“Get out!” the mother—not quite a mother now, was she?—insisted, flinching away from the practiced hands that had been so trusted a moment before.
“There is work yet, dearie,” the midwife insisted, ignoring the pang of regret that went through her. There was no room for that, not when she’d done what was necessary. What was right. They all knew that. The poor girl was simply sore, in body and in heart, and that would pass.
It always did.
In every generation before.
And in every one that was certain to follow.
One
The practice grounds were his favourites. The grounds themselves were turning dusty as midsummer was approaching, soft earth succumbing to the heat of the season.
But he did not mind.
He had learned much here, had strengthening muscles he had not known he possessed, even given his work on the farm. Portions were filled with fellow initiates honing their skills with wooden short-swords, inflicting their wounds on dummies—straw-filled shapes that vaguely resembled men and beast in turn. While once new and pristine they were now battered, bits hanging out from where a particularly hard blow had been struck or a sword caught too keenly.
There were open spaces as well, where pairs of initiates would spar against one another. He did not like to think that such combat would ever be necessary, that nature might not be the true foe he would face. But there could be others in the world, separate from their clans, wandering.
Desperate.
And his responsibility would be to protect, regardless of the cost.
The rest of the grounds were filled with trees and bushes, planted long ago and resembling a true wood in density and nearly in size. Smattered within were elaborately painted threats representing genuine adversaries out in the stretch of wilds that would someday be travelled by them.
One of them.
He would not be so arrogant as to assume that he would be chosen. There were others equally capable—perhaps even more so. He would not succumb to pride, would not become blind to the flourishing of his fellow initiates. He had seen it in others, growing more arrogant at their own accomplishment, boasting of process for their own sake rather than for its true purpose. They were to be Guardians, not crowing to the local girls that they could keep them safe from merely imagined threats.
“Grim!” one of his fellow initiates called from the ground.
He did not want to return. Not yet. His patience was not yet fully restored, and he did not wish to say anything he would regret.
But it was possible an instructor had been the one to issue his return, and he would not keep one of them waiting.
The air was cool about him as he made his descent, first through trees and then to the soft grasses below. “That is not my name,” he acknowledged in lieu of greeting. None seemed able to remember that, regardless of how he tried to insinuate it most thoroughly into their minds.
Yanik rolled his eyes. “Close enough,” he mumbled to himself. Grimult thoroughly disagreed. He had been given his father’s name, spanning back three generations before even him. Surely they did not have to endure shortened iterations that also shared the unfortunate reality of being a common word.
And also not a particularly flattering one.
“Besides, it suits you.”
And there it was. While his fellow students were jovial and charming—or at least, the locals seemed to find them so—they frequently complained that he was quite the reverse.
He needed to learn to smile, they insisted, more than he needed to practise how to restring his bow. Again. He needed to kiss a pretty girl more than he needed to have the smithy show him how to ensure his blade was properly sharpened.
Grimult disagreed.
Perhaps if one of the instructors had insisted that the rest of their suggestions were a part of what was required of a Guardian, he would take them more seriously. But their jest was tedious and unproductive, and he did not particularly care for it.
“What are you doing here?” he prompted, choosing to ignore another altercation born of the alteration of his name.
The other gave him a curious look. “You’ve forgotten the ceremony?”
He had not. Not fully anyway. He was more than aware it was today, but he supposed, he begrudgingly allowed, it was possible that time had slipped away from him while he was attempting to sharpen his focus and acuity from the air.
The trees were thick and served as a reminder that flight was not always the benefit they imagined it. But it could be, if he could only refine his sight enough that he could make out the targets through the boughs, rather than restrict himself to exploring such challenging terrain on foot.
He began walking, determined not to waste any more time on conversation when clearly he was late for a mandatory gathering.
“You could thank me, you know,” Yanik complained. “I didn’t have to come find you.”
Grimult did not pause. “Your efforts are appreciated.”
He did not have to turn to know that Yanik rolled his eyes at him. “Why don’t you just become one of the sages if you’re so determined to act like one?”
That brought him to a halt. “It is not my desire to be a sage,” Grimult denied. It would not have been his place to wish for that in any case. Sages were chosen at birth, and if he had been found lacking then it was impractical to bemoan his failings as an infant.
But he did wish to take his duties seriously. He remembered well the swell of pride in his mother’s eyes when they had come to claim him as an initiate. He was nearly grown by then, uncertain of what his life would hold. Even his father, who often claimed he did not know what he would do without his son on their humble farm, held him tightly and told him he was made for great things.
But the
