a thick, crimson mist that spun and twisted in the wind.
“What have we done?” Ella’s voice quavered.
We pulled up twenty yards away, out of the direct line of fire.
I didn’t know how to answer. Fear had taken complete hold of my body. I clutched the reins, hands trembling and cold as ice. Hysterical screams threatened to break free from my throat; I was mourning the last seconds of my life.
I was a coward. The one time I’d needed to fight, I’d run. Retreating with the rest of our party instead of challenging the others head-on.
Would it have mattered? In those seconds, could we have changed the soldiers’ fate?
The raiders had slaughtered twenty men in seconds… And now, now they wanted to kill us.
This wasn’t a battle—it was a massacre.
I wasn’t the only one who thought it. It was clear that none of us had prepared for this outcome or the realities battle could truly bring.
I tried to speak, but fear lodged itself too deep in my throat. We couldn’t run. The raiders had horses, and they knew where we camped. They knew we had a prince.
We had to stay and fight.
“S-shield Darren,” Caine finally stammered. “We need to p-protect the Crown!”
“No! We need to—” Darren’s protest fell on deaf ears.
We all knew the prince was more important than any of us.
Another deafening boom and the ground below us quaked, just as a bolt of lightning shot out to our right.
It was time to fight.
For once our training worked. The entire faction cast out at once.
Our defense was a large purple globe that crackled and moaned.
The raiders’ magic rippled against our barrier before finally fizzling and sliding down to the scorched earth below.
“Pain cast!” Caine gasped. “Now!”
But not everyone could. Ella’s eyes found mine. Her lips were white. “Tell Alex—”
“We can’t just hold this casting!” Darren’s voice cut off the panic filling our dome. “We’ll waste all of our magic!”
“We need to target the raiders one by one, like you did to us in the mock battle,” Lynn gasped.
“But they are as strong as mages.” The quiet voice was Priscilla. Even she was afraid. “We’re only apprentices.”
“Whoever wants to run, run. I’m staying.” The prince’s reply was defiant.
“No, Darren, they’ll kill you!” an apprentice pleaded.
“It’s my blasted decision!”
“But—”
Eve cleared her throat. “I’m with the prince.”
“Me too,” I announced.
In the end, everyone was staying and we were all fighting.
The first thing we did was dismount—there was no advantage on moving ground, and our horses would only hinder us in battle. We quickly laid out a plan of attack, Caine and Darren plotting the course. The rest of us held onto our casting… but the barrier was starting to smell like molten rock. There was a tinkling like glass whenever lightning touched the same spot twice.
It wouldn’t hold much longer.
“Now!”
On Darren’s command, we released the casting and separated into two parties: those who could pain cast, and those who couldn’t.
The second group formed a running barrier, launching long casting arrows and javelins with as much force as they could.
The raiders easily deflected their attacks and sent off their own long castings in turn. Lucky for us, weather castings like lightning were too costly for the enemy to maintain.
The rest of us advanced. Using whatever blade we had on hand, we dug deep into our palms, summoning as much warm air and sand as we could. There was loose earth everywhere, providing plenty of debris for our magic. We thrust our castings together, allowing the joint power to fuel the attack.
Our dust vortex began to cut across the fissured plains, fast and deadly in its course. The other apprentices were ready and ducked to the side, allowing the tower of sand to pass. The raiders threw up a barrier and dropped their long castings, unable to see anything beyond the fast whirlwind of sand that blinded their sight.
But then they made a mistake: the raiders cast lightning.
With the heat of the raiders’ magic, the vortex’s particles fused together and melted. Sand conducted their lightning, and within seconds, the whirlwind transformed into a petrified web of sandglass that retreated to the casters themselves.
The glass shattered their barrier with a craaaack.
Molten glass streaked out like a gnarled branch and pierced the raiders closest.
They panicked as they tried to call off their magic—but it was too late for most of them.
Cries and screams ensued as white salt and blood rose, a pillowing cloud, a hazy red clotting the air.
The non-pain casters of my faction charged.
I knelt shakily, retching into the sand. Others around me were doing the same. Ian was on the ground. We’d reached the end of our limits. If we tried to cast again, we would end up unconscious.
I took a rattling breath and then froze.
There was a rustle to my left.
Darren staggered out onto the field, determined to help the rest of our faction. How was he still standing?
The prince always did have more magic than the rest of us.
In the battle ahead, I could make out Ella and Loren with Eve; the three of them were leading an assault on the remaining raiders. Five apprentices, including Darren and Caine, were close behind. Only three of the raiders still stood, but they were burned so badly they were having trouble casting.
I choked back relief. We were winning. Seven dead, three injured…
One of the supposedly dead raiders rose, scorch marks trailing like dark rivulets across his face. The others didn’t see him—and Darren, he was too busy casting to notice.
I gave a hoarse cry, but he was too far away.
My boots scraped against sand.
“Noooo!” Caine spotted the raider and launched himself forward, shoving the prince to the ground.
The arrow embedded itself in the fifth-year’s chest.
Caine did
n’t scream. Eyes open, mouth shut, he toppled to the ground, soundless, and then he went limp.
Darren struggled to pull himself up and make sense of what happened. Then he spotted Caine and a strangled scream severed the air. Darren charged and his magic roared across the expanse.
The raider who had just feigned death moments before dropped lifeless to the sand.
Then Darren dropped.
I stumbled forward, but then I was on my knees. I couldn’t move. Pain was blinding in my head, and I could barely crawl. The pain casting had taken the rest of its toll.
In the distance, I could hear the shouts of the Ishir Regiment. Thank the gods. I clutched my ribs and willed myself to breathe. Reinforcements had come.
Master Byron and the regiment mages charged the three remaining raiders, casting heavy metal nets that trapped them in seconds. They sent in groups of men to take care of the bodies, the fallen soldiers and Caine, and then, finally, us.
The last thing I remembered was my twin’s face.
Bloodshot eyes. Alex. “Where’s Ella?”
I pointed, and then I shut my eyes.
We were safe.
7
“He’s not eating. He hasn’t eaten since he woke.” The hysteria in Priscilla’s voice was rising. “Please, Ronan, do something.”
“It’s not physical. The only thing that will help is time.”
“That’s not good enough!”
“Apprentice Priscilla, if you cannot keep your voice down, I must ask you to leave.” Master Joan’s frosty reprimand cut the air like a whip.
The girl let out a shriek and stomped out of the infirmary tent, creating a sharp snap as the fabric flapped shut.
I opened my eyes, uncomfortably aware of the pungent scent of blood and sweat all around me. Everywhere I looked, soldiers and apprentices lay in cots. Bandages and vials cluttered makeshift tables and chairs. Healers and Restoration apprentices flit from one patient to the next as they continued to cast and treat naturally depending on each patient’s symptoms.
In the cot next to me was Ella. Her black locks were plastered to her neck. She was fast asleep, a bloody bandage on her arm.
A Restoration apprentice noticed I was awake and raced forward to bring me water. I drank it down greedily; nothing had ever tasted as sweet.
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