Sigrid sprang forward, and Eva raised her wooden sword just in time to meet the overhead swing. The shock raced through Eva’s entire body, and she nearly lost her grip on her weapon. Showing no mercy, Sigrid advanced toward her with a series of blurring cuts that Eva struggled to deflect, let alone counter. In spite of Eva’s forge muscles, each blow left her hand tingling even more as her grip weakened
Eva soon realized Sigrid was toying with her like a hawk circling a rabbit. The dark-haired girl pushed her all around the training circle, striking just slow enough for Eva to block the cut while preventing her from waging any counterattack.
They continued without pause, Sigrid’s relentless drives pushing Eva right to the edge of the ring so that the onlookers were forced to jump back to avoid being hit. The burning spread from Eva’s hands up into her arms and shoulders until the wooden sword felt heavier than Soot’s forge hammer.
“Halt!”
Eva dropped her sword point at Uthred’s command, hand numbs and lifeless. Sigrid leaned on her sword in a self-assured stance. The dark-haired girl still had that smug smile on her face, and Eva knew she had no hope of getting rid of it.
“Recruit Evelyn, Windsworn have to attack their opponents, too,” Uthred said. Some of the class snickered at that, the ones who were first to team up against her when Cross ordered Eva to fight two or three of them at once. “This time, I want you to go on the offensive. Begin.”
Eva brought her sword up in a guard as fast as she could manage, but Sigrid didn’t attack this time. The other girl hung back at the edge of the training circle, daring Eva to come to her.
“I said attack!” Uthred shouted.
Mouth dry, hands slack, Eva swung a sideways cut at Sigrid. She almost didn’t register the parry as Sigrid’s counterattack struck her across the side of the head and knocked her to the ground.
“Again.”
Eva tried to shake the dizziness from her head. Her vision swam, and the side of her face throbbed where Sigrid’s wooden blade struck her. Somehow, she managed to stand and raise her practice sword.
“Again,” Uthred commanded.
Sigrid remained on the far side of the ring, still smiling. This time, Eva advanced with caution, staying just outside of Sigrid's reach. After a couple of exchanges, Eva feinted a lunge and swung overhead. Sigrid saw through the trick with ease and parried. Before Eva could recover, Sigrid struck her across the arm and jabbed her in the ribs.
Eva folded in half, gasping for air, ribs burning like fire. An instant later, Sigrid struck her across the back, and Eva collapsed on the ground.
“Again,” Uthred said. No one else made a sound.
Using her sword like a cane, Eva rose again, bent over like an old crone. She gritted her teeth and limped forward, one hand clutching injured ribs. She made a halfhearted jab and a few slices. Sigrid blocked them all with ease, striking Eva in return each time.
Lips curled in a silent snarl, Sigrid unleashed a fury of blows all over Eva’s body. Each time, Eva blocked half a second too late. At last, Sigrid swept low and caught Eva behind the knee, knocking her to the ground yet again.
Through the haze of pain, Eva saw the other recruits muttering to one another, and even Cross wore a concerned expression on his face. Still, no one dared speak against the commander. Wynn rushed forward to help her up, but a wave from Uthred sent her out of the circle.
“Is this the best you can do after all these weeks?” Uthred said. “The rider of the red gryphon? Again.”
Tears ran down Eva’s face, as much from frustration and embarrassment as pain. She ground her teeth together and stumbled before getting her feet beneath her on the second attempt. She tried to muster the courage and strength to attack once more, knowing full well what the outcome would be.
Through a half-swollen left eye, Eva saw Sigrid on the opposite side of the circle. The snarl was gone from the dark-haired girl’s face, and she stared at Eva with a blank expression. When Eva took a faltering step forward, Sigrid looked at Uthred.
“Commander, I think —”
“I will let you know when the fight is over,” Uthred said.
Eva took one wobbly step toward Sigrid and then another until they were just a sword’s length apart. The other girl waited for Eva to make her move, eyes narrowed.
“The fight is not over,” Uthred repeated.
Eva summoned the last of her strength into a wild blow. Sigrid sidestepped the attack with ease. The last thing Eva remembered was a blinding flash and searing pain through her head.
