In the breezy inner courtyard lies a verdant expanse of dry-weather plants, rooted elegantly around sandy walkways and stone benches. The garden, surrounded by the castle's walls, blisters in the summer sun, euphorbia shrubs and desert sage shuddering in a dry breeze. The walkways lead to a wide swath of dry ground known for the din of steel on steel. When the Queen is not resting in the garden, Nathis holds his training sessions inside. He rather prefers it to the sweltering, barren expanse of the rear grounds.

  As the sun begins to make its way to the horizon, tipping just below the western battlement, Nathis joins a smirking Lark within the curtain walls of the garden. Lark Viet, the castle's dedicated young blacksmith, wears a white-blonde braid down her back and a shining pink scar across her left eye. She is nineteen, of age for a castle guard, but haughty and overbearing. Her swordplay is quick, however sloppy, and her confidence overshadows her vigilance at times.

  Nathis had met Lark among the swordsmiths in the province of Cale, where a vast majority of the kingdom's militia were brought up. Having lost the castle's most dedicated family blacksmith to advancing age, the prince had sent Nathis to locate a new man. He found Lark working as an apprentice under a formidable man with the hands of a mountain troll. "If I wasn't want to smack 'er in the face at all hours o' the day," he'd bellowed, "I'd say she was a decent swordsmith. Nothin' compared to me own work, though, General." The brute treated her as if she were a boy, shouting orders from the anvil, spittle spraying from his chapped lips, with not a care if she was on the receiving end. She took this treatment as a compliment, and her demeanor mirrored that of her mentor's.

  As Nathis approached her teacher with a job opportunity, Lark made herself known. The scar on her eye was fresher then, bright red and angry as the fire from the forge. Her master, a poor excuse for a man, seemed eager to be rid of her, and Lark was swept from his service. Nathis offered her a position to practice her craft on the coin of the Crown.

  At the castle shop, she began sparring with the stable boys. Eventually, under a spurt of conceitedness, Lark had challenged the prince himself. Though they were the same age, Taeg, childish and willing, was no match for her. After being brutally chastised by the cavalry general, Lark began showing up to formal training sessions. She was tall for a young woman, and fit. She outplayed the other boys numerous times, voicing her opinions of them freely, vehemently. Nathis noticed. To Taeg's delight, he pulled Lark for the royal Guard. He might as well have poured oil on the girl's flame.

  "Watch yourself, old man," she spits, taking jabs at his side, bounding from foot to foot.

  Nathis had shed his armor beforehand. Moving less cumbersomely was a necessity when up against Lark's rapid movements. Sweat runs in rivulets down his creased forehead.

  "While I'll admit you've picked up the pace a bit–" he lunges sideways, avoiding a hasty slash, "I'm still seeing a fair bit of impetuous movement."

  Lark scowls. He expected as much. The white sleeveless shirt she is wearing is dirty with the dust and sweat of the desert. Her braid follows her sinuous body, whipping between her shoulder blades and about her face. He watches her grip tighten. She spins on her heel for a feigned attack, but Nathis doesn't take the bait. He blocks her next move, hearing the ring of steel as her blade crashes into his. Her landing foot slides back away from him, heel colliding with a divot in the sandy soil, and she catches herself with a furious stomp.

  Watch your feet." His criticisms only make her seethe. She stops, lunging, and breaks into a fury of stabs, swiping at his legs and dancing around his defense. He tries a different approach.

  "Good. Maintain your fluid maneuvering."

  She ignores him and aims for his neck. His shoulders heave.

  "Look for weak spots."

  She sets her jaw. He shuts his mouth. Lark continues her barrage, her eyes set in that burning fervor he knows so well. He waits for an opening in her defense, a jab with no guard, and drives the flat of his blade into the fair skin at the base of her neckline. A sharp intake of breath pulls through her teeth.

  "If your goal is to overwhelm your target with motion, you're doing well," Nathis says, easing the sword away. Her teeth are still bared. "You focus so much on footwork and frills that you don't consider the energy you're burning on one target." He pauses, watching Lark's eyebrows drop. A bead of sweat trickles down her pallid forehead and she opens her mouth. "I often wonder if you even listen to me," he says, cutting off her building retort.

  The heat swallows the silence that follows. She pulls air through her teeth, glaring spitefully. Nathis feels an ache in his core. His sword hand trembles.

  A fiery monologue spills from her lips. "I didn't agree to come to the capital to endure endless training from the oldest general this country has seen. I know my skills, I know my capabilities, I know how much energy I possess. You don't train soldiers to follow their own strengths, you train them to follow yours. If you aren't capable of recognizing that I am a fluid fighter instead of a brutish one, then you are not the one qualified for training me."

  She white-knuckles the hilt of her training sword and thrusts it defiantly into the sand at her feet. It clangs, driving tendrils of sand into the breeze. "You're losing your touch. How can I excel under the tutelage of someone who's hit his plateau?"

  Nathis doesn't move. "If you wish to become Guard, you must complete training," he states, his eyes never leaving hers. They are two sides of the same coin.

