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Sorasa

Sorasa remembered the first night she spent alone in the desert.

She was seven years old, young even by Guild standing, but already four years into her training.

Older acolytes took her from her bed, as they did the other twelve children of her year. A few of them wept or screamed as they were bundled up, hoods drawn over their heads and their wrists bound together. Sorasa remained silent. She knew better already. While they tied her hands, she remembered her lessons. She clenched her fists, flexing her small muscles so that the bonds might not be so tight later on. When two acolytes carried her out like a rag doll, their fingers digging into her bony shoulders, she listened. They spoke to each other in low voices, complaining of the night’s assignment.

Ride the sevens into the sand until midnight and leave them there. See which ones make it back alive.

They joked as the young girl’s heart sank.

It is three strokes to midnight now,Sorasa knew, counting in her head.Only a few minutes since they put out the bunk-room lanterns. Near three hours’ ride into the desert.

In what direction, she tried to gauge.

The hood made things difficult, but not impossible. Her acolytes threw her on the back of a sand mare and turned left outside the gates of the citadel.South. Hard south.

The wailing of the other children soon died away, as the acolytes bore them in varying directions. Soon there were only her acolytes and their mares, moving swiftly beneath a sky she could not see. She breathed slowly, gauging the pace of the horses. To her relief, the acolytes were not pushing a gallop, but an easy canter.

Beneath the hood, she prayed to every god. Most of all to Lasreen. To Death herself.

I will not meet you yet.

Two days later, Sorasa Sarn stumbled toward a mirage, half-dead, her small hands reaching through open air. When they brushed harsh stone, and then wood, she smiled, her lips cracking. It was no mirage, but the citadel gates.

The young girl had passed another test.

Sorasa wished things were so easy now. What she would give to be abandoned in the Great Sands with nothing except her wits and the stars. Instead she found herself chained to an infuriating pack of misfits, with the King of Ibal’s own hunters bearing down.

One thing had not changed, though.

Lord Mercury still waits for me.

She shivered at the thought of him, of what he would do if he caught her back in these lands.

The sun was bright now, the desert sky a clear, pressing blue. Pounding hooves kicked up sand, shimmering the air. The outriders’ voices fell away as they drew near, replaced by flint-eyed stares and the snap of leather reins on horseflesh.

The Companions pulled together, closing ranks. Even Sorasa stepped back into the palm trees, her fingers twitching as a fresh rush of energy coursed through her veins. Corayne slid from her horse, Andry and Dom flanking her on either side, their swords in hand. Charlie slunk into their midst, his hood thrown back to show his red face and disheveled brown hair. For once, Valtik did not disappear, but she didn’t move from her perch on a rock either. Sorasa doubted she noticed the approaching riders at all.

Only Sigil stood firm, unmoving, her broad form a silhouette against the storm closing in. Her ax turned in her hand. Its wicked edge caught the sun. With a grin, she wiped the last drop of old blood away.

“So nice of them to wait their turn,” the bounty hunter grumbled.

Sorasa scoffed low in her throat. “The King of Ibal is nothing if not polite.”

Dom’s eye was true. Sorasa saw forty riders on forty horses, one of them bearing the flag of Ibal.Worse than the flag of Ibal,Sorasa realized, squinting at the standard against the sky.

All thoughts of Lord Mercury melted away.

At first glance, the flag looked like the Ibalet sigil—an elegant golden dragon on deep royal blue. But Sorasa saw the silver in thewings, the smaller body, the sharper eyes picked out in flashing metal and blue jewels. Not a dragon, but a falcon. There was a sword in its talons, distinctly curved.Outriders,Sorasa had called them to the others. But any son or daughter of Ibal knew their symbol, and knew their name.

“Who are they?” Corayne hissed, grabbing Sorasa by the arm.

Sorasa only grit her teeth.“Marj-Saqirat,”she forced out. Ahead of her, Sigil’s shoulders tightened. “The Crown’s Falcons. Guardians sworn to the King of Ibal.”

Like the Lionguard of Queen Erida, or the Temur emperor’s Born Shields, the Falcons were handpicked warriors. Their skills were matched only by their devotion to the Ibalet throne. Even with the Elder on their side, Sorasa knew they had little chance of fighting them off. Most Falcons were trained from childhood, recruited at a young age, as Sorasa had been long ago.

We are not so different. I learned to kill for the Amhara Guild. They learned to kill for a crown.