Chapter Fifteen
Eva’s eyes flickered open. Groaning, she closed them again, a dull, aching pain coursing through her from head to toe.
“You awake?”
It was Wynn’s voice. Eva ventured a small peek again, and the younger girl’s freckled face filled her vision. Her right eye opened wide, but the left seemed to be swollen shut.
Eva coughed, and her ribs flared with an angry reminder. Her fingertips felt soft, fuzzy blankets, and she realized she was in a bed. When or how she got there, Eva couldn’t even begin to guess.
“Sigrid knocked you out,” Wynn explained. “They brought you to the infirmary a few hours ago. You missed dinner, but I brought you some bread and stew if you want it.
Careful to move as little as possible, Eva shook her head. “Just a drink,” she whispered. Her voice felt coarse and sounded like it came from the other end of a tunnel.
Wynn disappeared from Eva’s line of sight and came back with a small cup. She helped Eva prop herself up on a pillow and held it while Eva took a few sips until she started coughing. The cough sent another wave of pain through her, and Eva winced, lowering herself back down.
“That was a rotten thing,” Wynn said, nose wrinkling in disgust. “You didn’t deserve that.”
“I don't belong here,” Eva said, ignoring her friend. Tears welled in her good eye and splashed on the blankets.
“Don't say that,” Wynn said. “You can’t help it that you just started your training. Uthred and Cross, and Sigrid, they’re all just jealous the egg hatched for you.”
As much as she wanted to believe Wynn, Eva knew in her heart it wasn’t true. Rather than arguing, she looked away, unable to roll over. After a few moments, she heard Wynn rise and felt a gentle hand touch her shoulder, then Eva was alone.
When she heard the door shut, a thin sob burst from Eva’s lips. In the empty room, surrounded by gloom of the dim crystal lamps, she’d never felt more alone. She didn’t belong. She wasn’t, and would never be, Windsworn. With even darker thoughts swirling through her mind, Eva slipped away into a deep slumber.
Eva woke a second time and felt fingertips sliding through her hair. She flinched, still half-asleep, and opened her eyes. Sunlight streamed through a small window across the room from her. She knew she must be dreaming because Tahl’s face was outlined in the glare.
Seeing her awake, he jerked his hand back. “I…uh.” It was the first time Eva had ever seen him unsure. “I’m glad you’re awake.”
“Thanks,” Eva muttered. Her initial excitement at Tahl’s visit was quelled when she realized he must’ve known what happened, otherwise he wouldn’t have been there. Realizing what she must look like, Eva fought the urge to pull her blankets over her head and hide until Tahl left. She ran a hand through the snarls and tangles in her hair, but Tahl took her wrist in a gentle grip.
“Relax,” he said. “You got pretty beat up.”
Eva felt her face flush. “Does everyone know?” she whispered, dreading the answer.
“No,” Tahl said. Eva’s hopes rose, only to be crushed by his next words. “But they probably will soon; it’s hard to keep a secret in the Gyr. I…I found out last night and told the lord commander what happened.”
“You didn’t need to do that,” Eva said, an unexplainable irritation rising in her. “I may be incapable of defending myself with a sword, but I don’t need someone else to fight my battles for me.”
S
he felt Tahl pull back in his chair, which only made her angrier. Angry at herself for snapping at him, angry for being awful at her training, and angry at everyone and everything that had placed her in the infirmary bed. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I just… it’s been a long couple of days.”
“The lord commander was furious,” Tahl said. “Rumor has it he yelled at Commander Uthred in front of the whole Council.”
Eva snorted, and the dried blood in her nose itched. “Maybe he’s right. I just needed a beating, then I could be sent on my way.”
Tahl’s hand lighted on top of Eva’s. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” Eva asked. “It’s true. And now everyone knows it. Uthred and Sigrid made sure of that.”
“It was a command from Uthred,” Tahl said. Eva looked at him, and it must’ve been sharper than she thought because he pulled back his hand. “I mean, she…I spoke to her, and she felt…bad.”
He trailed off, and Eva wondered if he was making it all up. Anger boiled inside of her.
