Lexa
Summer sunlight sweeps across the trembling fields of wheat–a wash of pure gold against the emerald face of the mountains just beyond. I lift my face to the sun and breathe in, letting the scent of what will be another prosperous harvest fill my lungs. It smells like… bread. Bread and apples. Bread and roasting meat. Bread and the ever burning fire at the center of the village, where lively chatter rises above the crackling embers, above the stretch of a laundry line being raised, above the sound of shutters opening and mothers calling out for their children to come brush their teeth before running off to play.
Goddess, it’s good to be home.
“Lexa! LEXA!” Chessie’s voice rips down the road, followed by her pounding booted footsteps as she races in my direction. I turn, catching her in the glare of the early morning sun, her wild blonde hair tousled from sleep–unbrushed–and her dress–the first dress I’ve seen her wear in over six months–wrinkled, like she picked it off the line and failed to hang it up in her closet afterward.
Six months spent training what most would consider Eastonia’s finest warriors–the Ghost army–definitely took a toll on all of us. She skids to a stop at my side, panting, brushing her glorious golden locks away from her sun-kissed face. “What are you doing? Where are you going? Can I come?”
“CHESSSSSSSSSSSIE!”
She winces as her mother’s voice echoes from the village proper, where her parents have a stately little cottage right smack-dab in the center of town–a coveted spot, honestly. It’s a testament to the fact that her father is one of my dad’s oldest friends, one who has memories of a time before the Silverhide pack came to the Deadlands.
Chessie grabs my forearm, and we set out in a brisk walk away from her mother’s voice. “Seriously, what are you doing today?”
“What’s her problem?” I rush out, but Chessie rolls her eyes, dragging me off the gravel road leading away from the village and into the winding forest that eventually drops into Endova, the territory of my mother’s people.
“Me, I’m her problem,” she gripes as we disappear into the wheat, which brushes my stomach but is nearly to her shoulders. “You remember how she bitched and moaned about me leaving for Moonrise last fall? Well, now that I’m back, all she wants to talk about is me getting married and bride prices. Apparently, she knows someone who knows someone in Teshka whose friend has a cousin with a son who’s had his eye on me for some time now.”
I sputter a laugh. “Oh, please, it can’t be that bad.”
“She’s already sewing my wedding dress for the Harvest Festival. It’s horrendous, Lexa. I’d rather get married naked.”
I give her a playful nudge, and thankfully she laughs, her green eyes crinkling against the sharp sunlight as we weave through the wheat. She’s not alone when it comes to overbearing mothers. Meg, Hara, Analise, and Jen are all hiding out at the base of the mountain where the wheat turns to sparse evergreen trees, all dodging equally annoying mothers and their plans for their of-age daughters to get married this fall.
When we reach them, Hara says, “Jaime’s already paid my bride price,”with a shrug as I follow the group through the trees, taking the long way to the lake, where they apparently plan to hide from their moms until further notice.
“Well, you like him and hoped for the match,” Jen replies with a flick of her wrist, her dark brown hair braided tightly down her back, swaying back and forth. “Jaime is also hot as fuck.”
“He has a brother,” Analise chimes in behind me, giggling.
A few titters of laughter cut through Chessie’s moan. “You guys don’t get it, do you? We just had the best winter of our lives, and now we’re home, and our moms think it’s totally acceptable that we sit back down at our looms and bat our eyelashes at every Endovan or Teshkan warrior who comes to visit? Get real.”
“I don’t mind the attention,” Meg says slyly, which earns her a rough nudge to the shoulder by Jen.
“They don’t want us marrying any Ghosts and moving to Moonrise or Veiled Valley,” Annalise says, and the girls balk, making disgusted faces that force me to hide a smile.
“Ugh! Ghosts? Who do they think we are?” Jen complains.
“Us? With Ghosts? Gross,” Hara hisses, and I smile even harder.
