Winterskin (Book One of Wrath & Winter)

A Mother's Will: Part Three

The innards of the guardhouse was outfitted like the jarl himself lived here, with crimson rugs running the length of the ground floor, swallowing our footsteps. We filled the space as Hagen led us into a side chamber, a place filled to the brim with iron weapons and wooden shields, round, tower; one topped with a glacier-like pattern I couldn't name.

The place was like the opened mouth of a monster, every hanging, glittering, weapon one of its jagged, pale gray, teeth.

We were passed gambesons, second-hand, Hagen made sure to tell us. As if we couldn't tell by the yellowed sweat stains souring the pale gray uniform or the lack of Montbereau's sigil over the right breast. They were padded though and that was more than any of us could ask for. Along with that, came round shields ready to dissipate into dust the moment a blunted ax head hit it. And finally, axes. Blunted and cracked and pitted in all the right places, but a testament. A promise that we'll all prove ourselves worthy of Montbereau steel (even though Remicourt steel is purported to be the best, according to the boy with the gold-dusted hair) and worthy of taking on the thousand-odd lives fluttering around in our town.

Silver-blue pervaded the sky, the sun still refusing to rise, when we donned our new uniforms, feeling like the gods themselves as they paraded across the sky during creation, and were thrust out into the sparring pit.

Hagen had eyes for me. Something more to prove that my own elation couldn't squash.

Her besting me near the well—proving that I wasn't ready to join the Guard and that my mother's words were more than that—brought a certain kind of fire into my blood. While my skin tingled like ice was frosting on every hair's edge beneath my sleeves.

"Being chosen isn't enough," she began, holding court between the six of us. The shieldsiblings from earlier having dispersed to their posts. "Proving that you're worthy of shouldering thousands of lives isn't enough!" she prowled from side to side, round shield like feathers on her back, "In twenty-seven days, and twenty-eight nights, you will be flung into the outer reaches of Baate Noir to be tested. And if you come out alive, it'll be another sign of proof among many that you are worthy to protect Montbereau and her people." She flung her gaze on each of us. Her heavy eyes like sharpened dirks, "Who here will die? Who here will prove they aren't worthy?"

No one stepped up. It would be foolish to.

Yet, eyes slipped to me. Following Hagen's.

"Maeva, come."

Fine. I've come this far. I can go farther still.

I stepped forward.

"Show me your stance. What protected you against the blood-drinker."

I took a stance. And chuckles erupted behind me, buzzing like wood wasps.

"Your shield, Maeva?"

Right. "I didn't have one. Didn't use it."

She's looking at me, and then she's not. Her eyes glided over my shoulder. Rested there in the nook between my neck and collar.

"I got injured."

"Yes." She said, taking her own stance, "Yet, here you still stand. Take up your shield, Maeva!" she roared, clapping her ax against her own shield, having removed it from her back in one fluid motion.

It should have been over quickly. The shield latched onto my forearm and I hid behind it as I've seen others do. But, truth is, I've never used one in my life. When woodcutters haunt the border, lit torches are our shields. So I hold mine like one.

And get beat down. Hagen's ax slamming into my shield-arm, sending violent tremors quaking up and down my arm. It's hard enough to make the shield come thundering off. Rolling onto the stone only to collapse like a coin.

The silence that hounded me was icy. Every bone in my body screamed to pick it back up. But I cowered. Waited for her to slap the side of my head with the flat side of her ax.

"Disgraceful." Hagen spat. "You're dead. You're dead!" she screeched, dead swinging around me like a serpent trying to wring everything out, "Pick it up, Maeva. Ceadda! Show me your stance!"

But I can't.

A black sheet hovered on the outer edges of my vision and whenever I tried to look at it fully, it swam away. Its chilly arms whispering over my skin and arms and body.

"Maeva!"

Everything shook. I'm a passenger in my own body as the curtain fluttered closer and closer. Whispering nonsense as I tried so damned hard to get out of Ceadda's way and collect my shield.

"Maeva." A warning, growled into my ear.

Promise me. Promise you'll never follow in his footsteps, Katell.

Hagen tramped through it. Then, the curtain dissipated into dust.

"Get. Your. Shield."