“So you get sent back here, and the first thing they make you do is give a tour to some barbarian nomad princeling?”
Anzi said nothing in response to the haughty sneer that came from her left. She had no idea which one of Oscar’s friends was speaking, but it was all the same to her. He wasn’t worth responding to.
“Stop that,” someone else said. A feminine voice this time, softer but no less lofty. “It must have felt awful coming back like this. It’s alright, Anzi…you’re five or ten years too early for the Premier Guard, anyway. It would have been ridiculous if you managed it, don’t you think? Now that you’re back, you can train some more and prepare better. Next time, if you work harder, you’ll definitely make it.”
The snide, backhanded pretense at encouragement was even more annoying than the outright taunting. If she were allowed to speak of the Gauntlet or the Running at all, she would have shot back with a cold assurance that she had exceeded all expectations, but Colonel Bisset
