Part I
The Order of Vala
Chapter One
After ten years in the heart of the Calma Desert, Gandrett Brayton no longer noticed the unforgiving wind drying her mouth and driving water into her eyes. She lifted her sword to strike yet again, sweat sheathing her body, top to bottom, like a second skin and making her hands slippery. Sweat—as much as her plain linen tunic and pants were part of the fashion of the roughly two-hundred members of the Order of Vala in Everrun. But the man attacking her with merciless strength wasn’t one of them. His attire spoke of the outside world—a world of childhood memories and wheat fields in the north. Gandrett Brayton swirled her weapon and let it sink into the ground before her, preparing herself to propel her legs up and hit her opponent in the chest. It was a movement that always secured her victory.
But not today.
Today, Everrun’s most proficient fighter found herself flat on her back before her feet could hit home.
Gandrett freed a string of curses, earning a raised eyebrow from the stranger, who, himself, seemed surprised that she was on the ground, and he kept his sword hovering before his chest as if he was waiting for something.
Already calculating her options, Gandrett looked for a weak spot. So far, her opponent hadn’t made even the slightest mistake. Unlike most other fighters, he had kept his distance, delivering blow after blow without leaving his sides unprotected. He hadn’t fallen for her feints, the way the acolytes at the order did, or made the mistake of losing patience. On the contrary, he had parried each of her strikes with elegant efficiency, his toned body moving as if he had never done anything else in his life.
He growled, assessing, as her gaze swept over him. Dark hair, eyes of piercing blue. Light, leather armor good for traveling. And covering his chest was a familiar pattern of burgundy and gold.
Gandrett glanced behind the man, letting her eyes widen as if she had just noticed something there—something other than the familiar sight of the lifeless desert which spread around Everrun in each direction—hoping she could fool him, and gripped her sword more tightly, pulling it down toward her in preparation for her next move. A move which would free her and put the man looming over her exactly where she was now; in the dirt.
But the man didn’t loosen his focus on her. Fast as a biting snake, he set his toes on her arm, forcing her fingers to let go of her weapon, and sneered, “What a waste to keep you locked up here in Everrun.”
Gandrett grimaced. “I’m not planning on staying here forever.” She stilled for a moment, letting him believe she’d given up fighting, and studied the man’s posture—the way he kept too much weight on one leg, a mistake. Then, with trained lightness, she rolled over and kicked into the back of his knees, making him tumble off her arm.
Before he could regain balance, Gandrett picked up her sword and was back on her feet, easing the man’s weapon out of his broad hand with a swift knock of her blade. He leaped out of her reach, fumbling for the knife that was still dangling on his leather belt.
Another mistake—at last.
Gandrett’s blood pumped with familiar heat as she measured how many strikes it would take to defeat him. One—she danced to the side, positioning herself with the wind at her back so the stranger would be at a disadvantage. Two—she lifted her sword above her head, easily staying out of the small knife in the man’s dirt-flecked hand’s reach. Three—she brought the flat of her blade down on the man’s shoulder, forcing him to his knees with a blow that made the metal shudder in its wake.
Four—he was on the ground.
Gandrett loosed a breath, watching him with caution, blade at the ready.
But the man glanced up at her, a grin forming on his lips—not the kind type—and said, “I was beginning to doubt you had it in you.”
For a heartbeat, Gandrett pondered whether he was mocking her, and lowered the tip of her sword toward the man’s throat. But he lifted his hands from the dust, a gesture of peace despite the relentless attacks he had rained down on her.
With a flick of her foot, Gandrett shoved his knife out of reach behind her where his sword was resting between stones.
She had imagined her afternoon differently. Exercise in the training grounds behind the citadel then a run around the outer walls of Everrun. Her usual routine. Not the silent approach of an adept attacker who’d had who-knew-what in mind as she found him snooping around the city walls.
Nobody made it into Everrun without permission of the order. And nobody made it out. That was what Everrun was like. Since her very first day here. And that was what it would be like long after her last breath. Had she not spotted him trying to hoist himself up the unclimbable wall encircling Everrun, he might have given up and starved and dried out in the desert, or—which would have been the faster, more merciful death—he would have been pierced by one of the arrows of the guard.
“You could have just walked up to the front gate and requested entrance,” Gandrett threw at him and earned a shrug. In response, she jerked her chin, beckoning the stranger to get to his feet, allowing him only so much space to move along with her blade as she guided him up. He eyed her with a glacial gaze.
“The Meister will be interested to know what kind of busybody was hoping to sneak into the priory.” Gandrett stared the man down, ignoring the handsome face those cold eyes were set in. He couldn’t be older than twenty. Twenty-five at the maximum. “Name,” she demanded, her voice as sharp as the wind freeing strands of her chestnut braid.
The stranger shoved Gandrett’s sword aside with a gloved hand, “Tell the Meister that Nehelon is here,” and stepped past her to pick up his weapons.
Gandrett whirled around to block his path and kicked his down-reaching hands off course before he could touch the hilt of his sword.
She ignored his curse at the impact and flashed him her falsest smile. “I’m sure he’ll be delighted.” Then she crouched just enough to reach his weapons herself and collected them from the ground, never turning her eyes away from him and without lowering her sword even an inch.
He pursed his lips and fell into step as she escorted him toward the closest side gate in the wall at the tips of both his and her swords while she repeated the name. “Nehelon.” She wanted to take back the word, hating that the sound of it had rung a bell. Not from the years at the Order of Vala, but from her childhood, which seemed almost like a gray haze in her memory.
Gandrett thought she heard him chuckle and pushed one of the swords against the leather on his shoulder blade just to make him move faster. The sound stopped.
She studied his powerful strides as they walked for fifteen minutes without exchanging another word, even though Gandrett was curious who he might be. A fighter, definitely a warrior. Maybe one of the most skilled she had ever encountered. But what business did he have with the order to sneak up on them? And how on earth had he crossed the desert without even carrying a waterskin or a pack of supplies? The Calma Desert spread for miles and miles in each direction, enclosing Everrun like a circle of death, a zone that isolated the Order of Vala from the rest of Neredyn. Nehelon would have been traveling the rocky, dry land without supplies for days—
Her eyes were still on his long, muscled legs as they marched, each step confident, each movement coordinated, deliberate. Then her view slid up to his back, following his spine up to his broad shoulders.