  "Drair hasn't completed her training! She carries that bloody katar around like it's her lifeblood, but I haven't seen her touch a sword since she came here." She flings her hands up in exasperation. "I'm more qualified in every way and yet Taeg is already 'considering' her enlistment?" Her head cocks sideways, braid following.

  Nathis watches her. Lark was undeniably irresolute when it came to her emotions, but Nathis couldn't help but think that she wasn't far off. For the last year, he had felt his body aging more rapidly than he had expected. Keeping up with the younger recruits tested his usual patience, devouring his energy. He swipes the sweat from his creased forehead with a calloused hand.

  "Drair was not selected for her swordsmanship. She works as the Crown's assassin and fulfills other duties that involve gathering information on country happenings. She works independently from the Guard but will receive the thaumaturgy mark as well as you. I underst--"

  "You mean before me," she snaps.

  "Yes, that is likely," he notes gently. "We are in great need of her talents."

  Lark scoffs. A grin that could curdle your insides spreads across her lips. "You know what? I thought that when I left home, I'd never have to see my father again. But look!" She waves a hand in his direction. "Here he is!"

  The older man sighs, sheathing his sword. "Lark, I am not your father, and I will never be your father. I am your mentor. For pity's sake, if you are so keen for revenge, girl, then take it. You meddle in other affairs to make yourself feel better, but all you are doing is wounding yourself."

  She jerks her sparring sword from the ground and charges the old man, shoulders pressed forward. Nathis, quick on his feet and weathered with experience, rips his sword from its sheath, shifts his weight forward and guards himself. She comes flailing in, her brown eyes ablaze.

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  "Why are you so bloody angry?" Nathis shouts over the clash of metal, parrying her strikes. "Drair is not better than you. We are all here for one reason or another." The girl stops to shuffle around him, sword poised. Her eyes follow his movements. "She comes from the streets, as you do."

  "I don't think she's better than me!" A chuckle bursts from her throat. "I think she's suspicious. And lazy." She says this quietly, still circling him.

  Still crouched, he says, "I think you are afraid of losing to another. I think you see yourself as an equal to her and it would seem an injustice for her to become Guard before you, yes?"

  She stops, dropping her blade to her side. The desert wind blows roughly against their sides. He watches her inner demons grapple, her shoulders arched toward her ears. Then she falters. She brushes the hair from her left eye and her fingers linger over the scar on her ivory skin.

  "Why do you pull us in from the streets?" she mutters. "What is it you see in street rats?" Her gaze pierces the sand at her feet.

  Nathis drops his shoulders, sword at his side. The wind ebbs as the sun begins to set, and they are cocooned in the cooling night air. Castle staff hurry along the covered pathways that surround the inner gardens, their leather-bound feet striking the flagstones. The sound echoes through the darkening garden.

  "I see more than most," he says. "Now start from the beginning."

  ----

  Nathis carries his sword down the steps to the cells, wiping it clean with a small piece of hide. Pain wracks through his right side as he steps down, a gift granted for his sins by the gods themselves, he suspects. Ignoring it, he sheaths his sword and tucks the hide into a crevice of his breastplate.

  At the bottom, he stands silently before the door breathing heavily, the latch dangling from its hinges. He shudders at the recall of his first interrogation. The Grand Master, a general then, had apprehended a pirate off the southern waters. The captive was an elderly man, once a noble to the Crown, gone rogue after his sons had been found slaughtered by the beasts of the Pfeist Mountains and his wife found in consort with a family vassal. Nathis watched his pitiful, mournful howling as the burly general stood over him, pressing him for answers concerning what exactly he was smuggling.

  Nathis had been in his twenties then, a young man. He had choked on the biting scent of the blood that sprayed from the pirate's mouth, gagged at the sight of the man's vomit curdling out of his lips as the general struck him in the guts. The elderly man had been importing slaves—women from Larynthian cities—to the dead country of Tauris. There's a proper whoring market in the wastes, he blubbered. He was a distasteful man, to say the least. And yet, Nathis had been disgusted with himself. The blood had stained his armor. He spent two hours in the barracks wiping his breastplate with hide and oil, a queasy feeling settled in his stomach.

  This time, he hears a whimper from the other side of the door, takes another deep breath, and pushes it open. A gust of musty air fills his aching lungs, a tickle rising in his throat. The doorway opens into a tight hallway to his left, stretching two hundred yards. Along it are cells much too small for human beings, their stone floors stained with blood and excrement.

  The scout is in the second cell from the door, his arms above his head, the manacles about his wrists dangling from the ceiling. The cavalry general, a slim, muscular man in his mid-twenties, towers over the red-headed boy whose ragged breaths echo up the stairwell. Closing the door behind him, Nathis finds a nearby corner and tucks himself away. The space is cramped and cold. He leans against the stone wall behind him.

  At the door of the captive's cell, Tygoh's large hand rests upon the jeweled pommel of the general's sword at his belt. His hair is the color of mahogany wood, long and sleek, pulled back with a strip of leather at the nape of his neck. Nathis notices the Mark tattooed on his spine, a small, branching web of scarred veins, the same Mark that graces his own neck. The younger man's long face looks almost lifeless in the din of the lamp as he stares down the scout. The outrider below him takes fleeting, terrified glances in his interrogator's direction, avoiding the golden eyes pressed firmly to his.