Yeah, I took my girls with me when Maeve sent me to Moonrise. Why not? The queen hadn’t cared. She even encouraged it. I had my own townhouse, and the six of us split the three bedrooms, spending our days at the arena or training center in the basement of the palace and our nights totally and completely… exhausted. We had certain freedoms that were impossible to fathom here in the Deadlands, sure. Bars, nightclubs, the works… but we were always beaten to shit after our training sessions, and most nights, we were lucky if we were able to make it up the stairs before falling asleep.
It was the best time of my life.
I’ve also never been so tired, and I still am.
I fight the urge to rub my eyes as the lake comes into view, sparkling like polished sapphire in the sunlight. While Meg, Hara, Jen, and Analise race to the shore, dropping their baskets and towels, and strip down to bikinis they wore beneath their clothes, I hang back on the dock with Chessie, who slumps beside me, dipping her legs in the water next to mine.
“You don’t have to get married, you know. My dad did away with that custom years ago. It’s your decision. Your parents can’t force you into it.”
“I know,” she sighs, kicking her legs. She lifts her face to the sun while the rest of our friends splash each other or float on their backs nearby, oblivious to our conversation. “I hate to admit it, but part of me is happy about it. Getting married. Not the moving somewhere new if my future husband is from a tribal pack but… yeah. Being settled. Having kids. I’m looking forward to that.” She rests her cheek on her shoulder. “Don’t get me wrong, I love being a warrior. Moonrise was a dream. Watching the lives of the Ghost warriors we beat up every day flash before their eyes. I’ll remember that forever, but…”
“But it was exhausting?”
She smiles, nodding. “The first thing I did when we got home was sleep. I slept for two days straight.”
“Same,” I breathe, then I lean back until I’m flat against the dock. I didn’t come here to swim. I’d just been… aimlessly walking around… not, like, looking for cell reception or anything…
“So…” Chessie says, kicking water at my legs. “Did you and Austin…”
“Did Austin and I what?”
She shrugs. “You guys seemed pretty cozy after that last training session before we left.”
Meg backstrokes in front of us. “Austin totally has the hots for you, Lexa! I could see his hard-on through his leathers every time you coached his battalion through a training session!”
I kick at her, and she giggles, swimming away.
“That’s not true!” I call out, but she flips onto her belly and dives beneath the surface, popping up several yards away where Hara and Jen are treading water. “It’s not true,” I repeat to Chessie.
“I dunno. He definitely watched your every move for months.”
“He’s a captain. That was his job. We were training his guys.”
“You’re a captain, too. What’s the issue?”
“There’s no issue because there’s nothing going on.” My voice is a tad sharper than intended, but Chessie is used to it. These are my friends, sure, but I’m their leader. Their captain. The one they watch, obey, and heed. It’s been that way since we were little, back when the girls of the village separated into two factions. Faction one: dolls and playing house.
Faction two: beating the absolute shit out of the village boys during their war games.
Guess which one my parents encouraged?
“I can’t stay up here for long. I’m going hunting with my mom this afternoon.” I sit up and hug my knees to my chest, wondering if the phone in the bag slung over my shoulder is ever going to ring.
Chessie pouts. “Come on! Stay. Let’s swim!”
“Meg is going to harass me about Captain Austin if I stay. I can feel it.”
Chessie turns to me, leaning close. “Come on, Lexa. It’s me. What really happened? You’ve been off since we got on the train to leave Moonrise, and Austin did, in fact, come to say goodbye to all of us. To you.”
“Sporting the black eye I gave him–”
“During a training session!”
“We kissed.”
Chessie gasps. I wince, turning away from her and looking down at my hands.
“And a little more than that.”
“You did not.”
“Unfortunately, yes, we did, and it was quick and meant nothing.”
