Ostracized (The Ostracized Saga Book 1)

by Olivia Majors

  “I’m so tired of being afraid.”

  Afraid of Wood. Afraid of the Wilds. Of the villagers. Of myself.

  I used to know who I was. What I wanted. Where I was going. But that me was burned away with the first touch of that branding iron on my skin.

  I want to know who I am and where I belong. Without fear. Without doubt.

  Shade stands. He grips my elbow, pulling me to my feet. His hand slides down to grasp mine. It is a warm, firm grip. The grip of someone who knows and understands.

  “Follow me,” he whispers and pulls me deeper into the forest.

  Chapter XIX

  Shade leads me forward for what seems like hours. The forest changes around me. The trees become more spread out. The colors brighten. The vines become thicker. This part of the forest wasn’t always a forest. It is young. Less than a century old.

  Shade leads me around the corner of a massive overhanging rock wall. Young saplings sprout up among the stone. He pauses at the base of the rock wall. A set of stone steps crawl up the steep hill, perfectly shaped, despite the ancient cracks on their surfaces. Moss and little flowers border their rough edges.

  He lets go of my hand and ascends the hill. I follow him to the very top. He steps aside, making room for me to see where he has taken me.

  I peer into the thick forest that we entered. Among the long oaken trunks of the giant trees, stone ruins pervade the landscape. Many of the walls are still standing even if the ceilings caved in centuries ago. Vines and flowers slink along the ruined architecture. The ground is covered in leaves and moss. Once, a long time ago, this place would have been a city.

  “It was once a great pinnacle of Kelban society – a city at the heart of Kelba,” Shade says as if reading my thoughts. “A representation of Kelban unification. When we were one nation. Undivided. Unbroken. Unbreakable.” He looks at me. “It was called Lithean.”

  My chest tightens. Lithean. The birthplace of Gasan; Kelba’s evil, immortal ruler. It was said Calaisar cursed its existence long before the poison ate Kelba away. Priests said those who wandered into its interior would be cursed in return. I hesitate.

  Shade frowns. “Surely you don’t believe those prudish tales made up by wet nurses?” He jumps off the steps into the middle of the ruins. The edge of one of the ancient buildings crumbles with the force of his landing. He spins around to look at me. “I thought you said you’re tired of being afraid.”

  I land so lightly the leaves hardly rustle beneath my feet. “I am.”

  He walks deeper among the ruins. Until they spread out and make a clearing that must have once been a grand street. The crumbling remains of four stagnant pillars atop a marble base glare at me. A skeleton of a temple.

  Shade ignores it and approaches a marble, dome-shaped building hardly bigger than a shed. It is the only structure that remains in one piece. He opens the crudely fashioned, wooden door to reveal a collection of weapons.

  The weapons are not ancient.

  There are swords. Axes. Spears. Javelins. All shapes, sizes, make, and model. Even a crossbow, one of the newest forms of weapon technology, hangs within.

  “What is this place?” I ask and draw closer.

  He doesn’t answer me and retrieves two wooden swords carelessly discarded on the floor of the shed. He tosses one at me.

  I catch it with both hands. It is heavy and the balance is off-setting. I nearly topple sideways, but manage to stay standing. When my feet are spread apart and my knees locked in place, the weight is more manageable.

  “You’ve held one before.” It’s not a question. He closes the door of the shed and steps towards me. He lets the moon blades fall from his shoulders. They hit the ground. Without them crossed X-ways on his back he looks less intimidating. And a hell of a lot shorter.

  Shade holds his wooden sword with only one hand. Aware that he is mocking my weakness, I try to stifle my rising pride. He eyes my grasp on the sword. “You’ve used one before?” he asks.

  “My brother taught me.”

  Shade steps closer, sword slack at his side. His arm swings at me out of nowhere. I have no time to deflect it, and Shade stops the wooden edge of the weapon an inch short of my throat.

  “Not well enough.” He steps back and toes the dirt. “Your brother’s lessons seem pretty damn useless to me.”

