Collin hesitated. He wasn’t exactly shy, but stripping down in front of his group mates felt different than changing at home. Clive seemed equally uncertain, glancing around hesitantly, while Nic—unsurprisingly—showed no reservations, shrugging off his shirt without a second thought.
Through the half-wall, Collin caught a glimpse of Aries’s bare back as he pulled off his clothes in the adjacent stall. With acapitulating sigh, Collin surrendered to the inevitable and began to strip, stopping at his shorts and socks.
The green shirts they had to wear matched those of the seasoned guards, though theirs lacked the fine gold embroidery on the breast. The trousers were a stiff, itchy tan fabric—uncomfortable from the moment he pulled them on.
Before following the others out of the stall, Collin took a cue from Nic, removing his watch and tucking it safely between his folded clothes. He found an unclaimed cubby next to Clive’s belongings and made a mental note to leave his valuables at home from now on.
Lieutenant Spencer was waiting when Collin filed out of the stall behind Gravis. The man was built like a fortress—his shoulders and arms enormous, his shirt left open to reveal a chiseled chest covered in a thick layer of dark hair. His eyes were calm, but it was the calm of a cliff edge, quiet, sheer, and promising pain below.
As Spencer led them across the training grounds, none of the boys dared to speak. The lieutenant moved with an easy confidence, pausing now and then to exchange quips with passing guards, his tone light, almost amused—an unsettling contrast to the silence he demanded from his charges.
The boys followed without protest, like names written on a list they’d never agreed to sign. Their boots kicked up dust as they reached a far corner of the camp where the sandy ground had been packed down solid.
Collin took in the equipment surrounding them. Some contraptions looked like standard training tools—rails of various heights, benches stacked with weights, pulleys with ropes and kettlebells. Others looked more like instruments of punishment. His gaze landed on a plank, seven feet long and two feet wide,elevated three feet off the ground. A short iron rod was affixed to one end, with two horizontal wooden pieces attached to the top.
A torture device?
Nic and Clive were studying the rails, their expressions wary. Collin’s own eyes drifted to an apparatus that looked disturbingly like gallows—except instead of a noose, a pair of chains with handles hung ominously from the top bar. A shiver ran down his spine at the sight of those cold irons.
Spencer clapped his hands together, his deep voice cutting through the morning air. “Alright, pups. Spread out. Give yourselves plenty of room to move around. You are mine today, and I am going to shape you limp lumps of mush into men!”
The boys scattered, moving as if competing for prime real estate. Collin barely had time to register where he had ended up before it was too late to go anywhere else—the gallows.
Despite Spencer’s neutral expression, he was relentless.
The first hundred pushups felt like a slow descent into hell. Collin’s arms trembled by the time he reached fifty, his shoulders burning as if set on fire. By seventy, his breath came in ragged gasps, sweat dripping from his brow and stinging his eyes. The sand beneath him was damp with sweat. By eighty, he had pretty much lost the will to live, but he kept going.
Nic and Gravis, stronger than the rest, pushed through with clenched jaws, their movements sharp but slowing. Clive faltered first, his arms giving out beneath him, his face hitting the sand with a muffled grunt. Spencer didn’t take pity.
“Get up!” the lieutenant barked. “You think this is hard? You haven’t seen hard yet!”
Collin forced himself to keep going, his muscles screaming in protest. The only thing keeping him upright was the thought that stopping would be worse than enduring.
The ten-minute break was a brief but welcome relief. The nearby well offered salvation, and though the spring day waspleasantly warm, the sun golden and gentle, it felt as if they had been thrown into a furnace. None of them had the energy to exchange words. They had just enough life left to gulp down water and splash their faces and chests.
As Spencer called them back, Collin vaguely considered making a break for it—but his legs were barely keeping him upright. Running was out of the question.
The next regimen was just as punishing. Kettlebells. Standing straight, they had to lift the weight from their sides to shoulder level. Collin didn’t lift the weight; he begged it to rise. His muscles screamed in protest, his shoulders locking up with each lift. The ten-pound iron might as well have been a boulder, his fingers barely holding on, and every second Spencer counted seemed twice as long.
By noon, Spencer had nearly shouted himself into a frenzy, his threats growing more elaborate. He wasn’t the only one. Across the camp, Lieutenant Tate’s bellows rang out just as vehemently—the girls were still running laps in the deep sand, struggling against exhaustion. Collin could only imagine what Aries and the others were enduring at the lake under Eric’s command. The captain’s threats might not be as empty as the lower guards’.
At long last, the lunch bell rang out across the training grounds. It was a glorious sound, like the voice of a nymph luring men out to sea.
Everywhere, guards stopped what they were doing and began heading for the meal tent in herds. Once Spencer had his charges put the barbells into storage crates, he shepherded them toward the enticing scent of food.
Collin didn’t know if he had ever been this hungry. Or this tired.
And the day was only half over.
The massive meal pavilion was alive with movement, the midday bustle filling the air with the clatter of dishes and the low hum of conversation. Even the guards who patrolled the town and nearby woods had returned, drawn by the promise of food. Lightweight tables and chairs were scattered throughout the space, but most people opted for the plentiful benches lining the tent.
Spencer led the boys to the end of a crowded line, where they waited, shifting on sore legs, until their turn came. When Collin finally collected his plate—a generous serving of finely prepared fare—he felt the first true wave of relief since dawn. Spencer left them to find their own seats, and Collin scanned the pavilion, searching for familiar faces.
It wasn’t difficult to spot the girls. An invisible perimeter seemed to have formed around them, as if the guards had been warned to keep their distance. Dragonfly, Sky, and Rhea sat side by side on a deserted bench at the far end of the tent, hunched over their plates, their exhaustion evident in every movement.
Nic, Clive, and Gravis were still searching for a place to sit when Collin jabbed Nic lightly in the ribs. “This way,” he said, leading the way.
When Collin sat beside Dragonfly, she offered him a weak smile—small, but genuine. She looked as drained as he felt. Her hair was tied in a loose knot at the back of her head, but wavy tendrils had escaped the blue ribbon, curling against her flushed cheeks and neck. Her blouse clung to her frame, damp with sweat, and though she lifted her fork, she seemed too worn-out to bring it to her mouth with any real enthusiasm.
