The Veil of Ashes by S. Usher Evans EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Author: S. Usher Evans
- Language: English
- Genre: Epic Fantasy
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Steel met steel as the two children faced each other. They wore
matching expressions of loathing and desperation as they clashed with a
sword and a spear. But the girl on the left was more desperate, pulling a
stick from her belt and jabbing the boy in the stomach. He lost focus, and
she knocked him to the ground, effectively ending the match.
“What did you learn?” I asked the boy, whose name I hadn’t
bothered to learn.
He was silent, his red face etched in stone.
“Don’t trust anyone,” the girl parroted, giving me a look not unlike
the ones I used to give the trainers when I won.
“Right,” I said softly. If only I’d taken that lesson to heart. “Go wash
up for dinner.”
The two children scampered toward the bathing room, shoving each
other playfully as they went. They couldn’t have been older than ten—
orphans both, if I were to guess. The ones who were here against their will
didn’t laugh so easily.
They were good fighters. Although the boy had lost, he would still
be a useful foot soldier in Celia’s army. They’d join the ranks of the children
in the trees who scouted the trade road that connected the kingdom of Kulka
to Forcadel. It would be a few more years before they were handed real
swords.
Dusk had begun to settle, so I cleaned up the discarded weapons and
left the small ring where the children were taught. Tall pine trees towered
just outside the camp’s guard walls, but inside neat little log cabins lined the
expanse. Everything was communal, from the sleeping arrangements to the
bathing and dining houses. Privacy meant secrets, which was why only
Celia lived in her own cabin at the back of the camp.
I didn’t mind an audience, because I had nothing to hide. Not
anymore.
Celia was also keen on everyone pulling their weight, so I was
making myself useful by training the younger kids to survive in a fight. It
was hard not to feel that every day was a reflection on my failures,
especially as I drilled into these kids the one lesson that hadn’t stuck. I’d
trusted too many people, and I’d ended up as defeated as the little boy.
With my mind on other things, I walked into the dining hall, which
was already filled with the chatter of young and old. Celia accumulated
children—some orphaned, some whose parents were in dire need of cash,
some just stolen—and kept them until they paid off their debt.
Unfortunately, that debt accumulated with every meal and every night spent
in the camp, so there were also those well into adulthood, still tethered to
this place. After a while, some just adjusted to the yoke.
I sat down in an empty spot at one of the long tables with my bowl
of meaty stew, staring at the dark depths of the broth and trying to clear my
head.
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