  Anger commands me, and I rush at him, sword poised to strike. He swerves to the side and swivels behind me. I try to correct my mistake, but I’m not fast enough. He locks a foot around the base of my knee, and I fall flat on my back.

  He stands over me and shakes his head, a mocking sneer on his face.

  An enraged growl vibrates along my throat. He can’t insult me – or my brother – like that.

  I launch to my feet and slice my sword out in front of me in a two-handed arc. He sidesteps it and counters the weapon when I lash at him again. The wood grinds together. He pushes against my weapon. I push back. We lock eyes. He steps close. His leg wraps around mine from behind and welds us together – but only for a moment. He pulls my leg out from under me. I fall on my back again.

  He stares down at me. “Your nostrils are flaring.”

  Heat flames my face as I struggle to bite back a retort. I fail.

  “I suppose now you’re going to tell me that swordsmanship is all about keeping your emotions under control?”

  “Damn control,” Shade says. “It’s a useless idea made up by valiant pricks who believe in the honesty and goodness of every living thing.”

  The base of my spine aches when I stand. “What are you going to teach me, if not control?”

  He straightens my blade between us, like an upright arrow, and looks straight into my eyes. His gaze deepens. He is not fooling around. This is not another one of his cruel pranks to flare my irritation.

  “I’m going to teach you to fight, Kyla Bone. Not like a knight. Not like your brother.” He sneers. “Like a warrior.”

  “You’re going t-to . . . train me?” I try to wrap my head around his words.

  He steps away from me. “That fear you possess – that fear that rules you. Turn it to rage.” He notices my confusion. “It’s easier than you think. Imagine all those moments you felt insignificant and weak. Imagine all those moments you were lower than dirt. Imagine all those people who frightened you. Angered you. Mocked you. What do you want to do to them?”

  An endless list of names assaults my mind, and my grip on the sword tightens.

  “You do realize that you are one of those people, right?”

  He doesn’t show any sign of surprise. Instead, he smiles. The breath leaves my lungs. He never smiles. There’s a dimple at the corner of his lips. I didn’t know he had a dimple. “Then this should be very interesting. Don’t you think?”

  I grip the sword with both hands, readying for another attack from him, but he leads me towards a thick oak tree.

  He places himself at my back and pries one of my hands from the sword’s hilt. The weight twists my wrist to the side. I wince. He slides a hand down my arm to steady my grip, igniting prickles of heat along my skin.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, trying to ignore the tension of his muscles against the sensitive skin of my back.

  “You need to strengthen your arms,” he says in my ear. His breath feathers over my shoulder. For a moment, I welcome the embrace he’s unknowingly locked me in. If he were anyone else but the solemn, pain-in-the-ass of my life I might shelter this memory – the feel of him – away in my mind.

  He lets go of me. The warm feeling dissolves, but the trail of his hand down my arm remains.

  “Strike at the sides of the tree with your sword. Do it.”

  I land two sharp blows against the bark.

  He nods approvingly.

  He returns to the shed and straps his blades onto his back. “Continue. Swing. Strike. Hammer. But never let your arm down or let it fall until I return.”

  He doesn’t return at all.

  When there are needles i
n my arms and a thousand anvils in my head, I finally relinquish the blade and return to Agron. Shade is standing dutifully at the gate, shoulders straight and chin uplifted. I avoid looking at him.

  “Do you feel that rage now?” he whispers as I sweep past him into the village.

  I say nothing.

  But tomorrow – he’ll wish he’d never handed me a sword.

  Shade makes me pummel the tree again the next day.

  And the following day he does the same. Calluses rise on my palms and raw blisters ooze their unappealing slipperiness to my grip. The muscles in my arms burn and tighten every night.

  It is only on the third day that I notice a difference. Though the weight is still awkward, my arm does not protest its presence.

  By the fourth day, the wooden weapon has become a second limb.

  “A very flippant second limb,” Shade deigns to remark.

