848 A.G.M.
12 years before
Minerva shivered in the night air. Puffs of breath misted from her mouth as she jogged to keep up with Arsen and his longer legs.
Trees towered all around them like giant battlements, their half-exposed roots snaking across the ground. The Terron's silent sentries.
I'm safe. The trees won't hurt me. Or so she hoped.
When leaves rustled over her head, Minerva's heart palpitated. She hoped Arsen had been joking about the trees having voices and eating people by trapping them in their trunks.
"This forest is a giant Terron graveyard," the man had told her that morning as they set up their small camp in its shadow.
"I thought ..." Minerva ducked her head and worked on cleaning her bowl out with sand. I shouldn't disagree with elders.
Arsen laughed and ruffled her hair. The general called him his right-hand man. Besides being the only Muran in Matsudo's personal guard, Arsen held a reputation for being the best scout and pyrotechnic. Whatever that job meant. "Thinking is good. Say what you were gonna say, kid."
Minerva tried her best to match his accent—the clipped quickness of common speech, sometimes cutting short certain words. "I thought they buried dead people underground."
After taking a draw from his wooden pipe and blowing out the smoke, Arsen answered, "Not the slaves. The lilies get planted with a sapling above their corpse. I think it's allowed because of the superstitions."
Minerva finished her chore and plopped onto the ground at his feet. He offered her the pipe, but she shook her head. "What kind of superstitions?"
His golden eyes twinkled. "They say the grave trees come alive at night and swallow up anyone who isn't attuned to the land."
"That's ... that's us, isn't it?" Minerva paled.
"You bet your bloody—"
"Ueda."
Arsen winced and shot Minerva a hurt glance that said "why didn't you tell me the general is right behind me?" He cleared his throat. "Yessir?"
"Stop scaring her. She's going with you tonight," Matsudo said. He walked off to another cluster of soldiers without another word.
Minerva and Arsen looked at each other.
"Well, you heard the man." Arsen grinned. "Eat a good dinner. This work's best not done on an empty stomach."
"Will we be safe?" Minerva asked. The trees to her right appeared alien in nature, far larger than any she'd ever seen. She could imagine getting lost in that forest and never seeing the sky again ... if the trees didn't consume her first.
Arsen set his pipe down on a rock and tied up his black hair with a leather cord. "Safe isn't a word for a warrior. Phoenix favors the bold. I rather think you have some of her luck, seeing as you're the only one of your group left."
Minerva hid her face in her arms. She didn't like to be reminded of that.
"Chin up, kid. We'll be fine." Arsen dropped his teasing manner. "General Kavighn is attuned to the land even if we aren't."
At the sound of crackling, Minerva raised her head to peek at Arsen absent-mindedly stirring the cooking fire.
"The Terrons are afraid of him because of it. Same as those in our capital who worry over the success of his exploits." A flurry of sparks had reflected in his eyes. "Both would pay a pretty penny to have him killed.
"But a Pyro general with Terron blood is quite the beast to take down."
Minerva panted as she continued to run, more out of fear than anything. The general is attuned to the land. I'm safe. The trees won't eat me, she repeated. She caught sight of the forest's edge and sprinted to reach it.
Before she broke out into the open, Arsen grabbed her arm and swung her around to stand behind a tree. Even with both of them hiding next to it, the massive trunk extended several feet to the sides so they didn't have to worry about being seen.
"Hey now, don't just go running out there." Arsen chuckled softly. "You've gotta get in control of your breathing first."
Minerva nodded and counted as she sucked in air and expelled it.
"You have your dagger?"
Nodding again, Minerva unsheathed the black kaiken from her sleeve.
Arsen took it and poured a thick, sticky liquid from a bottle onto the tip of the blade. He handed it back. "No touching. This is concentrated manticore venom, so a little bit is enough to paralyze you almost instantly. If it gets on your skin, it'll seep in and turn that part of your body numb."
"Yes, sir," Minerva whispered.
Arsen squatted down to her height. "Can you tell me what you're supposed to do?"
Gripping the dagger as if it was her lifeline, Minerva closed her eyes and recited, "The guard circles the fortress, starting at the gate on the other side. Two cross paths on this end and then meet again at the gate with another guard. You're going to take the one going clockwise and I go after the other one and the sentry at the gate. Then I circle back around."
Arsen hummed in agreement. "They count their paces out and march to a rhythm, so if a guard misses their date, what happens?"
"They blow the horn." Minerva squeezed her eyes shut again, as if that could prevent the possibility of them being discovered. I want to go home.
"They blow the horn and sound the alarm," Arsen confirmed. "We're all working in sync, so as we speak, the others are exterminating the threat of the lix rider patrol throughout the woods. Everyone has a job to do on this mission. Are you ready to do yours?"
All throughout her life, Minerva knew she could never match Vren. She would not be the pride of the Pyroline family, but here she had a chance to prove herself. Matsudo and Arsen believed in her.
She would not let them down.
"Yessir," she whispered in common speech. "I don't have to kill them, do I?"
"No, just let the poison do its work. It's a simple task of cut and run. The perimeter will be secured soon, so they'd have nowhere to flee even if they were still capable of it." Arsen stepped to the left side of the trunk. "Alright, they're close to meeting. Good luck, kid, and may Nemesis steady your hand."
