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Chapter 1
Esme
“Line up!” calls out the major. He paces in front of us, hands behind his back. We’ve only been in training for a week. Soon we’ll be sent to the front lines as bait, meant to draw the trollkin out of their well-defended town so the archers and catapults behind us can destroy them. That’s the only purpose we serve.
“Keep your heads high!” he roars. “For the King!”
“For the King!” we echo back, because not saying it means a stick to the knees.
I peek at the men and women standing to either side of me, dressed in the thickest clothes they could find. We weren’t given armor, and the only weapon I have is the small axe I brought with me from the master’s house. Before all of this I was a maid, a cook, a nanny. I watched over his children and chopped the wood and made the meals. Now the major is asking me to charge into battle and kill any trollkin I encounter in cold blood.
Little do they know that I’m a coward.
“Why are they even bothering to train us?” asks a redheaded woman around the fire that night. She has pale, freckled skin, but it’s hard to tell which dots are freckles and which are mud. Everything is muddy with the constant rain. “We’re just going to die anyway. That’s all we’re good for.”
I wrap my arms around myself and shiver. The moment we’re sent into battle, we’re corpses on legs.
“Maybe we’ll take out a trollkin or two before we go,” says a taller man, a handsome one who seems to be her friend.
Her green eyes are sharp. “Just because you can kill, doesn’t mean you should.”
He snorts. “You’re the one with a weakness for them, not me.”
The woman growls at him in warning, and I wonder what he meant.
After the others go to bed, it’s just me and her staring into the flames, wondering what will happen in the battle tomorrow.
“I’m Telise, by the way,” the redhead says, holding out a hand. When we shake, though, my fingers are trembling. She gives me a look of pity. “You’re not a fighter, are you?”
I shake my head. “I’m a maid.”
She sighs. “Don’t listen to Deleran. It’s not about killing—it’s about surviving. Do whatever you have to do in order to live.” Her gaze slides off into the trees, like she’s thinking about something far away. “The trollkin don’t want to be here, either.”
I tilt my head. “They want our land. They attacked us because they love war.”
“Did they? Or are we the ones attacking them tomorrow?” Telise leans back, tilting her head up toward the night sky. “See, little maid, it’s just a matter of perspective. They’re not what you think they are.”
My brow furrows. “What do you mean? They’re monsters.”
But she just shakes her head like I’m a child with much to learn about the world. “Not at all. I’d say they’re a lot like us, and we have more in common than we realize.”
Something sad lies behind the words, as if there’s a whole layer I’m missing. But she doesn’t seem inclined to speak further, so I tell her goodnight and stumble back to my bedroll, knowing I won’t be able to sleep.
The next day, the major herds us into formation, and in the shuffle I lose track of Telise. Damn. She’d seen a few different battles and lived through them, so I thought staying close to her might mean surviving this.
Once again, I’m on my own.
When we step out of the trees, the high, wooden walls of the trollkin town loom above us. We’re supposed to invade this place? I can’t see how we could possibly hope to take it.
The moment we appear, arrows rain down on us—some of them even on fire. All around me, the screaming begins, and my fellow soldiers are already falling.
I have to get out of here. That’s the only thing I know for certain.
The big front gates of the city open, and the huge, green and blue bodies of trollkin stream out. They’re much stronger than we are, with cruel tusks curving out of their mouths and bright red and yellow eyes. All it takes is a cursory glance to see that unlike us, they’re actually outfitted for war, dressed in helmets and metal chainmail.
Pain rips through my arm. An arrow is lodged in my bicep, and my own scream joins the cacophony. But I don’t let myself fall. I can’t, or I’m dead the moment those trollkin are on top of us.
Tears stream down my face as I pull the arrow out of my flesh. My blood pumping hot and fast, I turn and bolt. Not back towards the trees, because one of the officers lined up behind us would easily clock me for desertion, and execute me on the spot. Instead, I run to one side, past the other conscripted all charging into battle. How do they have that kind of courage? I can’t fathom it. This agony in my arm is enough for me, thank you very much.
