7. Ash

CHAPTER 7

Ash

I followed the line of men into the kitchen, grabbed my breakfast, and stepped back into the hall on the other side. As expected, Hamelin and Bramwell waved me over to join them and I flashed them a smile I didn’t feel.

“Hey, Ambrose,” Hamelin called out as I approached. He was a big bulky man with a thick scar running down his cheek that twisted the right side of his mouth up in a perpetual sneer, belying his overall good nature. “What did you think of the bed? Sure beats a blanket on hard ground.”

“How often were you sleeping on the ground?” I asked. There weren’t a lot of military campaigns happening in the Great Five Kingdoms at the moment, so Hamelin should have spent most of his time in his army base’s barracks .

He shrugged as I sat beside him. “My last two years I spent in the Minimien Borderlands in Irialas hunting chimeras.”

Bramwell’s eyes widened. He was from Irialas and looked like a typical Irialian with wavy blond hair cut just short enough that it didn’t get in his blue-gray eyes that were the color of a stormy sea, and he knew just how difficult and pervasive the chimera infestation was. “You were in the Borderlands?”

“Yeah.” A shadow slipped over Hamelin’s expression and he dug into his bowl of porridge, his sudden change in demeanor making it clear he didn’t want to talk about it. “What do you think we’re doing this afternoon?”

“I heard they’re testing us on how well we can fight from horseback today,” Durand replied. He was the smallest of the four but only by half a head and while his build was also a little smaller and leaner than the others, it was similar to the one I’d picked for myself — and one that was actually quite close to my regular lean-muscled build.

Hamelin groaned. “Well that sucks. I can ride well enough not to fall off if the beast starts running, but that’s about it.”

Mikel rolled his eyes at him. He was the most handsome of the group with a muscular honed physique, brown eyes that were sharp with intelligence, and short brown hair. He was also a good fighter, knew it, and had no problem making sure everyone else knew it as well. He could probably win fights against half of the fae in the Guard already… if his overconfidence didn’t get him in trouble.

“I doubt you’ll be worse than the farmers,” he said. “They don’t even know how to swing a sword.”

“Or shoot a bow,” Bramwell added with a chuckle.

“I wonder how the lord will do?” Durand asked with a sneer.

“Probably pretty well,” Hamelin said with a sigh. “Being a lord and all, he’s probably been trained to fight from horseback. What I can’t believe is how fast he is with a sword.”

Which was true. The boy was damned fast, almost as fast as some of the fae, and knew that was his advantage in a fight.

“Yeah, but one hit and he’s down,” Durand huffed, “and we all know the Lord Commander didn’t hit him that hard. We were all hit, several times.”

“He’s going to need to toughen up if he’s going to be a Guardsman,” Bramwell added.

Mikel leaned forward. “It’s going to be up to us to do that. The Lord Commander stopped the fight the instant the runt dropped and did you see Talon? He hung back after training probably to check on him.”

Durand nodded his agreement. “They’re fae. They probably think he’s still a child because he’s so much smaller than them. But coddling won’t help him become a man.”

“I don’t care if he becomes a man or not,” Hamelin said. “If he can’t hold his own in a fight, I don’t want him at my back.”

Which was probably how everyone in the Guard felt about Sawyer. Even if the fae didn’t know he was a nobleman’s son, he’d used the ring after dark, endangering the lives of the men who’d rescued him, and that showed a disrespect to his fellow Guardsmen that wasn’t soon going to be forgotten.

A flash of red at the edge of my vision caught my attention and my pulse leaped with the sudden, desperate hope that it was Red. All thoughts of doing my job and keeping tabs on the novices were instantly gone and the memory of what it had felt like to be with her flooded me then swept away leaving me empty and cold.

Fuck.

I strained to drag my thoughts away from her. I couldn’t think about her. Not here. Not now. Not ever.

Besides, it wasn’t Red. It couldn’t be her. There were no women, human or fae, in the Black Tower. The only woman who infrequently visited, was Rider’s sister. She could communicate with animals and sometimes her mate, Flint, needed her help when one of our horses needed medical attention. But whenever she visited, Rider kept her away from the men, not just because he was an over-protective brother, but because she was a woman and this castle was filled with men who, unless they were fae-touched and enjoyed having sex with another man, only had contact with a woman on their lieu days.

The flash of red, did, however, come from the boy, Sawyer Herstind. He’d stepped out of the kitchen on the other side of the great hall, a tray in his hands containing his morning meal, and was trying to figure out where to sit. The men in front of him, a mix of human and fae, gave him a dark look then turned back to their meal, pointedly ignoring him.