Minerva waited until he dashed out from his side of the tree before following suit. No fear. No fear. No fear, she thought in time to her strides. Her bare feet slipped silently across the grass. After months of training barefoot, rough calluses had hardened on the skin and she no longer flinched when her feet hit stone.
She neared the fortress—an imposing structure, but one made of wood. This far south, they didn't fear Pyro attack and opted for the material that couldn't be torn apart by their enemies from other terrenes. But they'd failed to anticipate General Kavighn. He'd brought the war right to their doorsteps.
Minerva neared her target, an armored soldier carrying a lance. His protective gear didn't look like Pyro armor. Instead it reminded her of the carapace covering a manticore's tail, a dull bronze that meshed with his dark skin and didn't merely cover it.
He hadn't heard her approach. She slit the palm of his hand with an ease that surprised her. When he swung his lance around, she'd already retreated to a safe distance. His knees buckled beneath him and he fell with a soft thud to the ground.
Minerva stared at the Terron. Was that really all it took to bring a person down? All it took to die? You're not killing him, she reminded herself with a shake of her head before continuing on with her mission. But the danger of the situation now felt nearer and her palm sweated against the cool metal of the kaiken's hilt.
Auntie Dina would miss me if I died. Somehow that struck her harder than the possibility of failure. She'd make it back home. She had to. After being shoved around her whole life—of being knocked down and staying down—this role and part to fill, this state of action, invigorated her. For once, she was in control. They had sent her out here to die, but this time she would stand up.
She had no intention of staying down ever again.
The gate loomed ahead of her, its metal spires stabbing the sky. A figure stood at its base, tapping a rhythm out on the shaft of his weapon.
Keeping to the curve of the wall, Minerva crept forward. The guard saw her. At his hesitation, she lunged forward. Her knife met air as he side-stepped.
He opened his mouth to shout and reached for the horn hanging at his side. No!
Drawing on the muscle memory grafted into her, Minerva aimed and threw. He fumbled to block, but with the horn in one hand, he missed.
She did not. The kaiken took him in the eye.
When he fell, the world turned cold. Minerva watched as the Terron's body twitched before turning to stone. Her heart turned into a lead weight in her chest and when she put a hand to her mouth, she found tears dripping from her eyes.
No ... I didn't mean to. But she did mean to at the same time, didn't she?
She neared the body, but couldn't bear to reach out and touch it. The thought of retrieving her knife caused her to recoil.
She left it and ran, hardly able to see the ground before her. I don't want to do this. I don't want to kill.
Before she reached Arsen, she stopped and tried to slow her shaking breaths and wipe away the tears. The trees of the forest groaned in the wind as if they could sense their own dying. Would Arsen laugh if he saw her crying over an enemy soldier? If he did, she didn't think she could bear it.
When she peeked around the corner, she noticed he wasn't alone. In the stillness of the night, even their quiet voices carried to her—Arsen's and that of another scout named Sol.
"I'm not going to be a part of it," Arsen said.
Minerva shied back at his harsh tone. Something told her they wouldn't appreciate being interrupted.
"I'm not asking you to," Sol said. "But we'll need help with the ones who are still loyal. It'll be hard enough killing the general without his lackeys smelling the smoke and running to his aid."
Minerva's nails dug into the wall. They had to be talking about the Terron general. But then why would Arsen not want to help?
The Pyro man knelt down and fiddled with something on the ground. "I've got the kid with me, Sol."
"Then get rid of her. By the time this place blows, we need to have the old lion defanged and dead.
Pain registered in Minerva's senses, but it wasn't until she tasted blood that she realized she'd bitten into her tongue.
Arsen's sigh floated to her on the breeze. "Fine. I'll make sure they don't make it to you."
Sol nodded and saluted him. "I'm going then. Don't forget you'll get the credit for tonight with Kavighn dead."
Minerva backed away from the two Pyro soldiers. After making it halfway back to the gate she huddled into a ball on the ground with her head pressed against the wall. If she went back, would Arsen kill her?
They were going to assassinate General Kavighn, whether she did anything or not.
Minerva stifled a sob. She remembered the way he'd helped her out of the mud when one of the other child recruits beat her up in practice. The general's eyes had held a strange mixture of gold and murky green.
"Don't pretend anymore. Stand up and give it your all," he'd said.
Pressing one hand against the wood of the fortress, Minerva wiped her nose with the sleeve of her other hand. In a world of kill or be killed, Minerva had always thought she'd rather be killed than have to look at a lifeless body and know she'd snuffed out their life flame. But as her feet retraced their steps, she realized that dying without a fight didn't only mean a single death.
It meant the death of everything you wanted to save and protect.
There are things worth fighting for in this world. Minerva stood over the Terron's corpse. And I'm going to survive to protect them. Steeling herself, she flipped the body over. One sightless eye met hers.
She grabbed her kaiken and pulled. If the eye squirted, she didn't know, because she didn't look. Just because she'd decided to kill two men in one night didn't mean she had to like it.
Two men.
If the choice came down to Arsen Ueda's life or hers, it bloody well wouldn't be hers.
She needed to go back home to Auntie Edina alive to be spanked for picking up swearing from the soldiers.