One
The steel sword flashes as it arcs toward my neck. It’s meant to cleave my head from my shoulders, but a million reconstructed synapses fire down my nerves and I duck low on instinct, away from the sharpened edge that promises a quick death. A branch from the closest tree scrapes my cheek, but I hardly feel it.
The blade whistles just above in a short viper’s hiss.
Ssss.
The sound sends a tingle of adrenaline coursing over my flesh, followed by a wave of burning nausea. I fall back against the thick trunk of a cypress tree. Summer-spent leaves shiver from above as Bramble chirps in alarm.
Gripping the pommel of my sword, I lunge to strike my opponent. A grunt slips from my parched lips. Sweat dribbles into my eyes, turning the forest into a blurry wall of brown and green.
I blink and my sword bites empty air. Fienian hell.
I barely stop the sword before it thwacks into the mottled trunk of an oak. Bramble, clinging to a spindly branch just above, screeches as he scuttles away from my wild swings. When he reaches the upper branch, away from my reach, his antennae twist around his sleek body, probing the air. Searching for her.
Where is she?
Shadows play across the maze of moss-bound trunks around me as I scour the forest, my breath heaving out in dense wheezes. Leaves dance around us like falling stars.
There. A figure leaps from the shadows—a wraith in an emerald cape. She couldn’t be more commanding if she were a giant stag with nine-point horns, a fanged beast meant to kill me.
My heart dances sideways against my ribs.
“If this were real you’d be dead by now.”
My mother grins at me, her smile sharper than any weapon. A crimson flush settles across her high cheekbones, her hair, the same color as the tree trunks, wrangled into a now-loose bun. A few frizzled tendrils form a corona over her head.
Against my will, I search her eyes for warmth, her face for pride. But her expression is cold, her lips curled downward at the corners.
She’s barren of any emotion save disdain.
“You’re leaving your left flank exposed,” she adds. “And you still telegraph your movements when you tire.”
Just like I’ve been taught, I pull in steady, even breaths from my nose while my mother regards me cruelly. It doesn’t help that she’s right. All I have to do is look down at my tunic where her sword split the fabric to confirm her words.
She angles her head. “I thought you were reconstructed with advanced swordplay techniques?”
“I was.”
“Hmm.”
I hate the disappointment in her voice, the mocking tone. “Are we done?”
She gives a curt nod. “For now.”
How long have we been practicing? A minute? An hour? It feels like ten hours. A day. A lifetime—a lifetime we don’t have.
Sensing the fight is over, Bramble scrambles halfway down the tree’s thick trunk and lunges onto my shoulder. Although he’s roughly the size of a box turtle, he’s lighter than he looks, and the impact feels like being hit by a pinecone.
As he nestles into my neck, his spindly legs twist in my braid, and I tug the rope of hair onto my other shoulder.
He chirps once and settles down, his familiar presence calming me.
“You have that thing trained well,” my mother says, glancing curiously at Bramble.
“He’s not a thing,” I amend, trying and failing to hide my annoyance. “And I didn’t train him.”
“Indeed.”
Sunlight dapples the oval sweat stain darkening her back as she turns around and grabs a tan waterskin. She tosses it to me without a word. After I’ve drank just enough to satisfy my thirst—but not enough to weigh me down and make me sluggish—I toss it back. Even though I want to drink until I empty it.
“Why don’t you like the council idea?” I ask, wiping my mouth on my shirt sleeve to cover the painful tug of my lips.
“Does my opinion mean that much to you?” She lifts a graceful eyebrow the color of old honey. “I don’t remember it mattering before.”
You mean when I was six? I want to say.
Instead, I shrug, feeling the sting of her disapproval. Most of the Sleepers who made up the ten-thousand-man army occupying the surrounding hillside came from the nearest towns.
The first thing I did after leaving the Fienian stronghold and breaking away from Nicolai was set up a council filled with elected representatives from each town.
“Do you really want to set this precedent?” Her lips twitch at the corners as if she’s biting back a smile. “Once you give away power, it’s water through a sieve and you will never reclaim it.”
“Maybe I don’t want power, but if you’d been around you’d know that about me.”
“Everyone wants power,” she says, ignoring my barb at the end. “In our world, power equals survival.”
I try to swallow but my dry tongue settles in the back of my throat. “Well, I didn’t give it up. I still have a high seat in the council.”
“One of three.”
Riser, Caspian, and I form a triumvirate of sorts. It’s still a roughshod idea, and, according to my mother, a bad one. “I want the masses to feel included, to want to fight.”
“Don’t be naïve. No one wants to fight.”
“You know what I mean.” I cringe at how petulant my voice sounds. How utterly incompetent. “Besides, I don’t feel confident making all the decisions when there are more experienced leaders at hand twice my age.”
“Experience doesn’t make a leader great.”
A sigh tumbles from my lips. “Then what does?”
“The ability to make hard decisions and never question oneself, for one. But more importantly, a great leader accepts the belief that they, and they alone, are the only one who can lead.”
“Well that basically discounts me then.”
“Whether you like it or not, Maia, you are the face of this war.” My mother pushes an errant strand of hair behind her ear and clears the impatient look from her eyes.
Ever since we’ve been together, I’ve caught her trying. Trying to be more understanding. Trying to be warmer. Trying to listen instead of ordering. To be affectionate when she would normally be curt.
To be more motherly.
I’m trying too. And yet we can hardly look at each other without arguing over every tiny little thing.
“If you’re so keen on opinions,” she begins carefully. “Then you should know your plan has some flaws.”
“What plan?”
“To stay at camp another day.”
I draw a figure eight in the air with my sword, watching the warm rays of sunlight trickle down the beveled blade. “All plans have flaws.”
“We cannot afford to wait to attack the castle. Already, the Rebels move closer. Scouts were caught near the western edge of the forest.”
“Yes, and the information from those scouts points to Nicolai waiting two more days to attack.”
“They’re lying.” Her voice is flat, but her hazel eyes shimmer with the fire of certainty I lack, the kind that comes from experience. “Nicolai wanted them to get taken in to plant false information.”
I sheathe my blade in the leather holster positioned against the base of the tree and roll out my shoulders, careful not to disturb Bramble. Lately, he’s sensitive to my moods and gestures and even sighing too loud makes him worry.