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A friend
Tanggal publikasi:
2026-07-02 17:28:14*Isla*
He used my name. A traitorous warmth spreads through my chest. And in its wake comes a wave of cold, crystal-clear fury. He's not embarrassed to be fighting me. He's afraid of being the one to break me. I'm a delicate thing to him. A fragile, broken doll he doesn't want to shatter. The pity is worse than the derision.
"I yield," I say, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. I pull out of his grip, my face burning with a shame so hot it feels like a physical blow.
The instructor's horn blares, signaling the end of the bout. The crowd, which had been hushed, murmurs to life. I don't look at Cedric. I can't. I turn and limp away from the ring, from the pity, from the man I thought I wanted. I just need to get away.
I push through the press of bodies, not seeing faces, just feeling their gazes like pinpricks on my skin. I find a dark corner near the weapon racks, sagging against the cool stone. My leg is on fire, and my shoulder throbs in a dull, agonizing rhythm. I close my eyes, just for a second, to block it all out.
Did I do enough to get accepted? If not I will just be the cribble who thought She could be a warrior… a laughing stock or someone to pity for her foolishness. I do not want to be either.
"That was some impressive work out there." A voice says in front of me.
My eyes snap open. A girl is standing in front of me. She's tall and muscular, with hair the color of midnight chopped short around a face full of sharp angles. Her eyes, a startling shade of blue, are appraising me. She's from my group og pledges. The one who watched me finish with grudging respect. She's holding a waterskin.
"I'm Liora Elva," she says, holding it out. "From the Shadowtail pack."
I just stare at it. Liora Elva. The pack name rings a bell, something about them being known for their scouts, their uncanny ability to vanish. I take the skin, my fingers brushing hers. "Isla," I manage, my throat tight. I take a long swallow, the water cool and welcome against my raw throat.
"I saw what your brother did… what a dick," she says, her voice low and steady. "And I saw what you did in the ring." She takes the waterskin back and takes a drink herself. "He wanted you to break. To prove you were weak. You almost let him."
I flinch. Her honesty is brutal.
"But you didn't," she continues, her gaze direct. "You got up and you finished. And you didn't throw a tantrum when the golden boy went easy on you, trying to make you look fragile. You yielded on your own terms." A small, almost feral smile touches her lips. "That's more than I can say for half the brutes in this trial. They were sniveling for their mothers."
I don't know what to say to that. Praise feels foreign, like a garment that doesn't fit. Praise is not something I am used to.
"Come on," she says, jerking her head toward the medic tents. "You need that shoulder looked at before they kick you out for being too damaged to use."
The medic tent is a chaos of blood and groans and the sharp, clean smell of antiseptic herbs. I have been lucky, there are a couple of gruesome injuries in here.
A healer with kind eyes and a no-nonsense demeanor resets my shoulder with a sickening pop that leaves me gasping, her grip firm and surprisingly gentle. "You'll be sore," she says, wrapping it tight with clean linen. "Stay off the leg as much as you can for a day or two."
Liora waits outside, leaning against a tent pole. As I emerge, she falls into step beside me without a word, her presence a quiet comfort I hadn't realized I needed. We walk back toward the main grounds, the noise of the trials fading behind us.
The grounds are nearly empty now, the last of the combat bouts finished. A few instructors are conferring by the main board, where they post the results. My stomach clenches. I have to see. I have to know if that was all for nothing.
Liora seems to read my mind. "Come, lets see if they posted the lists," she says, her tone leaving no room for argument.
We approach the board. A crowd has already gathered, a sea of faces searching the parchment, their expressions ranging from jubilation to despair. My heart sinks. I see the ginger guys name, scrawled in Goran's harsh script. Rejected. A wave of cold washes over me. He was so strong. If he didn't make it... my eyes scan frantically past the lists of names. Accepted. Accepted. Rejected. It's a brutal, final verdict.