Sawyer lifted his head and squared his shoulders. He was steeling himself against that and whatever else the men were going to throw at him, but it made him look even more like a haughty nobleman.

“Look at him,” Bramwell hissed. “He doesn’t even know he fucked up the other night. Bet it pisses him off that no one calls him ‘my lord’ anymore.”

“The Lord Commander should have given him more than a rotation of stable duty,” a man on the bench behind me murmured.

“Hard work would do him some good,” someone else replied.

“So we toughen him up and teach him respect,” Mikel said. “We can’t have the other Guardsmen thinking there’s something wrong with our group of novices. ”

A large human walked out of the kitchen and bumped Sawyer, making him slosh his ale half onto the piece of bread on his tray and half over one hand. The man shot Sawyer a dirty look and said something, but I was too far away to hear him. Those around me snickered and murmured about him not knowing his place or being stupid or selfish.

The boy’s posture tightened even more and for a second it looked like he was going to drop his gaze — something he’d done a lot yesterday — but this morning he kept his head high. Guess he’d made a decision last night to stand up for himself. I could only hope that whatever the rest of the Guardsmen and Mikel had in store for him, he’d stay strong.

And while yes, it was my job to make sure no one killed themselves or killed anyone else, it was still always best if problems were worked out between the men.

Sawyer needed to stand up for himself as well as prove to the others that he understood the nature of his mistake. He also needed to prove that he was going to be a useful member of the Guard even though we had to keep him whether we liked him or not.

There was a fine balance between maintaining discipline and comradery and given that the humans spent the rest of their lives together with no way to leave, Rider almost always erred on the side of comradery… if it didn’t endanger an yone’s life.

Someone by the main doors caught the boy’s attention and he started to hurry away from the dark looks and cold-shoulders the other Guardsmen were giving him then he slowed his pace to a fast, stately stride. He reached his goal and sat stiffly beside Lewin and across from Kit and Payne.

Talon had mentioned he’d asked the elite team to keep an eye on the boy. After discovering he was attracted to other men, Talon hoped that seeing Kit and Payne — two fae who’d recently taken mating vows with each other and were public with their affection — would eventually make Sawyer feel more comfortable with himself, since the humans didn’t approve of males coupling.

“I can’t believe one of the elite teams has welcomed him to their table,” Bramwell said.

“My older brother said Talon told them to,” Mikel replied. “They probably think if they don’t, the Lord Commander will keep them stuck as a three man team doing daytime patrols to keep the traders that move between the Tower and the ring safe.”

“But why would Talon do that? He knows what the runt did,” Hamelin asked.

Durand huffed and rolled his eyes as if the answer was obvious. “The Captain of the Gold Tower likes his boys pretty and small like a girl. He’s probably got his eye on the runt.”

Wonderful. Talon was going to love hearing that rumor. Yes, he’d slept with a lot of people, human and fae alike, but not children, and the only Guardsman I knew he was sleeping with at the moment was Quill.

Now he’ll definitely keep his distance from Sawyer, which meant the boy was going to lose an ally, something he was already short on. Kit’s team was going to be switching rotations soon and that meant there wasn’t going to be anyone in the great hall for Sawyer to eat with.

“If Talon has his eye on him, he’ll get special treatment for sure,” Mikel said around a mouthful of bread. “The Lord Commander has already shown he won’t do what’s necessary to discipline the runt which means it’s our responsibility to make sure he knows his place and doesn’t get us killed.”

“But what does that mean?” I asked. I really didn’t like the direction the conversation was going. “I doubt the Lord Commander will like it if we put the boy in the infirmary.”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t had a good disciplinary thrashing,” Bramwell said to me. “You’re already a soldier. You know what I’m talking about.”

And even though I wasn’t really a soldier, I did know. Discipline came in many forms. Rider wasn’t usually a fan of beating someone — since it was far too easy for him to lose control — but he would if necessary. He preferred hard work and if we didn’t need Sawyer and the other skilled novices in the rotation as soon as possible to get our ranks closer to full, I suspected the boy would be mucking out the stables all day for the rest of the season.

“And no one here is talking about sending him to the infirmary,” Mikel added. “But just because he’s small, doesn’t mean we should go easy on him. He needs to learn what it’s like to fight for real and he needs to know the rest of us won’t stand by and let him risk our lives.”

Which if they didn’t break Sawyer’s spirit or his body would actually be good for him. He’d grow stronger, gain valuable fighting experience, and if he took what they gave out, he’d earn the rest of the Guardsmen’s respect.

Except they were going to be walking a fine line and I needed to join in just enough to keep myself in the group. If they pushed me out, I wouldn’t be able to stop them from going too far until it was too late.