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PREVIOUSLY...
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Erasmus took Azura beyond the school for private training, knowing she's holding back but not understanding why. There, he demonstrated the magical danger she'll be facing when she assassinates the emperor. Overcome by the things expected of her, she contemplated the simplicity of ending her life, but Suri pulled her back from the edge; literally.

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I don't sleep that night. My bloodshot eyes stare at the ceiling until the light of dawn begins to creep beneath the curtains, the girls stirring with the intrusion. The pain in my ribs and back keep me up through the night and they don't heal, they won't, not unless I give them the rest they need to heal.

My mind won't stop mulling over what happened last night. I've spent the last two years making sure people knew I wasn't someone they could step on, someone they couldn't swindle if they were fond of their innards staying inside. But Palmira...

I close my stinging eyes as a shiver snakes down my aching spine.

Palmira is a reminder that I'm very little without my added gifts, that I'm still just a puppet that she can bend to her will. My training with my brother, my reputation in Warroll, the blood that drenches my hands, all of it means nothing to Palmira if she's not wielding me herself.

I manage to crawl out of bed and into the bathroom where I take a long and hot shower, the pipes groaning as they dredge up hot water with their Old World inventions. Suri tried to explain it all to me but then she got distracted by the stale biscuits she found at the bottom of her bag.

I let out a contented sigh as I tilt my face to the stream of water that spurts from the shower-head, my muscles straining with each shift.

I'll make it through today, and the next day, and the day after that. As I've always done, as my brother taught me.

Survive, no matter the cost.

I press my forehead against the tiles of the shower, the water spraying my back.

That, big brother, I know how to do.

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Training is its usual brand of torture, especially with the expanse of my back covered in a colourful array of purple and blue bruises. It'd be almost pretty if it weren't so painful.

Mud splashes my calves and sweat and rain drench my hair, plastering it to my skull. With burning legs and heaving lungs, I run parallel to dense trees, leaping over mossy logs and avoiding thorny brambles, each jarring movement sending spikes of pain up my back.

Erasmus' barking voice reaches me over the patter of rain on the leaves, the hooves of his horse flinging mud at me as he rides past. I grind my teeth together as I glare at his broad back, protected from the rain with a thick cloak and hood.

Others run through the mist ahead of me, their clothes as damp as mine and their breaths just as ragged. I hang back a little, sticking close to the shadows of the gloomy forest to my left with Erasmus riding to my right, moving back and forth along the line of kids struggling through the mud.

Agony lances up my back and I struggle to keep my feet moving, the tears in my eyes blending with the rain on my face.

"Faster, Azura, you're dropping behind."

I glance up at Erasmus through the strands of black hair that fall into my eyes, sticking to my cheeks, my arms too tired to bother pushing it away.

A gnarled root catches my boot and I gasp as the muddy ground rushes up to meet me. I sprawl in the dark slush and groan as it seeps into my clothes. Muddied boots appear in my vision and I look through the damp strands of hair to see Erasmus shaking his head at me. He stretches out a hand, offering to help me. I scowl at that hand and instead stagger to my feet on my own.

"Azura..." he starts, a muscle in his jaw fluttering.

"What?" I growl.

"It'd be wise to take my offer to train you individually."

I spit the mud from my mouth as an answer to his help. "I don't want or need your help. I'll do your dirty work on my own."

"Why do you inist on the unnecessary defiance?"

I flex my fingers and tilt my chin up. "I guess I have something to prove," I lie and keep running.

Assassinating the emperor might kill me, especially without their training, but at least this way I don't have to give anyone else more of me. I already gave Jile pieces of myself I wasn't willing to give, and it all ended up being for nothing.

I catch up to Suri and Lilja as they begin to lag behind, Suri clutching her chest.

"I can't," she wheezes, leaning her shoulder against a tree.

"Figures." I look ahead at the voice and my gaze lands on a girl who studies each of us with cold eyes. The girl I saw in the Grand Hall that smelt of blood and death. "You're already on thin ice, Suri."

"Shut it, Vera," Lilja snaps, taking a step towards the girl with slanted eyes and a quirked brow.

"You can't keep picking up after your sister. Palmira will want to cut her loose if she doesn't reach the end of this track."

Lilja's hands curl into fists.

My gut churns as I watch the exchange, the mention of Palmira's name adding a tinge of red to my sight.

"I can make it," Suri replies, pushing away from the tree, but she stumbles, her knees trembling. Lilja catches her, wrapping an arm around her waist. She's too pallid and each breath she takes is a harsh rasp past her lips.

"Palmira knows you won't make it as a soldier," Vera continues and my eyes flash.

I take a step forward, sling Suri's other arm over my shoulder and heave her onto my back. The girl gasps as I jostle her into position, fire lurching down my spine, but Suri is going to make it through this track, Palmira be damned.

Vera tilts her head, amusement glittering in her brown eyes.

"Suri has plenty of other skills," I tell her and begin trudging forward. Suri wraps her arms around my shoulders, her fingers curling in my muddy sweater.

"What are you doing, Azura?" she asks, her voice shaky.

"Picking you up when you fall, like you did me." I glance over my shoulder at her and offer her a smile.

Her eyes are watery as she meets my gaze. "You shouldn't be helping me," she murmurs and my grip tightens around her thighs to hear those words. "Neither should Lilja. I'm sick, Azura."

"I know," I reply, the rattling of her lungs too loud to ignore. I've heard it before in street rats when the air grew foul with the bodies on the barge before they were shipped to sea.

Suri needs clean air, air devoid of this persistent rain and cloying mud, and a lot of rest. She won't find either of those things in the Order.

"So, tell me about Vera," I say, trying to ignore the pain in my back and the pain in my heart that has no right to be there.

