The transport carriage did not roll; it violently juddered against the uneven, frost-heaved cobblestones. The moonlight bled through the iron bars of the small window, casting long, cage-like shadows across the exhausted faces of the recruits.
It had been seven days. Seven agonizing days of endless travel since Madeline had left the quiet, fog-shrouded village.
Inside the windowless belly of the wagon, the air was a thick, suffocating stew of unwashed bodies, stale breath, and metallic fear. For Madeline, the physical toll was pushing her to the absolute brink. Every jolt of the wooden wheels sent a fresh spike of pain through her bruised ribs. Nausea constantly rolled in her stomach, rising into her throat with every bump. But the worst part was the mask.
Miguel's thick leather forge mask, strapped tightly over the black scarf that hid her hair, was a suffocating trap. The stiff leather trapped her hot breath, making the air she inhaled taste damp and exhausted. She felt dizzy, her vision swimming in the dim moonlight. She wasn't sure she could survive another hour, let alone another day.
From the corner of the bench, a heavy shift of fabric broke the monotonous rattling.
Michael, the ginger-haired giant who had defended her in the recruitment hall, suddenly leaned forward. He hadn't spoken a single word to her or anyone in a week, his silence acting as a thick wall between them.
He held out a battered tin canteen. "Here."
Madeline blinked, her heavy, sweat-stung eyes focusing on the water. She reached out, her fingers trembling so violently she nearly dropped it. "Thank you," she rasped, her voice muffled and raw.
She tipped the canteen beneath the bottom edge of the leather mask, letting the lukewarm, metallic-tasting water coat her parched throat.
"Never been in a transport for this long?" Michael asked, one thick eyebrow raised in quiet scrutiny.
"No," Madeline whispered, handing the canteen back and squeezing her eyes shut as another wave of nausea hit her. "This is my first time."
Michael's green eyes narrowed, scanning the heavy leather covering her face. "You're sweating through your clothes. You know taking that scarf and mask off will drop your temperature, right? Can you even breathe in that thing?"
Madeline's heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her breastbone. If she took it off, she was dead. "I'm fine."
Michael scoffed, a short, abrasive sound, and leaned back against the iron bars. "Suit yourself, then. Pass out and they'll likely just toss you in a ditch."
She couldn't let herself pass out. She clenched her fists inside the oversized sleeves of her black shirt, driving her fingernails into her palms to use the sharp pain as an anchor. Breathe in. Breathe out. Stay conscious. Suddenly, the carriage slammed to a halt. The sheer force of it threw several men forward.
Heavy iron latches clanked outside. The thick wooden doors were wrenched open, letting in a blast of freezing, sharp night air.
"Everyone out. Move!"
One by one, the cramped, stiff-limbed men piled out of the wagon, boots hitting the frozen mud. Madeline scrambled down behind them, desperately trying to keep her balance.
When she finally looked up, all the breath she had been fighting for completely left her lungs.
They weren't just at a barracks; they were standing in the shadow of a colossal military fortress. Massive walls of black, jagged stone rose violently into the night sky, blocking out the stars. Torches sputtered in iron sconces every ten yards, illuminating a massive moat spanned by a heavy wooden drawbridge. In the looming watchtowers above, silhouettes of guards stood as still as gargoyles, the moonlight glinting off the polished steel of their loaded crossbows.
It didn't look like a training ground. It looked like a prison designed to swallow men whole.
Madeline's heart raced. Instinctively, she took a small step backward, trying to hide her tiny frame behind Michael's broad shoulders.
"I am here to deposit the new meat from the eastern provinces!" the carriage driver shouted up at the towers.
A deafening groan of ancient gears echoed through the valley as the colossal, iron-spiked double doors slowly began to grind open.
Inside, the courtyard was a labyrinth of hard stone and military precision. Dozens of guards in uniform stood in perfect, silent formation. No one smiled. No one welcomed them. The air was charged with a lethal discipline.
They were quickly herded by a pair of armed guards away from the main courtyard, led down a descending, torch-lit corridor that smelled strongly of mildew, lye, and old blood.
The guards finally halted before a heavy oak door banded in iron, shoving it open to reveal their quarters.