“Oh good,” she said. “I’m glad she feels bad. That makes everything just fine. She beat me to pieces, but that’s okay because she feels bad.”
“Eva —”
“Go away, Tahl,” Eva said. “Maybe you should go see Sigrid. She feels bad.”
She hated herself for saying it, but she’d reached the point where she didn’t care what anyone in the storming mountain thought of her. Tahl wore a pained expression on his face as he stood and turned toward the infirmary door. Eva saw him pause as if he wanted to say something and almost said something herself, but then he was gone.
Soon after, the healer came to look over Eva’s bandages and see how she was feeling. Eva answered her questions with terse answers and stared out the window, brooding, when the old woman finally left. Morning passed into afternoon. While she slept, someone brought a tray of food. Eva sat up in her bed and picked at it but didn’t feel much like eating or doing anything, for that matter.
Eva wondered why Andor hadn’t come yet. Would he end this nonsense and dismiss her from the Gyr? He owed her that, at least — he’d caused all this. The lord commander yelling at Uthred made her feel about as good as Sigrid feeling bad she’d been his instrument of punishment.
Day passed into evening, and Eva slept off and on. Whatever balm the healer had applied on her bruises seemed to be wearing off. She hurt all over but found some comfort that no one had brought the gryphon chick to her. She told herself he’d probably already been given over to someone else’s care.
The door opened, but it wasn’t the healer. It wasn’t Wynn or Tahl, either.
Celina walked across the room bearing a tray of food. She carried the tray at arm’s length like a wild thing that might bite her. Depositing it on the table, she nodded for Eva to eat.
Eva muttered an insincere thanks and dug in, not caring about her poor manners or Celina watching her every move. She seemed pensive, almost thoughtful. When Eva finished and wiped the last of the food away, the commander studied her without a word.
When at last she spoke, Celina’s voice cut through the silence like a blade. “What Uthred did to you was unfair and unjust. But life, if you haven’t realized it yet, is unfair and unjust. You can sit here and feel sorry for yourself, or you can do something about it.”
Eva wanted to tell her that was easy for her to say, that she’d never been humiliated in front of the entire Gyr, but instead she stared at her blankets.
“The lord commander wishes for me to begin training you in private, to help you catch up with the other recruits your age,” Celina said.
“Oh, does he?” Eva said. The anger rose in her again, just as it had with Tahl. “He can’t come here and tell me himself? His second in command ordered me beaten into unconsciousness, and he can’t even come here and say he’s sorry about that? Instead he sent you to give me more beatings, is that it?”
As soon as she’d finished speaking, Eva knew right away she’d gone too far. Celina clenched her jaw, eyes alight, and Eva flinched, expecting the woman to strike her.
Instead, Celina placed a gentle hand on Eva’s shoulder. “I know it’s not easy, Eva,” she said. “Not only are you behind on years of training, but you’re being judged at a higher standard than the rest. Believe it or not, I know what that’s like.”
“Really?” Eva asked. She found it hard to believe Celina had ever been anything but the best.
The commander nodded. “But none of that matters. The only thing you need to ask yourself is if you’re going to give in or prove them wrong.”
As soon as she’d finished, Celina stood. Without replying, Eva watched her walk across the floor. When the Celina reached the door, she paused.
“Your first lesson will begin in two days,” the woman said without turning around. “Or you can let them win. You decide.”
Chapter Sixteen
Eva left the infirmary the next morning, before anyone else came to visit. Her left eye settled into a mottled blend of blue, purple, and brown, but the swelling had started to go down and she could open it. The split in her lip had scabbed over, in addition to the large lump on the side of her head from Sigrid's final blow. Her ribs, the healer informed her, weren’t broken, even if it still hurt to breathe too deep.
Limping down side passages to avoid contact as many people as she could, Eva made her way back to her quarters, bruises hidden beneath a cloak hood. When she opened the door and saw it was empty, a wave of relief washed over her. Sigrid’s belongings were still in the room, however, so she hurried to gather a fresh uniform and headed down to the pools to clean herself up.
