Page 27 of Blood of the Sands

“I’m Dryden. We danced at the festival a few days back,” he said when I continued to stare.

“I remember.” I shook myself from my silence but stayed partially behind the solid shield of Daiti’s body. I didn’t know how to explain my behavior, and part of me hoped that if I stayed silent, Dryden would leave.

“You seemed to have a stressful evening. I wasn’t sure if you would remember the minor details.” A friendly smile split his face as he rubbed a hand over his close-shorn hair sheepishly.

I inched out from behind Daiti. “I’m sorry I ran away. I was… overwhelmed.”

“I’m sorry that I was being too forward. I hear the magic of the desert can be hard to control.”

“No!” I held up my hands placatingly. “It wasn’t that. You were being incredibly kind. I’m just… not from the city. I’ve never been around so many people before. The crowd and the noise—” I broke off as his words struck me. He knew about my magic.

My wide eyes and slack-jawed expression must have signaled my shock.

“News travels fast in this city, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Plenty of people carry a touch of the desert’s magic. I’m just glad to know that it wasn’t me being overbearing after too much laka.”

“I think I’m the one who had too much laka.” I offered him a wry smile, which he returned. I didn’t tell him that I likely suffered from more than the “touch” of magic he was accustomed to. His friendly demeanor eased the tension in my shoulders a bit.

“So, you’re keeping your horse in the riders’ stable now? Are you joining up?” he asked, turning his attention to Daiti. The horse stamped his feet and blew a breath out through his nose.

“It was the queen’s idea. She said I could start training today and that she might be able to help me with…” I gestured vaguely. It seemed almost too good to be true that I might be able to control my magic, making my hope hard to articulate.

Dryden nodded knowingly. “I’m glad you’ll be joining up with the riders. I myself am in training right now.”

At that moment, footsteps sounded as Kaius rounded the corner, huffing as he hauled a bundle of arrowgrass for Daiti.

“I see you’ve met Dryden,” he commented as he set down his burden. “That means he can show you where the riders train, and I can stay here with the animals.”

“Be careful, or we might start to think you like horses better than people,” Dryden commented.

“I’m not trying to make a secret of it,” Kaius grumbled, but his smile betrayed him.

Dryden led me out of the stable and around to a set of stairs that carried us to a large flat terrace. About a dozen others, a mix of men and women, milled about, some stretching or doing various exercises while others chatted animatedly. As I looked around to get my bearings, I furrowed my brow.

“Are we… are we on top of the stables?”

Dryden nodded. “With a city built into the side of mountain, you have to take advantage of vertical space. There’s not a lot of room to spread out.”

I nodded as Aderyn walked into the courtyard. She only acknowledged me with a small nod before putting her hands on her hips and looking the group over with a critical eye.

“All right, recruits, you know the drill.”

At her command, the others immediately dropped into a series of calisthenics they already seemed to know by rote. I followed along as best I could, but within minutes, sweat poured off my body, dripping down my overheated skin to create a puddle on the ground around the spot I had claimed for myself. Panic gripped me at the site of so much lost moisture, but I reminded myself of the constant trickle from the spring in Aderyn’s bathroom. Water was not in short supply here.

After a few more minutes, my muscles began to shake in the effort to keep up with those around me. As I followed along, using my arms to lower and lift my body from the ground, I narrowly missed breaking my nose as my arms failed to hold my weight and I pitched headfirst into the stone.

I struggled back up into the position, arms as wobbly as the legs of a newborn oryx; I looked up to catch a glance of Aderyn watching me. She offered me a brief nod and continued pacing between the rows of other recruits. Something about her stoic acknowledgement of my effort, even if I’d failed miserably, gave me the strength I needed to get through the rest of the grueling exercises. If I could prove worthy of a spot among the recruits, then perhaps I could truly find a home in Kelvadan. My time in the city may already be softening the sharp protrusion of my bones, and years of hunting had kept me spry, but my muscles still had a lot of catching up to do.

“Now that we’ve warmed up, it’s time to move on to our forms,” Aderyn proclaimed.

I put my hands on my knees and panted in despair. This was supposed to get me warmed up, and yet almost every inch of my body felt more like it was on fire.

“Dryden, go ahead and lead us through the first form. Keera, come to the front and watch. Try to memorize the movements,” Aderyn barked.

I gratefully plodded up to where Aderyn stood, turning to face the rest of the recruits who positioned themselves in a ready stance. Wordlessly, Aderyn handed me the skin off her belt, and I took several grateful gulps of water as the recruits began their forms.

They moved rhythmically, looking somewhat like they were fighting although they had no weapons or opponents. Dryden, standing at the front of the group, wobbled often, but wore the look of utmost concentration. The deep furrow between his brows, and the tip of his tongue poking out between his lips as he focused, sweat shining on his deep skin in the rising sun, made me smile.

I did my best to commit the movements to memory, but they moved from the first form, to the second and the third, before repeating the movements with blunted sabers in hand. Eventually my brain couldn’t hold any more, and I focused the best I could on the way each of the recruits moved. The patterns looked familiar, like something I had watched the riders of Clan Padra do when I was young and scampered off to the horse enclosures next to where the riders practiced.