It was essentially a subterranean holding cell. There were no windows, only weeping stone walls slick with condensation. In the center of the low-ceilinged room hung a single, sputtering oil lamp that cast long, grotesque shadows across the floor. There were no beds, no mattresses, not even hay. Just a dozen thin, threadbare canvas cloths scattered across the freezing stone ground.
"For now, you sleep," the escorting guard barked, his voice bouncing harshly off the stone. "Training begins at dawn. And by dawn, I mean before the sun even thinks about rising."
He turned on his heel, grabbing the iron ring of the door to pull it shut.
Panic, completely raw and unfiltered, overrode Madeline's better judgment. The thought of sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder on the floor with a room full of hardened killers severed her common sense.
"Excuse me, sir!" Madeline blurted out, her muffled voice cutting through the heavy silence.
The guard stopped dead in his tracks. Slowly, he turned back around, his eyes locking onto her masked face.
Madeline swallowed hard, gesturing to the cramped stone floor. "I'm... I'm not sure this room will safely fit all of us. Could I... can I get a separate room, please?"
The entire room went dead silent. Even the hulking recruits stared at her as if she had just grown a second head.
The guard took a slow, deliberate step toward her. His boots echoed loudly. He stopped inches from her, leaning down so his face was level with her mask.
"Who do you think you are, boy?" he whispered venomously. "A royal prince? If you wanted your own silken bedchambers, you should have stayed hidden beneath your mother's skirts. You are dirt now. You sleep in the dirt."
He spat at her boots, spun around, and slammed the heavy oak door. The lock clicked with a terrifying finality.
"Looks like someone thinks a bit too highly of themselves," a voice sneered from the darkness.
"We'll see how long that delicate attitude lasts," another muttered.
Suddenly, a heavy, suffocating weight dropped over Madeline's shoulders. A thick arm wrapped around her neck, pulling her flush against a wall of hard muscle.
It was Derrick, the massive man with the vicious facial scar from the recruitment hall. He smelled strongly of rancid sweat, cheap ale, and chewing tobacco.
"The pretty boy is mine," Derrick announced to the room, his voice a low, gravelly purr.
Madeline's blood turned to ice water. She tried to pull away, but his arm was like an iron vice, trapping her against his side. She looked frantically toward Michael, desperately hoping the ginger-haired man would intervene again.
Michael had already claimed a canvas cloth in the far corner. He was lying on his back, his arm thrown casually over his eyes, completely shutting out the room. He was ignoring her. She was entirely on her own.
"He's exactly your type, Derrick," one of the thugs laughed from the shadows, claiming a spot on the floor.
Derrick ignored them. He leaned down, his scarred cheek brushing against the rough leather of Madeline's mask. She could feel the heat of his foul breath seeping through the eyeholes.
"So, what do you say, little prince?" Derrick whispered, his voice dripping with a predatory hunger that made Madeline's stomach heave. "Want to share a canvas with me tonight? I'll keep you warm."
Madeline was dizzy with sheer terror. Her hands balled into fists, her mind racing, trying to figure out where to strike him if he tried to drag her to the floor.
BANG! A heavy baton slammed against the iron-banded door from the outside, ringing like a gong.
"Everyone shut your mouths and go to sleep!" a guard roared from the corridor. "Next man to speak gets the whip!"
The threat of the lash was enough. Derrick let out an annoyed grunt, releasing his grip on her shoulders and shoving her away. "Later, pretty boy," he muttered, stalking off to claim a spot in the center of the room.
Madeline internally thanked whatever gods were watching over her. Her knees buckled slightly, but she caught herself.
The recruits quickly claimed their canvas scraps, their massive bodies taking up nearly every inch of the floor. There was barely any room left to step. Madeline carefully picked her way to the furthest, darkest, and coldest corner of the stone cell.
She curled her tiny frame into a tight ball, pressing her back flush against the freezing, weeping stone wall. As the oil lamp sputtered and died, plunging the cell into pitch blackness, the terrifying reality of the barracks set in. Surrounded by the heavy breathing of predators, she didn't close her eyes once.