Then I see it. My own name. Next to it is the single, stark word…
Bab terbaru
The crippled omega warrior girl Mutual allegiance
*Isla* By evening, the trial hall has been sealed from the inside. No delegates leave. No guards enter without the elder judge's permission. The broken ward circle has been swept clean, but the black scorch marks remain in the sand. They look like claw tracks around the basin. Veyr stands at the center table with the claimant register open before her. She has not lost composure. That is almost impressive. Caelen sits beneath the Nightshade rail with a healer binding his wrists. The curse marks have faded from black-red to a dull bruised gray, but his hands are still shaking. He has not looked at me since the hall was cleared after the command. I have not gone to him. Not yet. Sava stands beside Cedric at the evidence table. The cloth around her wrists has been removed. Her hands are bare. The old seal scar on the inside of her wrist is bright and raw from where she has worried it. Lark is at her shoulder, close enough to catch her if she falls, far enough that it is still S
The crippled omega warrior girl Claimants claim
*Isla* The ward basin is still smoking when Veyr asks for the claimant register. A clerk brings it from the judges' table. It is bound in black leather, thick enough to hold generations of names. The clerk carries it with both hands. He does not look at me. Nobody does, for a moment. They are all looking at the broken pins in the sand, the blue scorch marks along the basin rim, the blood soaking through the knee of my trousers. Sena has one hand braced behind my back. I am standing because I chose to stand. My left leg trembles beneath me. The pain has settled into a deep hot throb, no longer wild, no longer filling every corner of my body.MThe elder judge clears her throat. "The pain proving has been met," she says. A murmur rises from the benches. Veyr steps forward before it can become anything else. "Met under outside interference," she says. Liora laughs once from the witness rail. "You mean breathing?" Veyr does not spare her a glance. "The claimant relied on unaut
The crippled omega warrior girl The pain proving
*Isla* At dawn, the trial hall smells of wet sand and cold iron. The wardkeepers have stripped the floor to bare stone and rebuilt the proving circle from scratch. Fresh sand lies inside the silver boundary lines. The old brass anchors have been removed under Cedric's supervision and placed in a sealed box at the judges' table. That is what everyone can see. Sena checks the brace beneath my trousers for the third time. Her fingers move quickly around the buckles. She has made me stand behind a canvas screen near the witness rail, out of sight of the benches. "Too tight?" she asks. "No." She gives me a look. I try again. "Not yet." "That is a real answer." "Do not get used to it." "I am writing the date down." The screen does not block the sound of the hall. Pack delegates filing into their benches. Academy officers whispering over papers. The scrape of Veyr's chair against stone. Somewhere, a torch is being lit. My hands are cold. The metal button at my collar has warm
The crippled omega warrior girl Names before fire
*Isla* The trial hall is fuller than it was yesterday. News travels faster when it smells like scandal. Every bench is occupied. March delegates in dark formal coats. Academy officers in gray. Trainees pressed along the upper gallery until the wardens force them back from the rail. The torch bowls burn low, their smoke threading beneath the high ceiling. At the center of the hall, the silver lines in the floor wait. I do not step inside them until Cedric tells me to. He stands at the evidence table with his document case open and three ledgers laid out in front of him. His cuffs are neat. His hair has been tied back. A black ink pen rests between his fingers. It is shaking. Only slightly. Caelen stands behind the Nightshade rope with Tomas, Lark, Torven, Sena, and Liora. Sava sits at the end of the row between Torven and Lark, her wrists bound in front of her with soft cloth. She has not looked at me since the salt-store pier. Bran is there too. He is pale, still wrapped ar
The crippled omega warrior girl Curse roll
*Isla* Sava sleeps in Lark's bed with one wrist tied to the frame by a strip of cloth. Not tight. Not cruel. Tight enough that she cannot vanish before dawn. Lark sits on the floor beside her with a knife across her knees and the brass trial pin wrapped in oilcloth beside her boot. She has not said much since we came back from the river. I do not blame her. No one in Nightshade is sleeping. The common room is lit by one low lamp and the red coals of the hearth. Tomas has taken first watch at the window. Torven is cleaning mud from the serving knife he used in the archive stairwell. Sena is bent over maps with Cedric, marking the trial hall's anchor points from memory. Caelen stands apart from all of us. He is by the closed shutters, holding a long narrow case made of pale wood. I have seen it once before, wedged beneath his field trunk. I assumed it held some kind of blade. It might as well. Cedric finishes comparing the brass pin to the copied trial diagram. He rubs at his e
The crippled omega warrior girl Sava’s debt
*Isla* The salt-store pier crouches behind the Academy's eastern warehouses, where the river narrows under the old wall. No trainee comes here after dark unless they are hiding something, stealing something, or meeting someone they should not trust. The salt sheds lean over the black water with their doors swollen shut from rain. White crust stains the boards. The air tastes sharp enough to sting a cut. Lark found the trail. Not a trail exactly. A smear of archive wax on the broken window latch. A thread caught on a gutter nail. Bare footprints in the mud leading away from the administration wing, then vanishing beneath cart tracks. She followed what she could until the river wind took over. "I told you not to come alone," she says behind me. "You told me to wait for Torven." She nods, "Yes." "I considered it." "That is not the same as listening." We stand beneath the shadow of the furthest salt shed. Rain has stopped, but water still drops from the eaves in slow hard taps.
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