Scorched

Chapter 12

After a painstaking night of not sleeping and obsessing over her performance in the final trial, the sun rose, lighting up the infirmary and waking Gwen. She pushed herself off the bed with her good arm and winced at the pain in her head. She put on a brave face before trudging towards the doors, hoping to avoid the nurse ordering her back to bed.

"Where do you think you're going?" a strict voice asked.

Gwen turned around guiltily, meeting the reproachful eyes of the nurse.

"You said I could leave in the morning," she muttered tentatively. "I just wanted to go find someone to tell me how I placed in the trials."

Nurse Abigail ran her hands through her wispy white hair and rolled her eyes.

"I suppose there's nothing I can say to convince you to rest for a couple more hours?"

Gwen shook her head and shot the kind nurse a rueful grin before darting out the doors towards the cafeteria.

Gwen hurried down the now familiar halls, keeping an eye out for Rowan or Xander. When she got to the cafeteria, she barely registered her growling stomach, noticing with surprise that Rowan and Xander were sitting across from each other at a table in the back.

Gwen hurried over to the two men glaring at each other, muttering back and forth and hesitated for a second, before sliding onto the bench next to Xander.

"You're okay!" Xander exclaimed, shooting her a dazzling smile. Gwen laughed at his enthusiasm.

"Of course I'm okay. You saw me last night and I was perfectly fine."

Rowan's head whipped towards her, anger flashing through his eyes.

"Last night?" he asked in a low voice, eyes narrowed. Gwen sighed, catching the smirk on Xander's face.

"Never mind, now can either of you please tell me what happened with the trials? I've been tearing my hair out over this. You know this is my whole life we're talking about here."

Xander opened his mouth quickly to answer her but was cut off by Rowan.

"You made it!" he exclaimed, clearly wanted to be the one to break the good news to her.

Gwen jumped to her feet, a huge smile blossoming on her face. She felt a lightness in her heart that she hadn't felt since she was a child.

"Are you serious?" she yelled, hugging Rowan, who had also jumped to his feet, tightly.

"Yeah," he said chuckling. "I wouldn't joke about that. I know how much it means to you."

"So what happens now?" she asked, gesturing to her wrapped up arm.

"Well usually the new guards begin training right away, and at the end of training everyone is ranked based on your rank in the trials and training. You are then assigned a position of castle guard, city guard or village guard. But since you're injured, you'll take the month off before beginning your training," Rowan explained.

Gwen frowned.

"If I starting her training a month after everyone else, how will I be able to keep up and be ranked with all the other guards?"

Rowan hesitated, looking over to Xander for reassurance.

"Please don't take this the wrong way," he said quickly. "I know you like doing things yourself, but I thought with the circumstances you could use a little help."

"What did you do?" she glared at him.

"I spoke to my father and asked if you could be a castle guard. I went through the same training as the guards myself, and so did Xander. He said if we were to catch you up on your training with the other guards before the final assessment and you ranked in the top half he would give you a place on the castle guard."