Chessie rolls her eyes back to the water, blowing out her breath. “That doesn’t mean nothing–”
“In this case, it meant… nothing. A little fun before coming home.” My stomach curls as I look out over the water at the woman acting so carefree, so unburdened. Austin fills my mind, his sun-bleached hair golden blond in the glare of a neon sign taking up my vision. His scent–thick, sharp, and woodsy–some cologne I’ll never be able to scrub from my memory. The way it felt when his arms curled around me, pressing me against the stone exterior wall of the shitty bar in Old Moonrise where we’d been meeting for drinks for months, late at night, when our battalions had long gone to bed.
“What’s your bride price?” Chessie asks under her breath, pulling me out of my memories.
“I doubt I have one,” I chuckle, and she squints up at me in disbelief.
“You’re the Alpha King’s daughter.”
“So?”
“Your dad paid your mom’s price with a golden elk pelt–the last golden elk by all accounts–”
“My dad said, jokingly, that if a man can beat me in a fight, he can marry me. So far, no man has ever beaten me in anything.” I rise, dusting off my thighs, and hike my bag over my shoulder. “I gotta go. I’ll see you at the packhouse for supper.”
“LEXA! DON’T GO!” The rest of the girls whine, but I catch Meg’s sharp look as I turn to face the shore–curious and cutting. She’s one of the best warriors. Mom agrees. We’re the top warriors under her command. Meg could easily be a captain one day if she ever lets go of her last-man-standing attitude. She’s not what I’d consider a team player, but she’s working on it, at least.
The village is busy and bustling when I walk out of the forest and take the trail to the large wooden house rising from a thicket of trees, perched just above the rest with a view of the village below. I wasn’t born here, but I grew up within the warm wooden walls that greet me. Nora looks up from the couch where she’s sprawled out, her sketchbook in her lap. She inherited Mom’s fiery red curls but has a knack for taming them that neither Mom nor I have been able to master, even with her guidance. They dance around her shoulders in tight, glossy, perfect coils as she shimmies to an upright position, her amber eyes searching my face before narrowing. “What’s up with you?”
“Me?” I drop my bag on the worktable where Mom has been priming arrows in anticipation for our hunt. “Nothing. I thought you were packing to go back to Moonrise today.”
“Sydney was supposed to come get me like, now, but he grabbed Mom and Dad instead, and they haven’t returned.”
I slowly look at my little sister, noticing the fine lines of concern creasing the sides of her eyes. “What?”
“Sydney came and went in a hurry. Dad told me to stay here. Mom was worried because you weren’t here, but Sydney said they couldn’t wait.”
I glance at the clock on the wall, furrowing my brow. “When did they leave?”
“Half an hour ago, maybe.”
I look down at the scattered arrowheads Mom abandoned in haste. The stomach-curling feeling returns. “Nora–”
A burst of energy explodes through the room. I flinch, even after being around this kind of magic my entire life. The tang of metal fills my mouth as Mom steps out of the mist, and Sydney appears behind her, looking grave, his face cast in shadow to the point I can’t make out his expression.
Mom’s amber eyes are grimly set with determination as she focuses on Nora, asking, “Are you packed?”
“Yeah.” Nora slowly slides off the couch, looking from Mom to me. “What’s going on? Where’s Dad?”
Mom motions to Nora to grab her bag off the floor, and she does, her grip tight on the leather handle. “Uncle Sydney is going to take you to Veiled Valley now–”
“I thought I was going to Moonrise–”
“We have to go, Nora,” Sydney says, his voice cool, steady, and monotone, but his eyes… pain radiates there in the wells of stormy blue, a color we share. I look like my dad, Ryan. I have his coloring, his dark brown hair and big, stormy blue eyes. I have their shared height, their strength, and I can see past the stoney expression, and I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that something is terribly wrong.
Nora rushes past me, but Mom stops her, pulling her in for a tight hug that hollows out my stomach. Mom looks crushed as she slowly releases Nora, whispering that our dad will meet her in Veiled Valley, and when Sydney and Nora wordlessly disappear into the aether, she turns to me.
“Blake did something reckless, didn’t he?” I ask, and Mom closes her eyes in confirmation.