While Ember was a couple years younger than me, Tilda and I were the same age. We were actually the only two girls in our graduating tracker class, and that hadn’t been an easy feat for either of us.
Tilda and I had become friends in kindergarten, when we’d both been deemed outsiders—me for blond hair and fair skin, and her for her height. As a child, she had been unnaturally tall, towering over everyone in our class, though as we’d gotten older her height had become an asset, and she’d filled out with curves and muscles that made her almost Amazonian.
Growing up, we were subjected to all kinds of bullying—mostly by the royals but even by our own “peers.” I was quick to anger, and Tilda helped ground me, reminding me that my temper wouldn’t help the situation. She bore the taunts with poise and stoicism.
Most of the time, anyway. In our first year at tracker school, a boy had made a derisive comment about us girls not being able to handle the physical training, and Tilda had punched him, laying him out flat on his back. That was the last time anybody said anything like that around her.
Hanging down over the weight-lifting bench, Tilda’s long hair shimmered a luscious dark chestnut. But the only thing about her I’d ever been jealous of was her skin. As she lifted the barbell, straining against the weight, the tanned color of her skin shifted, turning dark blue to match the color of the mats propped against the wall behind her.
Unlike Ember and me, Tilda was full-blooded Kanin. Not everyone could do what she did either, the chameleonlike ability to blend into her surroundings. As time went on, it was becoming a rarer and rarer occurrence, and if the bloodlines were diluted by anyone other than a pure Kanin, the offspring would be unable to do it at all.
And that’s why my skin had the same pallor no matter how angry or frightened I might get. I was only half Kanin, so I had none of their traits or abilities.
“Hey, Bryn,” Ember said brightly, and I wrapped my hands with boxing tape as I approached them. “How’d your meeting go?”
As Tilda rested the barbell back in its holder and sat up, her skin slowly shifted back to its normal color, and she wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her arm. By the grave look in her eyes, I knew that Ember had filled her in about everything that had happened with Konstantin.
She didn’t ask about it, though. We’d been friends so long that she didn’t really need to say anything. She just gave me a look—her charcoal-gray eyes warm and concerned as they rested heavily on me—and I returned her gaze evenly, trying to assure her with a pained smile that I was handling everything with Konstantin better than I actually was.
Of course, Tilda probably knew I was holding back, but she accepted what I was willing to give and offered me a supportive smile. She would never press or pry, trusting me to come to her if I needed to.
I shrugged. “I’m here to blow off steam, if that answers your question.”
Ember asked with a smirk, “That bad, huh?”
“The King hates me.” I sighed and adjusted the tape on my hands as I walked over to the punching bag.
“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you,” Ember said.
Tilda took a long drink from her water bottle, accidentally spilling a few droplets on her baggy tank top, and Ember walked over to help me. She stood on the other side of the punching bag, holding it in place, so that when I hit it, it wouldn’t sway away. I started punching, throwing all my frustration into the bag.
“I have to learn to keep my mouth shut if I’ll ever stand a chance of being on the H?gdragen,” I said, and my words came out in short bursts between punches. “It’s already gonna be hard enough without me pissing off the King.”
“How did you piss him off?” Tilda asked as she came over to us. She put one hand on her hip as she watched me, letting her other fall to the side.
“I was just arguing with him. I was right, but it doesn’t matter,” I said, punching the bag harder. “If the King says the sky is purple and it rains diamonds, then it does. The King’s word is law.”
I don’t know what made me angrier. The fact the King was wrong and refused to see it, or that I’d once again botched my own attempts at being one of the H?gdragen. That was all I’d ever wanted for as long as I could remember, and if I wanted to be in the guard, I’d have to learn to follow orders without talking back.
But I didn’t know how I was supposed to keep my mouth shut if I thought the King was doing things that might endanger the kingdom.
I started alternating between punching and kicking the bag, taking out all my anger at the King and at myself. I finally hit it hard enough that the bag swung back, knocking Ember to the floor.
“Sorry,” I said, and held my hand out to her.
“No harm, no foul.” Ember grinned as I helped her to her feet.
“You make it sound like we live in an Orwellian dystopia, and I know you don’t think that,” Tilda said, but there was an arch to her eyebrows, like maybe she didn’t completely disagree with the idea.
She’d never openly speak ill of the kingdom—or of anything, really—but that didn’t mean she approved of everything that happened here. Neither did I, but Tilda always managed to handle things with more grace and tact than I could muster.
“No, I don’t.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “But I won’t ever get ahead if I keep arguing with everyone.”
“Maybe you will,” Tilda said. “You’ve argued and fought your way to where you are now. Nobody wanted you to be a tracker, but you insisted that you could do it, and now you’re one of the best.”
“Thanks.” I smiled at her. “Speaking of which, I’m supposed to be shadowing Linus, so I need to fly through today’s workout. You wanna spar?”
“I think I’ll sit this one out, since the last time you gave me a fat lip,” Tilda reminded me, pointing to her full lips.
They had been briefly swollen and purplish last month when I accidentally punched her right in the mouth, temporarily marring her otherwise beautiful face. She’d never been vain or complained of the bumps and bruises we’d both get during our practicing fights before, but if she didn’t want to fight today, I wasn’t going to push her.
“Ember, you wanna go?” I asked.
“Sure. But you have to promise not to hit me in the face.” She motioned a circle around her face. “I don’t want any visible marks for my birthday party.”
I nodded. “Deal. Let’s go.”