  "We can play this game as long as I am breathing." Tygoh's steady words ricochet off the damp stone walls surrounding the trio. His voice is soft, monotone. The captive is silent, save for his exhausted panting.

  Not long after Tygoh had been named a general, he had volunteered for interrogation. "I know it's not your favorite task," he'd said. "I can handle it." Tygoh, with his dark hair, shining eyes, and olive skin, was a looming presence when he wished to be. The chip on his shoulder lent his demeanor enough acidity to rust steel. He was the product of an expectant noble father, no motherly influences to soften him.

  A heavy creak erupts from behind the general, signaling Drair's arrival. She slides into the musty cellar, scowling, and shoves her hands in the pockets of her fatigues. The solid wood door thunders closed behind her. She takes in the sight of the prisoner, Tygoh standing over him, and Nathis slouching against the wall. A loud scoff crawls up her throat and the three men look up.

  "He doesn't know anything," she grumbles, gingerly setting her body weight against the wall. "Do you, boy?" Her left eye jerks up to meet those of the scout. The boy fidgets in his shackles.

  Nathis looks upon her. Something dark swims in her eye. In front of him, he can feel the impatience seething from Tygoh's body.

  "You are not authorized to be here," Tygoh says forcefully, turning to face the intruder. His crimson cavalry cape follows his shoulder, billowing around his left side. "You may be under jurisdiction of the royal family, but you are not an appointed Guard. Your duty was to apprehend the spy only; that of which, it seems, you came close to sabotaging."

  Nathis pushes himself from the wall, metal armor scraping over the rock, and places a hand in front of Tygoh's chest. "I invited her here, Dacre. The Prince agrees that their training should include the gritty tasks as well."

  Drair's lips open momentarily, a fury poised to escape them, but a rasping reply from behind the three soldiers cuts the silence first.

  "She's right." The scout pauses to let out a bone-rattling sigh. "I don' know what goes on in the flatlands."

  Drair's mouth snaps shut and her lips press into a defiant line. The scout takes a breath, as if surfacing from deep waters.

  Nathis turns his head to the pale boy hanging from the shackles. "In all my years of warfare, I'm disinclined to believe such a claim." He looks at Drair once more. "However, my colleague here insists a similar point. Forgive our apprehension, kid, but my country is my home, and you threaten its security." He then rests a scarred hand on Tygoh's shoulder. "Maybe a heavy-handed approach isn't conducive to this...odious assignment."

  The cavalry general shrugs Nathis's hand from his shoulder and his golden eyes close.

  "Make no mistake, we can't let you go, pal," Nathis says, tilting his head toward the red-headed boy. "Else you'll go spilling off who knows what to that wench in the east."

  Tygoh shakes off his pride. "Surely you know why Silon sent a groveling fool to do her work," he barks into the cell. There is a bated silence.

  "I only know why she sent me 'ere." The scout peers at Drair from underneath a curtain of shaggy hair. The circles under his eyes look sickly against his pale skin. "I don' know anythin' otherwise. About the country, and...all that."

  Nathis wraps his hands around the bars of the cell, leaning in. "I make no promises of freeing you if you help us, but I may be able to change the conditions in which you're kept here. That is if you're willing to cooperate?" He nods suggestively.

  The red head sighs again, dropping his eyes to the floor. His hair covers his eyes, soaked with perspiration.

  "I s'pose if I'm stuck 'ere regardless," he spits into the floor, "my keeping my mouth shut isn't going to change a thing." He plants his feet and pulls his thin shoulders back as far as the chains allow. "I don' live within the kingdom. In fact, I'm prob'ly more of a Larynthian than a Denanite, I live so close to the border. Up the mountains. Needed work, so I came to the capital city. Apparen'ly she's been amassing spies, regardless of experience, supplying 'em with horses, and sending them into this country."

  He winds his shoulders around, wincing. "I had to eat, see, so I swiped up m' chance. Heard across the wind that some sorta...'old magic' user appeared a few years ago. Only jus' recently came about that they may be hiding out in your capital. This was a suicide run, whether I saw that or not. I'm not a spy, or any sort of assassin for that matter. Made no difference whether I was caught or not." At this, he drops his head, and his hair swings into his eyes again. Sweat drips from his nose.

  Tygoh pulls back, hand on the back of his neck where his Mark lies. "'Old magic user'?" he mutters. He peels his eyes from the captive and looks at Nathis, brows dropping. "You don't think there were...survivors?"

  Nathis watches Drair from the corner of his eye as he addresses Tygoh, his voice as dark as the cells. "Other than the castle's own magic users, that being myself and the rest of the Royal Guard, the only other magic known to this world was massacred in the time of Taeg's grandfather." He pauses, staring at his comrade.

  "The Lynac," Tygoh shudders.

  Nathis hears the heavy oaken door being pulled from its stop behind them and turns to watch the dark-skinned woman climbing the stone stairs outside. The door groans closed behind her.