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But when wishes turn into reality, they never leave you feeling how you pictured.
Right then, I was just numb.
We’d been walking for hours, and while overcome with exhaustion, I shoved on, pushing closer to the front of the line, to the helmeted commander.
The other recruits hadn’t taken too kindly to the lone girl walking beside them. Only a dark-haired boy with a freckled nose trailed at my heels, a half smile on his face whenever I glanced in his direction. I scowled, twisting back to where the Commander of the Knights rode upon his black steed.
Glaring at the back of his head didn’t have the intended effect, and he never once looked back. I was no one to him. A grunt.
Another four hours later, the bastard deigned to speak.
“Welcome to Sciona, lads.” The commander twisted in his saddle, his helmeted head immediately landing in my direction like he’d known where I walked all along. I flinched. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I felt his stare, searing into my skin and making a home.
Instinct told me to dip my chin, but Uncle Micah would have told me to never back down.“Never lower your eyes in the face of death,”he’d say during one of our many covert training sessions in the nearby woods.“You shouldn’t fear dying, only failure.”
Dying didn’t sound too great either, though.
He finally turned away, aiming for the imposing gates of the capital.
I couldn’t help but feel as if he’d branded me right then and there, my cheeks flushing warm. This was the man who had taken me from home and everything I knew. Yet the truth was, I was grateful; Liam would’ve been dead within weeks, had he been chosen. I, on the other hand, could survive this. My uncle had taught me well, even if his methods were less than humane.
Once, when I was thirteen, he’d shackled my wrists and placed a blindfold over my eyes, delivering me fifteen miles from home. It’d taken me two hours to pick the lock, and another eight to find my way home without the use of stars to guide me.
When there wasn’t a choice, all one could do was fight or die. Besides, I had been molded into a warrior, and a warrior I would be.
Lifting my chin, I noted the royal-crested soldiers lining the walls, all shouting orders upon our arrival.
Flashes of crimson cloaks and muscled limbs worked to lift the spiked iron gate protecting the city from attack, not that there were any of those. King Cirian slaughtered anyone even remotely considered a threat. He’d butchered his predecessor, King Brion, with ease years after the curse fell and anarchy ensued. Not even the famed sun priests and priestesses dedicated to Raina strayed close to the capital, too fearful of the newly appointed ruler. They were rumored to be covertly hidden away in towns across the realm, supposedly awaiting the day their Goddess came back and they could return to their mysterious temple located somewhere in the southern mountains.
I imagined they’d given up their devotion long ago.
The recruits moved as a unit, assembling like lost children as the Knights ushered us through the gates. I felt like I was marching to my death, the cackling crows circling above doing little to dispel my growing anxiety. If the sight wasn’t an omen from the gods, I didn’t know what was.
The unnaturally large birds pecked at the severed heads decorating the rusted spires.
I wondered if they were so large because they were well fed, as I counted at least fifteen heads currently impaled on the wall. Some of the victims appeared fresh, others picked at so thoroughly that their features were unrecognizable. There was no mistaking what they were—a warning.
The stone-faced soldiers of the King’s Guard wore deep-red tunics and black trousers, the royal crest—a crescent moon and star encircled by a sun—emblazoned across their chests. Most paid us no mind, all except those who spotted me among the horde of boys, my long, fiery hair an unwanted beacon.
To those who gawked, I smiled, waving my fingers.
No better way to unnerve a foe than a smile.
Trudging through the main gates, the commander guided us down a narrow street paved with more washed stone. Soaring townhomes constructed of brick lined each side, all painted in varying shades of gray.
Paying no heed to the ignorant passersby, I swiveled my head around the curving street, admiring the impressive straight lines and rigid architecture of the somber capital.
Intricate sunfire lampposts made of winding silver were erected every thirty feet, a potted charcoal fern positioned below each one.
I noted not one stone was out of place, the outsides of the homes pristine and well maintained. If not for all the gray and white, Sciona had the potential to be striking, charming even. Yet all I felt when looking at it was sadness. No children laughing and playing in the streets. No shouts of vendors and gossiping townspeople. Just the harsh gray and quiet.
After rounding a particularly warped bend, the imposing palace of Sciona came into view, the sight striking me like a rock to the stomach.
Towering hundreds of feet above our heads, a castle fashioned of opaque, dense glass touched the clouds. It was the color of moonshine, reminiscent of steel. Two immense twin spires rose into the sky, the tips sharper than any blade as they pierced the heavens. At its base, thousands of loose sunfires glowed, illuminating every sinister angle and trenchant edge.
Some might say it was beautiful.
I was not one of those people.
