The Caged Bird (Under Reconstruction... Not for reading)

05.

The Guardian Trials were considered by many to be a myth for some time. In fact, so few ever approached the King or his Captain about them that there had to be a Royal proclamation, declaring them a real, indomitable test for knights of all ages to test their worth.

They were a remnant of a time when the Fae still roamed our lands, before King Loxley had recognized them for their evil and destroyed them.

The tests were considered so difficult that if a man passed, he was automatically given a place in the King's Guard, an honor so tempting that many men jumped at the chance. Though few survived the guard for longer than a few short years, the glory such a position presented was too much to pass up, and the monthly allowance given to the knight's family was a much needed bonus for many in our poverty-stricken country.

To the dismay of all but a few of these men, indomitable was not an exaggeration.

The Trials were a bloodbath, strengthened by ancient magic and tainted by the deaths of men over the years, and it became clear that these tests were not for any farmhand seeking a bit of extra gold in his pockets.

Another Proclamation was made, begging the King's people to think before taking on the Trials, and since then few have made any attempts at them. What goes on during this terrifying test is unknown to all but those who have passed them, and those who had been killed by them.

The fact that they remain shrouded in such a thick cloud of mystery turns the Trials into an even more terrifying monster, and though they're no longer thought of as a myth, they are not often taken on. Anything concerning magic is considered cursed by many of the men and women who live here in Aspia, and that along with the King's warning made the once tempting offer hard to consider.

I stumble through the halls of Highland Bluffs, eager to escape the gaze of the one man standing between me and every dream I've concocted since childhood.

Those Trials had been everything to me. I've spent much of my life in Dallfallow Wood, training until the skin on my knuckles was raw and my legs were too sore to move after hours of climbing and kicking and racing away from Amos.

The old man had never divulged what exactly he had gone through when taking part in his own Trials, other than that they were tailored to each individual that took them.

There had always been a tremor in his voice when he reminded me that he had sworn to take the secrets of the King's Guard to his grave. Ever the rule follower, he would choose to strike at me with his sword instead of answer my many questions.

I suppose he thought my time was better spent training for the very trials that had left the jagged scar across his face.

The name Captain Laythe Linthian echoes through my head over and over as though on some sick, twisted loop, and though I make it to the other side of the Regents Quarter's within only a few short minutes, I can't escape his quick wit and easy laugh. Or the demons that prowl at the edge of my sight, digging their sharp talons into the soft tissue of my heart.

The moment he had given his name they had returned, forgotten in the hall as it had filled with my laughter.

I just flirted with the Captain of the King's Guard.

The realization does nothing to calm my racing heart, and the demons I have grown so used to snarl in excitement.

I think back on his electric gaze and my heart races in response.

He had been kind, like a gentleman, and yet smug in a way that proclaimed confidence from years of being obeyed. As I replayed each minute spent with him I recognized his quick wit and new, without a doubt, that I would not be able to simply trick my way into the Trials.