Instructor Cleo slams her staff down onto the snow, and the group silences. “If you’re going to be a Moonling warrior, you’re going to have to prove you can survive in the harshest climates. You will either form a connection with the cold—or you will die. This is your last chance to drop out of training. Anyone?”
Not one person moves. Moonling training is optional, since we aren’t at war. Everyone here knows the risk, knows that more than half the class won’t survive the next few years.
“Good. I hope you enjoyed the comfort of your rooms last night, because you will be spending the next month out there, in the Vinderland, with nothing but the cloaks on your back.”
Dread slips down my spine.
So soon? The classes I’ve heard about have only gone north in their last year ... though I suppose I never met anyone who had survived Instructor Cleo’s training ...
She points north. “You must hunt your own food. Find your own nonfrozen water. Fight your fellow warriors for resources. Create your own shelter. Find your connection to the cold. Or you will die.” She looks around. “The Vinderland is unforgiving ... and so is life.”
All hell breaks loose, but everyone pauses as she raises her hand.
“You will work in pairs. Find your roommate. There are no rules exceptsurvive.”
Roommate.
I swallow as she walks away, back up the Moonling castle steps, and everyone around me begins to panic, searching for their partners.
I don’t know much about the Vinderland, other than it’s a place not even many Moonlings venture to. It’s too cold, for even trained ones.
“The Vinderland? She’s going to get us killed!”
“Hunting expeditions won’t even go there.”
“I heard there are bodies everywhere. Explorers use them as markers.”
I won’t make it. Cleo has ensured that. I’m not used to this climate, unlike Moonlings who have lived here their entire lives. I’m already freezing. I haven’t eaten or had water for hours. If it was Instructor Cleo’s goal to kill me, then she is about to get her wish.
Even if I wanted to move, my body is frozen in place. I’m not even shivering anymore. I just stand, watching, wondering who my mysterious roommate is.
The one who supposedly wants me dead.
The one that will kill me at any given opportunity.
There is a small comfort in knowing the cold will likely kill me before my roommate does.
All at once, someone emerges from the crowd. Everyone gives him a wide berth, letting him pass.
He is a giant. Seven feet tall at least, and made of muscle, like a rock come to life.
His eyes are set on me.
I don’t recognize his face, but I do recognize the name being whispered around me. My blood turns to ice.
Calder.
Son of the head of the greatest resistance Lightlark has seen in centuries.
Son of the man my father burned to ash, just years prior.
Fuck.
CALDER
The Moonling hasn’t tried to kill me. Not yet.
He must be waiting to do it in private, I think, not wanting any witnesses, in case my father decides to care about me and imprison him for the infraction.