"She's a thug," Lilja replies, jogging at our side, a limp to her stride. "Her brother and she were here before we arrived, and by then they were already Palmira's lapdogs."

"I take it you don't like Palmira much."

Lilja snorts. "She's efficient at her job, sure, but there's something wrong about her."

I press my lips together and have to agree with her. Palmira's words haven't left my head, not for a moment. If you're not with us, Azura, then you're against us. And you really don't want to be against us. And though I defy her, refuse to be her loyal subject, that doesn't mean the woman hasn't instilled some sort of fear in me.

"I think she's a good leader," Suri says and I raise a brow at her.

"Vera said she wants to kick you out."

I feel Suri shrug. "That's because we're only as strong as our weakest link. Elder Palmira doesn't want me dragging anyone else down with me."

"She can rot in Hell," Lilja growls, venom dripping from her tone. "She has no idea what we survived to get here."

"I think she does," Suri replies, her voice softening in retaliation to Lilja's rage. "And I think that's the only reason why I'm still here."

I glance between the two girls, questions surfacing about their past. The scar on Suri's face was my first indication that they didn't come here in a carriage brimming with gold, but now the curiosity burns in my chest.

"I've seen kids get kicked out of the school for less, or shipped to the Association." Suri rests her chin on my shoulder.

"The Association?" I ask as I squint ahead to see the finish line of the track where other kids are gathered, some slumped in the mud. The time for conversation is almost over, but I need more information, especially with my growing anxieties about Palmira.

"It's in Wymler," Lilja says. "It's another school, a larger one that mostly practises magic. Those that disappoint Palmira but are still skilled enough in magic to be useful get sent there."

Wymler. A walled city amongst the hills and forestry of the Midland. Another of the forces that stand with the rebellion. It's a place of legend.

"Sounds like a much better place than this," I mutter.

My brother would tell me of the city that never sleeps, guarded by walls and ancient cannons from the fabled Old World. He said he'd been there and I didn't believe him when I was younger. The place was too fairy-tale like to possibly exist. A thriving city amongst the hostile Midland bursting with demons and bandits? Preposterous.

But I now know my brother was part of the Order. I now know he was a fighter for the rebellion. Things don't seem as far-fetched as they once did.

"So, wouldn't you rather be at Wymler than here?" I question.

"Yes," Lilja says. "Except when someone is kicked out of the Order and expected to go to the Association, they make the journey alone through the Midland as some twisted test. People rarely make it."

The more I hear, the more I want to punch Palmira in the mouth. "Then let's make sure neither of you are kicked out."

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My hair is still damp from a shower when I slump behind a desk in my next class after lunch. My eyes struggle to focus on the blackboard as Master Nishki swirls her chalk like she's making a masterful work of art, and not just a diagram of a demon's vicious jowls.

"Now," she says, her voice carrying a thick accent I can't pinpoint. "Who can tell me the most dangerous part of a demon's bite?"

I glance around me, surrounded by students I don't know. The kids that are new like me, or are so far behind in their studies that they're forced to go back over the basics. My gut churns to know they'll probably be kicked out if they don't reach Palmira's standards.

I drum my fingers against the table, a small part of me wishing that Suri, or even Lilja and her scowl were beside me.

"Um," a kid says, raising their hand.

"Cian," Nishki nods, tucking her silvery hair behind her pointed ears as she settles her pale gaze on him.

"Their... teeth?"

"No, Cian," Nishki replies with a sigh, turning back to her diagram. "Their venom. Every part of a demon is poisonous and venomous. If they bite you then you'll probably die, and if you bite them then you'll probably die." She turns back to us, leaning her hip against her desk as she twirls the piece of chalk between her fingers. "Their black blood is poison. If it gets into your system in any way, it can cause hallucinations, paranoia, and fits. But their bite is like acid and it will kill you if it's not treated."

I purse my lips, already knowing this from my teachings with my brother. It's still refreshing to hear it again, to be reminded of the very real danger these things pose and how my brother was slaughtered by them.

"Turn to chapter sixteen of your textbook," Master Nishki says, slotting a pair of slim glasses onto her nose and flipping through her leather-bound book.

I look down at the book on the desk before me, tracing the black writing on the front. The rustle of pages surround me as people find the page she's referring to and I swallow, opening the book with stones settling in my stomach.

"This chapter explains how we fight the demon venom. Please read it and then I'll ask you all questions."

I clench my hands into fists as I glare at the words, willing them to make sense, for them to connect and click like they're meant to. Bile rises in my throat and my eyes sting, frustration like rotten food in my gut.

"Azura."

My eyes dart up as Nishki calls me, her eyes like ivory upon me. I swallow.

"Why don't you tell us how to deal with a demon bite?"

I look down at the book, my chest tightening. I know this. I know this. I don't need a book to tell me.

My hand goes to my upper arm and I touch the place where a demon's fangs tore through my flesh. My brother taught me first-hand how to deal with a bite from a demon.

"Use alcohol to flush out the venom," I say, my stare blank as I remember my screams as my brother handed me the bottle and forced me to pour it over my blood-soaked arm. "Belfine leaves crushed with water and alcohol will fight the infection." I close my eyes, nearly able to feel the tears on my cheeks as I crushed the concoction together, the shredded flesh of my arm weeping a steady stream of blood as my brother watched me, reminding me that the longer I took, the likelier I was to die. "Eating Demira stalks will help with the pain." It was a small mercy I didn't expect from my brother.

Nishki hums and I open my eyes to look at her as she nods. "Very well done. Though, Demira stalks aren't mentioned in this chapter." She turns back to the class. "Azura's right. The pain from a demon bite is like fire and if the bite doesn't kill you, then you might very well go into shock and die from the pain alone." Nishki glances at me, smiles, and nods, and I expel a breath.

I can't continue going like this, that's for sure.