Beyond that, Eva didn’t know what to do. She pondered Celina’s words in the hours after the commander left but felt lost and unsure. Sigrid and Uthred had all but beaten the determination from her, and she felt hollow, empty. At the same time, she couldn’t imagine giving up and going home to face Soot.
Since it was midday, she found herself all alone in the pools — everyone else either in training or on duty. Eva slid into the warm water and dipped her head underneath, enjoying the sensation of weightlessness and utter silence. When she resurfaced, she leaned back against the shelf of rock and blew out a deep breath as the water worked at the bruises and knots in her muscles.
Eva’s hurt, anger, frustration, and embarrassment from the past few days drifted to the ceiling along with the small tendrils of mist rising in the cool, dim cavern. Eva lost track of time in her blissful isolation and didn't care if she made it to any of her classes. She closed her eyes, at peace in the absolute quiet of the cave.
Greatness or fear?
Like a fire flaring to life, the words rose in Eva’s mind, cutting through her tranquility. For a long time, she stared at the shadowed ceiling above, torn between her choices. At long last, Eva pulled herself out of the pool. It wouldn’t be easy, but she knew what she had to do.
When she reached the Roost, Eva spotted her class on the far side of the cavern. As she drew closer, they turned and stared until everyone was ignoring Cassandra’s lecture. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, Eva joined Wynn in the back, burning from the dozens of eyes on her.
“Welcome back, dear,” Cassandra said like Eva had been on leave and not beaten to a pulp. She snapped her fingers at the rest of the recruits, drawing some of their attention back to her. “Now, as I was saying, there are several indicators that a gryphon egg is close to hatching…”
The roost master uncovered a table beside her with several gryphon eggs of various colors nestled in baskets. As the rest of the class drew forward to get a better look, Wynn and Eva remained in the back.
“You look like —”
“I know,” Eva said. Her mouth twisted into a half grin, half grimace that made her swollen face ache. “Don’t I look pretty?”
“Sigrid ought to be horse whipped for that,” Wynn whispered, bunching her hands into fists. “First her, then Uthred, then her again!”
“It’s all right,” Eva
said. “I’ll heal.”
“I’ll give her something to sneer about,” Wynn continued, ignoring Eva.
The way she said it made Eva think it wasn’t just an empty threat to make her feel better. “Don’t try anything, Wynn,” Eva said. “You’ll end up like me or worse if you pick a fight with Sigrid.”
Wynn looked at her with a mixture of surprise and annoyance. “Let it go? Look at you! By thunder, Eva, you’re the biggest coward I know. When are you gonna stop letting people walk all over you?”
The younger girl’s words hit Eva like a punch in the stomach. She opened her mouth, but no words came out and Wynn walked away to join the others, shaking her head.
For the rest of the class, Eva hung back, not caring about the striation patterns in the different colors of eggs or the various temperatures required during different stages of the chicks’ growth inside them. A burning irritation settled inside her, especially whenever one of the recruits risked a glance her way to look at her bruises.
When class ended, she ignored Wynn, who held back to join her, and instead went to check on her gryphon chick. The prospect of looking after the hatchling didn’t bring her any relief, but she’d already had enough of people for the day.
“He's been completely unruly while you’ve been gone,” Cassandra said before excusing herself to check on some of the brood mothers. “Every time I turned around, he’s fighting with the others — he doesn't seem to get along with anyone.”
Alone, Eva made her way through the incubation cave into the smaller antechamber that served as a nursery for the gryphon chicks. Even with the other juvenile gryphons in the cavern, it didn’t take long for Eva to find hers.
The red gryphon hunkered down in the far corner, wings spread over a chunk of meat. Three other chicks had him surrounded, working to steal it from Eva’s chick. A black and a gray tried to circle around behind the red gryphon, but the corner forced them to come from the front.
Growing tired of the standoff, the third, a white hatchling, attacked. The red chick reared up on his hind paws, and his front talons met the white in midair, knocking it to the ground. In the moment their opponent diverted his attention, the black and gray pounced, and the red gryphon disappeared beneath them.
Windsworn: Gryphon Riders Book One (Gryphon Riders Trilogy 1) Page 11
