Esme sniffled—either from the cold or pain—not meeting my gaze. “I hate this. Why do I even have to be in the stupid Vangar?”
My sister had just turned fifteen, meaning she was ready for initiation—three years of training before pledging compulsory service in the Vangar, our militia.
I’d pledged five years earlier, at eighteen. My twin siblings, Tara and Madoc, had pledged two years before me.
But Esme had never enjoyed traipsing through the forest, preferring instead to follow our mother, snuggle the goats, or tend to the garden. My mother’s Ibarran blood ran strong through Esme. The realm of lovers and magic had no propensity for bloodshed.
The twins were thoroughly Pendaran, like our father. Of Lirien’s seven realms, Pendara was known for two things: its brutal cold, and deadly soldiers.
While I hadn’t been built for the Vangar like Tara and took after my mother’s petite frame, I had wanted it more. “The Vangar needs our service.”
“They don’t need mine.” She sniffled. “Why can’t I just be a cook? I don’t want to kill anyone—I can’t.”
“The cooks that travel with squadrons do all the hunting, fishing, and butchering. And they learn how to fight.”
Esme groaned and sank on the floor. “What if I fail?”
“They’ll still send you on raids—test you. You’ll die if you fail. I’m not going to let that happen.”
Esme didn’t respond. She stared out into the endless dark of the forest, her small form curled up under the blanket I’d spread. The soft sound of her sniffles broke the silence, twisting a knife in my heart. She shouldn’t be here. She wasn’t ready, no matter what the Viori demanded.
Papa had wanted Esme to train with Madoc. I’d trained with Tara, so it should have been my brother’s turn. Both Esme and I had protested. We were closer. She still slept beside me when she had nightmares—which was often. Esme feared shadows.
But maybe I should have let Madoc do this as the weight of my responsibility was enormous.
“It won’t always be this hard,” I whispered. Actually, it would be harder, but that wasn’t the point. “You’ll get used to pushing yourself. You’re more capable than you think, Es. You’re a Ragnall. We’re good at this.”
“You say that because you’ve never failed at anything.” Esme curled up, resting her cheek against the fur blanket.
If she only knew. I’d never mentioned my many training failures, and thankfully, neither had Tara. I chose not to argue. Spending her birthday evening in a watchtower during a bitter night was miserable enough.
Twirling my fingers, I frosted the tips of the branches above us with icicles that sparkled in the starlight. My ability to manipulate snow and ice mostly felt useless, given that we lived in the cold forest, but Esme had always loved my icy creations.
“Look.” I nudged her with a smile. “I decorated for your birthday.”
Esme gave the icicles a halfhearted glance, then rolled onto her side, turning her back to me. “I’m not a kid anymore, remember? That’s why I have to do this. Unless you also have secret fire powers so I can warm up, ice won’t make me feel better.”
Ouch.
Would she resent me for training her? It felt possible.
“You know it’s not me forcing you, right?”
Esme was quiet. After a few minutes, she whispered, “Do you ever wonder what our lives would have been like in Lirien?”
My breath caught. That Esme had voiced such a thought was bad enough … but what was worse was that I had wondered.
What if my siblings hadn’t been twins? If my parents had never left?
We would have grown up among the wealthy and elite in Ederyn, not shivering in the frigid forest, scrounging for food, learning to be soldiers whether we had the inclination or not.
I killed the line of thought before it carried me away. “Father would be in prison or dead—executed for a crime he didn’t commit. Tara and Madoc would also be dead. They would have been murdered when their existence was discovered. We wouldn’t exist. But if Father wasn’t executed, neither you nor I would have the powers we were born with. We would have been Bloodbound to Pendara since Father was from there and only allowed to develop warcraft gifts, if we possessed them—which we don’t. And the?—”
“I get it.”
“Do you though?” I drew my knees up and vanished the icicles with a scowl. “We’ve all shielded you for too long. Maybe it would have been better to tell you about the atrocities I’ve seen Liriens commit against Viori. Learning to defend ourselves—preparing for inevitable war—is survival.”
Esme curled up tighter. “Or we could all just stop killing each other.”
