The barracks exhaled darkness in shades of charcoal and ash. And Slade surfaced from sleep the way a drowning man breaches water: gasping, disoriented, the dream-world still clinging to his consciousness like cobwebs. The darkness hadn't lifted so much as thinned, diluted into a murky half-light that turned everything the colour of old bruises.
The air crawled across his face, damp and dense, carrying the archaeology of the barracks: yesterday's sweat crystallised in fabric, the bitter residue of tallow candles burned to stubs, the mineral breath of limestone walls weeping moisture. Each inhale coated his throat as if he were breathing the exhalations of every boy who'd slept here before him.
His cot groaned, a wooden protest, joints loosened by too many bodies, too much weight pressed into surrender. The mattress beneath him was a cruel joke: burlap stuffed with straw that had long since compressed into something resembling kindling. Every shift sent whispers of chaff through the ticking, and splinters of hay worked their way through the fabric to prick at his skin.
Around him were thirty-two cots, for thirty-two boys.
Suddenly, a bell. Bodies jerked upright in unison, a choreography of the half-awake. Someone whimpered. Another coughed, wet and rattling. Bare feet found cold flagstone with muted thumps, a discordant percussion that meant the day had begun, whether they wanted it to or not.
Slade's feet hit the floor. The cold bit into his soles, leeching warmth like a vampire drinking deep. The stone was smooth in some places, pitted in others — worn down by how many hundreds of children before him? Thousands? The barracks didn't keep records of the expendable.
He should've been waking to his mother's voice, to the smell of bread and the promise of a day spent doing something other than learning how to kill. But that life had required eight siblings sharing three bowls. Here, the army fed him twice a day. Watery porridge, bread so stale it could've been used for building materials — but it was twice a day. More than home had ever offered.
The boy in the cot next to his was crying. Quiet, snot-thick sobs that he tried to muffle into his threadbare blanket. Homesick. Missing his mother, probably. Missing the farm, the village, the ordinary days when the worst thing that happened was scraped knees or stolen apples from the neighbour's tree.
Slade understood. He'd had days like that too — running through fields with his youngest sister, listening to her contagious laugh. Reading his father's old book by the candlelight, the pages soft and worn from a hundred hands before his. Simple things. Small things. The kind of things that made up a childhood.
"Line up!"
The voice belonged to Oliver, one of the older boys — maybe sixteen. He'd been here long enough that the fear had calcified into something harder.
"Inspection in five!"
Slade reached for the wool blanket crumpled at the foot of his cot — though calling it wool was generous. It felt more like nettles woven into something that mocked the concept of warmth.
His spare shirt, the only other possession issued to him, lay folded under the cot. He pulled it out, checking the hem. Still intact. Good. He'd need it later.
"Move it!" Oliver's voice cracked on the second word, puberty still warring with authority.
The boys shuffled into formation. Three rows of ten, plus the two who hadn't been captured yet. Some still wore the clothes they'd arrived in — patched tunics, trousers held up with rope instead of belts. The army hadn't bothered giving them uniforms. Why waste fabric on something that might be captured next week?
The quartermaster arrived with the morning count. He was an older man, forty or fifty, with hands gnarled by decades of inventory management. Behind him, two soldiers carried a crate of spears. Ash-wood shafts, seven feet long, with iron tips no bigger than a man's thumb. The metal caught the weak morning light, dull and unpolished. Cheap. Mass-produced. The kind of weapon you gave to people you didn't expect to see again.
"Listen up," the quartermaster said. "You're getting one spear each. You lose it, you don't get another. You break it, you fight with your hands. The kingdom doesn't have the iron to spare for replacements."
Slade watched as boys stepped forward one by one, collecting their weapons. Some held them like they were sacred objects. Others looked at the spears the way you'd look at a snake.
When Slade's turn came, he took his spear. Seven feet of wood. Two ounces of iron at the tip. He tested the weight, the balance. Decent, if you knew what you were doing.
"Training!" Oliver's voice lashed across the courtyard.
It had finally begun.