  On the fifth day, I insist that I am ready for the next task. I entertain the idea of knocking his ass to the ground with my new-found strength, but he leads me further into the ruins, to the crumbled remains of what must have been a lord’s manor. The walls are taller and thicker than any of the other crumbling architecture.

  “Stand on this.” He gestures to a part of the wall that seems sturdier than the rest.

  I crawl up its mossy side and position myself on top. It is only two inches long, and I rock unsteadily on the balls of my feet. The plain of the wall, though sturdy, is uneven. Like a seesaw.

  My arms flap wildly as I struggle not to topple backwards. It is only with the greatest dedication that I don’t release the wooden sword that adds an offsetting balance to my attempts. My stomach muscles burn from my efforts.

  At last, I discover by bending one foot sideways across the top of the wall, that I can maintain both the sword’s balance and mine.

  “Now swing your sword in front of you. Imagine an invisible tree you’re trying to hack. That’s right.” Shade masters a teacher’s soft monotone. He paces at a casual distance from the edge of the wall, looking up at me. Watching me. Testing me. He tosses an oval pebble between his hands.

  It takes me a few near-collapse attempts to swing the sword properly. But, at last, I execute a perfect chop from side-to-side without shaking. I smile, proud of my success.

  Shade smiles too – and pitches the pebble straight towards my stomach.

  I attempt to block it abruptly with my sword and my feet miscalculate their positions. The pebble strikes me hard in the stomach. I double over, and that’s all it takes. I pitch forward and meet the ground ten feet below. Luckily, the moss eases what would have been a painful fall. Just the same, I taste blood where I bit my tongue.

  “What the hell was that?” I snarl.

  Shade shrugs and his lips widen into a grin. “Just wanted to remind you that even the most graceful birds can be brought down by a single stone.”

  I grab the wooden sword from its mossy bed and rush at him. This time he doesn’t back away but meets my attack head-on. I am unprepared for the force upon which our weapons clash and narrowly miss a ricochet of my own sword as it snaps back towards my nose. I teeter backwards and attempt to right myself. Shade lashes at my sword again and gives it a light prod. My fragile hold on balance shatters. I land on my ass for what seems the eight millionth time this week.

  “Your new-found strength will be useless if you lack the ability to remain on your feet.” He looks down his nose at me. “The last lesson was not just about gaining strength. What do you think it was about, my fumbling apprentice?”

  I glare at him. But I know the answer.

  Perseverance.

  He offers me a hand.

  I don’t take it.

  I force myself to stand, and move towards the wall again. “How long must I do this?”

  “Until you can strike one of my harmless pebbles without toppling on your ass, aventra.”

  Apprentice.

  He offers me a hand to hoist myself onto the wall again. I shove it away. He smiles, but doesn’t persist. He returns to his own position.

  The wall feels less sturdy on my second trial. My stomach tightens as I stare at the ten-foot distance between the ground and me. A chasm widens in my stomach. If I fall again, will the moss spare my bones? Or will they shatter on impact?

  “You seem unsteady, Kelban!” Shade says. A stone pummels my shoulder. I grit my teeth against the prickling pain.

  “Kyla,” I growl.

  Another pebble strikes my kneecap. I resist the urge to double over.

  “Focus, Kelban!” Shade snaps.

  I look at my feet, watching how they shift unsteadily on the wall.

  A stone strikes my thigh.

  “On me, Kelban!” A pebble clips my hip. “How do you expect to survive an assault if you aren’t looking at the opponent? Look at me, flagrana Kelban! At me, damn it!”

  I look at him. The moment I do my feet roll, and I fall – backwards this time. Shade casually turns the corner of the wall to find me flat on another mossy cushion. He leans against it and shakes his head.

  “You’re useless, you know that? Completely useless. Maybe Dirk was right. Maybe you are only good for what’s between your legs. Is that the only activity you’re fluent in, Kelban?”

  My temples throb with hot anger. I scale the wall again and wait for him to return to his proper place. He palms another pebble. Throws it. I manage to dodge its strike but it costs me my balance once more.

