“Ryiah? Is that you?”
I spun around and caught sight of a stocky dark-skinned boy with amber eyes and curling black ringlets at the barrack’s entrance. He was clutching a cloth in one hand and gaping. Ray. One of my old factionmates from the apprenticeship, a young man I had seen just three weeks ago during our ascension ceremony. “Ray!”
“I knew you would take Commander Nyx up on her offer!” He grinned. “And who is this you’ve brought with you?”
Paige gave the boy a stony look. “Her guard. And I do not engage in frivolous conversation.”
He started. “I-it was nice to meet you too.”
My knight went right back to ignoring him, carefully folding her shirts as she pressed them away into a trunk of her now-claimed cot. I felt a surge of irritation. I would definitely be talking to my guard later. In private.
“Sorry about that.” I gave my friend a sheepish smile. “Paige and I had a long ride here. Some of us are more irritable than usual.” Actually she was born that way, but I wasn’t in the mood to explain. “I was just unpacking before I checked in with the commander.”
“She’s still at dinner with the others . . . I could take you there, if you’d like.”
I hesitated. I really wanted to clean up first—granted I’d had a hot bath at most of the inns we’d passed along the way, but I still had a day’s worth of grime coating my clothes and hair.
And if memory served, the wait to one of the two small bathhouses in Ferren was easily an hour, though that had been with sixty visiting apprentices stationed in the keep.
Then again. Why not? The rest of the regiment had just served long hours sweating in armor so I would fit in right alongside them.
“Lead the way!”
****
A sea of faces swarmed my vision the moment we entered the dining hall. Ferren’s Keep had the largest regiment north of Devon. The count was somewhere close to two thousand when all were in residence—which was never since fifteen of its twenty hundred-men units were always on patrols. Still, its regiment was one-fifth the size of the Crown’s Army, double the size of anywhere else. Most cities’ branches were closer to five hundred.
It was the perfect place to house a large regiment until more northern aid was needed from the Crown’s Army.
That said, it wasn’t the most prosperous. The contents were worn and meals were tubs of wilted produce, dry meat, and stale breads—the product of a city without local farming. That, and five hundred sweat-stained faces fighting over the last scraps of food amidst tankards of ale.
“No better than a pack of ravenous dogs,” Paige muttered.
I opened my mouth to tell her we didn’t look much better, and froze. Even though the crowd was so overwhelming there was one person that caught my attention almost immediately. His broad shoulders and infectious laugh were impossible to miss.
Ian. Ian was here. Ray noticed my direction and nodded. “He arrived two days ago, right after me. Guess Port Langli wasn’t to his liking. Jayson is here too, he’s been promoted twice since his ascension—and if you look hard you should be able to spot Ruth from Alchemy. Ferren’s Keep is a popular post.”
“Well, this is a surprise.”
I spun around and came face-to-face with the leader of Ferren’s Keep, an imposing if slightly short woman in her early forties with a blonde mane cropped close to the ears and steel-gray eyes that missed nothing. The woman knight had one of the most sought after posts in the entire kingdom.
Commander Nyx studied me, arms folded across her chest. “It’s nice to see you took me up on my offer, Mage Ryiah. I wasn’t sure you would after the prince’s announcement. A title can go to some people’s heads.”
I blushed. “It’s not my title yet.”
The woman raised a brow. “And what does the Crown have to say about that?”
“The king has agreed to let me serve on your regiment until the crown prince’s wedding… But I will always be a Combat mage of Jerar. No title can change that.”
“And you don’t expect any special accommodations while you are here? A private room? Or a high position in my regiment, perhaps? Because I promote solely based on performance.”
I stood my ground. “I would expect you to treat me the same as any other mage who enters your keep.”
At this Paige made a choking noise. “Certainly not! My lady, you cannot possibly think the women’s barracks are appropriate! You need a private chamber where I can see to your safety—”
“The barracks are fine.” I scowled at my guard. “I will be surrounded by hundreds of brave women who fight for our country. Who better to protect?”
“Me! The knight appointed by the king himself!”
“Well, your job just got a whole lot easier.”
Paige scowled and said nothing.
Commander Nyx cracked an amused smile, white teeth flashing. I was immediately struck by its oddity—like a sudden dunk in an icy bucket of water. The woman was made of frowns. “I assure you…what is your name again?”