A LEGACY OF LIGHT

TILLA

 TILLA

The cart trundled forward, and they were close now. Dragons shrieked ahead, fire crackled, and Tilla could feel it. After ten days in the wilderness, they were nearing their destination.

What fort will it be? she wondered, standing in the dark cart as a hundred other girls pressed against her. She tried to remember all the forts she knew within ten days of Cadport, but there were too many. It would have to be one for training recruits--seasoned soldiers didn't share forts with recruits--but that only narrowed it down by a couple of forts.

She went over all the names she had heard soldiers speak of. This could be Castra Nova Murus, a great fortress in the east; that would be good fortune, Tilla thought, for soldiers said a benevolent lord commanded Murus. Or it could be Castra Alira, a dilapidated fortress in the west; Tilla remembered soldiers saying the rooms there were rough, but the training light.

Or it could be... Tilla swallowed and twisted her fingers. She did not want to be grim but had to consider the possibility. They could be rolling toward the infamous Castra Luna.

Tilla clenched her jaw, remembering the stories. They whispered that Luna was not only the cruelest fortress in the south, but in the entire empire. They said obsidian tiles covered the old bricks of Castra Luna, as black and cold as the heart of its commanders. They said recruits were broken there--physically and mentally. Tilla had once met a soldier who had, they said, trained in Castra Luna; the man had been a mute, grim killer, a demon in human flesh.

Her own brother had trained at Castra Luna. He had never come home.

Tilla sucked in her breath.

No, she thought, the odds are against it. It won't be Luna. Please, stars of my fathers, don't let it be Luna.

She moved through the crowd of girls, heading toward a cart wall. Two days back, the cart had overturned, and a crack now opened in the wall, too high for the other girls to peek through, but just the right height for Tilla. She jostled her way forward. The other girls moved aside, mumbling prayers. Tilla reached the crack, stood on her toes, and peered outside.

Her heart sank.

A snowy forest rolled around her, the trees bare and dark. Above the branches, still about a mile away, Tilla saw black, glimmering walls.

Obsidian. Castra Luna.

A hand tugged at her sleeve.

"Tilla, what do you see?"

Tilla turned to see Mae peering up at her. The baker's daughter bit her trembling lip. Other recruits gathered around and peered at Tilla, all whispering.

"What do you see?"

"I hear dragons flying, are we close?"

"Tilla, where are we?"

In darkness, Tilla thought. At the gates of pain. In a world we might never escape.

She raised her hand.

"We've reached a fort," she began.

"Which one?" demanded Erry Docker. The scrawny waif's short, brown hair lay in tangles, her knees were skinned, and her eyes flashed. "Tell us the bloody fort's name, Tilla."

"Are we at Castra Murus?" called another girl. "My brother trained there."

Mae Baker began to weep. "But I want to go home! I don't want to go to any fort. I want to go back to Cadport... Please... My father will be so angry, he's going to come save me..."