Chosen: A Warriors Trial Fit for a Thief

Chapter 5

I wake early and when I rise from my bed, I notice that everyone else is still slumped on their own mattresses. I creep out the only door to the dorm room and notice that it is still dark outside and the sun is yet to rise. I'm starving so I go check the building with the cook and find that she's already preparing meals.

I walk over tentatively and say, "Hi?"

She looks up from her work, "Early bloomer, eh? Don't get much apprentices that are. Sit, sit. I'll pull up a meal for you - bacon and eggs?"

I nod enthusiastically and take a seat at the table in the back corner near the wall with the door on it. As I wait for my food to be ready, Hood walks through the door. He must also be an early bloomer.

"Good, you're up. I was hoping you'd be up early. We have a few things to do before you gather with the other apprentices", he says over his shoulder to me as he grabs both his own plate and mine and then carries them over, sitting next to me.

We're in no rush to eat this time and I'm able to ask questions that are on my mind.

"So what's this initiation you keep talking about?"

"You'll find out soon", he simply says.

"How many other apprentices are there?"

"Thirteen. Fourteen if you pass initiation", he answers while eating.

"Are they all the people that were sleeping in the dorm next door?"

He nods. As I'm about to ask another question, the door opens and admits three boys, the same age as me but all of them are taller by about a foot with one of them being slightly taller than the other two. I stop talking and watch as they go to the counter and grab their meals. The smallest of the three has long messy black hair, falling over his left eye. I'd be surprised if he could see through all the hair in his face. His visible eye is such a light shade of blue that it looks silver. The tallest of them has short blonde hair and a smirk that says he was above everyone else and he knows it. The last of the group wears a bored expression on his face as if it is permanently frozen in that bored look. His hair is long, messy and looks as if it is permanently windswept off his face. He seems laid back as he grabs his food with the others and takes a seat on the other table at the front of the room. I can see the start of a beard on his face but it's only a light shadow of a beard.

They sit for a moment talking and then the black haired one notices me. He points me out to his friends and the blonde turns in his seat to look at me. The brown haired boy with the bored expression looks up at me for a second but goes straight back to his food as if I'm not as common to see as a tree. The black haired and blonde haired boy sit talking about me as I stare at them. There's a menacing grin on the black haired boys face. I feel wary and suddenly feel like I want to leave.

Two more boys come in and they look identical - twins I realize. They both have short messy brown hair with big goggles on their foreheads that are strapped around their heads. Their eyes are bright and ambitious. They stride up to the counter but as they pass the other group of boys, the blonde sticks his leg out and trips the one closest to him. The boy goes sprawling on the floor and the blonde boy and the black haired boy snicker. The bored brown haired boy acts as if nothing happened. The twins hurry off to the counter, grabbing their food and then finding a spot half way up the table I'm sitting on, on the side closest to the wall.

The people in this room must be five of the other apprentices in here. That means there's still eight others still to come in. Just as I think this, another boy enters the building. He's dark skinned with short black hair and he's only half dressed, wearing only his breeches. He's barefoot and carrying his shirt in his hand, his muscles glistening in the early light coming through the few windows of the building. The blonde doesn't trip this boy as he walks past. The blonde and the blacked haired boy seem to just ignore him as if they don't want anything to do with him. He grabs his plate of food and moves to the corner of the room on the other side of the door from me. He notices me and stares for a moment, a frown creasing his face but before long he digs into his plate.