Page 29 of Blood of the Sands

“I–I’m sorry. Was that…” I stammered.

She quickly schooled her face into a calm smile, but not before I saw a flash of something familiar in her eyes. “My fault. I underestimated how feisty your magic would be and dove in too fast. We should just start with some breathing exercises first.”

We spent the rest of our time doing simple meditations, but I left feeling less centered than when I’d entered. The muscles in my shoulders gripped steadily tighter as the feeling of inescapable rock surrounding me grew more oppressive by the second.

Even as I was glad to leave when the queen had to attend to other business, I eyed the broken door as I walked out. It seemed an ill-omen for my training.

Seeing where I was looking, the queen reached out to lay a comforting hand on my shoulder but stopped, perhaps remembering what led to my first loss of control.

“It could be worse,” she assured me.

I wasn’t so sure, but I decided to trust her. After all, nobody else would be able to teach me control. And without control, I would not be able to stay in the city that had offered me the home even my own parents had denied me. I would not—could not—fail.

Over the next month, my training with the riders proved to be much more promising than my work with the queen. While I knew proper rest and nutrition would change my body for the better, I was astounded how quickly I found myself able to complete the entire training routine. Muscles filled in my frame before my eyes. I would have suspected Aderyn was lacing my food with some sort of stimulant if not for her surprise as my progress.

While my body’s changes allowed me to keep up with the exercises, the saber forms were where I showed the starkest improvement. My body fell into them almost as if they were a comfortable habit, even after I’d only practiced them a few times.

After Aderyn had left us to our own devices for the day, Dryden watched me as he massaged a sore shoulder, head cocked to the side as I flowed through the movements.

“I don’t know why you’re still practicing. You already make the rest of us look bad,” he complained with no annoyance. After a couple weeks training alongside him, I learned that nothing really ruffled Dryden’s feathers.

“Yeah, and you’re already giving us enough bruises,” another female recruit, Nyra, piped up as she put away the blunted sabers we had practiced with. Her quip held more bite.

I just shrugged as I continued moving through the third form, this one especially challenging as it involved a series of deep lunges. While I had accomplished the balance most others struggled with in this form, the muscles of my thighs still struggled to hold the positions as long as necessary. The others had an advantage over me after years of using their legs to steer and hold themselves on their horses.

In truth, I practiced because it made me feel less like I was failing Queen Ginevra, and by extension, Kelvadan. This city and its leader had opened itself to me when all others turned me away. They went out of their way to help me and gave me a place to belong—something I hadn’t had in far too long. Even if learning to control my magic was slow at best, I could repay Kelvadan for opening its gates to me by fighting alongside its riders.

“Are you going to enter in the Trials?” Nyra asked Dryden as I lowered my arms with a long exhale, finishing the form.

“Of course! I know I’ll get my ass served to me on a silver platter, but it might be served to me by the next Champion of the Desert. That’ll be a story to tell my children.”

“That’s assuming you find anybody to procreate with you.” Nyra elbowed Dryden playfully in the side.

“I have my charms, don’t I, Keera?” Dryden retorted.

“I wouldn’t know. And the Trials?” I asked, happy to deflect Dryden’s flirtation. His manner was light, but I was still too busy working out how to exist around other humans to try to decode flirting.

“The Ballan Trials? They’re being held at the end of the dry season?” Dryden seemed incredulous that I wasn’t aware of the massive event about to descend on the city.

I blinked. I had attended the Trials with my parents when I was small, the only time I had ever seen Kelvadan before, and the skill of its riders were forever imprinted in my brain. My parents had both been eliminated early, but we had stayed through the days of feasting and watched the remaining events. It was hard to remember specifics, but I remembered the excitement in the air, even more palpable than it had been at the Kelvadan festival. I also had vague memories of my parents’ disapproving frowns as we rode away from the city. Perhaps they had been disappointed to lose so early.

Apparently, that had been twenty years ago. Now it was time for another generation of riders to compete for the title of Champion, charged with protecting the desert until the next Trials.

“I don’t know as much about them as I should,” I admitted when Dryden continued to stare at me. “I only vaguely remember the last competition, and… we don’t talk about them much outside of the city.”

“Kelvar himself was the last Champion before the Trials moved to Kelvadan, wasn’t he?” Nyra asked.

“I think so.” Dryden shrugged. “Since the founding of Kelvadan and the Trials moving to the city, they aren’t quite as brutal, and the title of Champion is mostly ceremonial. The duels aren’t to the death anymore, but the challenges are difficult enough that a few competitors still die every time. They’re a huge event, and some of more traditional clans take them very seriously. Do you think you’ll enter?”

I shook my head, although the thought of being part of such a competition—of being named Champion so nobody could deny that I had earned my place—was seductive. “We’ve barely started training to fight on horseback. I hardly think I’m ready.”

Nyra frowned. “They only happen every twenty years though, so this might be your best chance to participate. Plus, these will be the tenth Trials since the city was founded, and word has it that the queen is planning to make them a huge to-do. ‘A display of peace and unity’ they say.”

I had a feeling the queen’s desire to promote harmony stemmed from the growing threat of war from the clans. The words of Clan Katal’s lord were another source of motivation for my extended training.

“Plenty of people enter the Trials that don’t have as much training as they would like, since they come around so rarely,” Dryden added. “They get weeded out pretty early, before the challenges get really dangerous, but it’s about saying you competed.”

“What kind of competitions are there in the Trials?”