  “If you fall one more time, I’m finished with you. You can go back to sobbing, alone and helpless, in the woods,” he warns me.

  Angered that he’s using my moment of weakness against me, I climb the wall again.

  I palm the sword and look at Shade. My feet teeter unsteadily. I breathe slowly. In through my mouth. Out through my nose. Once. Twice. Three times. I focus my attention on the three pebbles in Shade’s hands, but a part of me also maintains a soft awareness of my feet. It’s like dancing, which I now wish I’d taken more interest in learning. I had always been scolded for looking at my feet while dancing.

  The dance master, a boorish man with a hawk-like nose, had told me that balance was not located in the foot, but the ear. In muscle and understanding. I prod that memory to the forefront of my mind. I imagine the two-inch wall is a dance floor. One I must ascend.

  The sword is my partner. My sole weight. My leader. My body must follow its command.

  The first pebble hits my shin.

  I steady my delicate existence.

  The second pebble misses me when I curve out of its way. I very nearly misplace my foot. Bits of stone crumble beneath my boots.

  “Careful. You don’t want to fall, Kyla,” Shade mocks me.

  He didn’t – couldn’t – have known the memory that surged to the front of my mind at his taunting words. Me dangling, helpless, over the edge of a sheer, glass roof. Me, wide-eyed and frightened, at the plains rolling beneath me. Me, weakened and frightened, by the man who so placidly threatened my very existence. The man who rules my every waking and receding thought.

  My fear grows a voice.

  You are mine.

  I grip the wooden hilt.

  Like hell I am.

  The angry throb in my temple intensifies, until its a pulse in my forehead.

  Shade releases the third stone.

  Tension collects around me like a magnet.

  I am the magnet.

  I swing the sword as the stone approaches.

  The pulse ripples along my arm, down my hand, and lashes out.

  The stone flies back in Shade’s direction. He catches it in a swift, fluid motion and stares at the rough-shewn surface. He nods approvingly.

  What should have been a proud moment hammers a weight in my chest.

  The sword never touched the stone!

  Later that night, I stare at my hands. White. Scarred. Stronger. I clench my fingers. They are not tense. Just sore. I do not feel a pulse. I don’t feel a flicker of heat. I don’t feel a b
all of energy in my palm.

  But there had been a pulse. There had been heat. There had been energy.

  I know it.

  I resist the urge to run downstairs and into the night, frightened and alone once more. I am stronger than this. I won’t let this place mar my sanity. I won’t let this fear rip me to pieces.

  But I am a puzzle – and the pieces are missing.

  By the eighth day of my training, balance has become a miniscule dilemma in my slovenly practices. Shade regards my final attempt upon the curved wall with a slightly-tipped-upward chin and nods when I pummel four of his approaching stones into the dirt.

  “Fair,” he remarks in regards to my deflections.

  “I was aiming for your head.”

  He doesn’t comment.

  I scratch my elbow against the stones on my descent. Shade notices it the moment he strides around the corner. He crosses his arms and leans against the decaying stones.

  “Perhaps I should teach you to climb next?”

  My stomach flips. Climb? As in heights? If I didn’t feel extremely close to vomiting, I might laugh at his suggestion. That’s twice in a matter of days that he’s reminded me of my greatest fears.

  “I doubt I’ll surpass your expertise in that area,” I nervously chuckle instead.

  His lips curve downward – confused. “You’ve seen me climb?”

  My lungs freeze. Stupid! Stupid fool! How can I be so gods-cursed stupid!

  “I – I . . .”

  He cocks his head to the side and it sends shivers down my spine. His brow furrows. He’s thinking. No – he’s trying to remember.

  “I meant, to scale our Wall, you have to be a decent climber.”

  His brow unfurls, but his head remains cocked to the side. Damn!

  “After all, I have considerable faith in the architecture of my kind. You may consider them beneath you, but their construction abilities are far-advanced.”

  My well-aimed remark turns his head right-side up. “Don’t push it, Kelban,” he growls and turns his back on me.