We step into the bright gray morning. I squint as my eyes adjust. He leads me through the mansion courtyard. It’s so unlike the tidy yards and patio at home. While Carrenwell House is all sharp, clean stone and tidy planters full of flowers, Havenwood House is all mossy stone and wild ivy twisting up the walls. Deep, bloody-looking flowers bloom in clumps through the cracks in the walls and up through gaps in the cobblestones, and the iron gate is tangled with some sort of spiky, deep purple flowering vine that is still in bloom despite the turn of the season and the frigid mountain air.
Somehow, it doesn’t look messy. It looks beautiful in a harsh sort of way, as if everything about this place is a monument to things that thrive in a brutal environment. I suppose I’ll blend in just fine.
We pass through the gate and turn right, taking a wide stone path down. Havenwood House perches on the sixth and highest level of the fort, with five other levels unfurling below it. I watch the distant bluster of town as we walk. Several men in guard uniforms pass us as we follow the winding path. Most of them have their sigils prominently placed across their chest, but there are a few who take Henry’s more subtle approach.
“What does it take to become a guard?” I ask.
“Why? Thinking about trying to pass the test?”
I blow out an exasperated breath. “Give me a break, Henry. Not every question is a weapon. I’m in a strange place with a culture I don’t understand. I’m trying to acclimate to my new life.”
He grimaces. “Sorry. You’re right. To pass the test, you have to survive a week alone out past the wall.”
“A week!” I stop, pulling my arm free from him. “In the Drained Wood?”
He nods as we round a corner in the outer wall of Havenwood House and start down a labyrinth of narrow, twisting and turning paths between tall buildings.
I can’t tell if he’s trying to confuse me, to get me to stop asking questions, or because this is the actual way to the armory.
“So all of those men—” I glance back down the path at the distant figures of the guards who were patrolling. “They’ve all survived a week out?—”
An orange aura swells up in my peripheral vision. I spin, throwing a hand up just in time to catch a man’s wrist and stop his dagger from plunging into my chest. A lightning bolt of pain shoots through my freshly healed but still tender shoulder. The man’s eyes go wide as I bring my other hand up and sweep his blade out to the side.
His magic slams into me—manipulation magic from the Divine of Malice. I don’t wait to find out how he’s trying to influence me. I spin under his arm and wrench his hand back. Blazing hot pain shoots through my left wrist, and though I watched Henry heal me, the ache of the injury remains.
But pain is just a focal point. I can push through it.
The man squeezes his hand tighter around the blade, and I put more pressure on the joint. Fear spreads through my blood like a fever. He’s not going to release the blade. I’m going to die. I’m too weak to hold him off.
The manipulation is so strong, I taste bile in my throat.
My hands shake, my whole body trembling under the weight of his magic. I hold fast, pressing so hard the bone creaks under my grip.
The man is yanked away so suddenly that I almost fall over. Henry pins him against the wall by his throat.
“Really, Seth?” Henry’s voice is a low growl. “Attacking my wife?”
“She’s not your wife yet,” Seth chokes out. “She’s one ofthem.”
“She’s one ofusnow. And she’s harmless.”
I bristle. I’ll show him harmless when I smother him in his sleep.
“Then why is she trained?” Seth asks.
“Because when you’re at the top, everyone wants to take a swing to prove they can,” I say.
Both men’s heads snap to look at me as if they forgot I was here.
“You were in Lunameade less than a day and someone tried to kill you. It’s only fair that I should get the full experience,” I say.
Henry grins at me and slices Seth’s throat without looking. I can only imagine that the shock on my face matches Seth’s.
I blink rapidly, trying to figure out if I imagined it, but Seth slumps against the wall, blood pouring from the wound in his neck. Henry sniffs and his nose wrinkles as he lets Seth fall to the ground, ignoring the gurgling death rattle of his breathing.
My knees tremble so badly I can barely stand, but if there is one thing I am accustomed to, it’s fear. I’ve felt its icy grip on me every day since my magic showed up at six years old and I learned what it truly meant to be afraid.
Henry frowns at the blood on his hand, bends down, and uses the edge of Seth’s coat to wipe it off. He walks toward me, and I take a step back.
