Below the Peak (Sola)(6)

Jae felt shame that his wife told him this, for he had promised his late wife when she had been taking her last breath that he would watch and care for their daughter and he failed. He looked at her apologetically.

“I’ll find a teacher to come here and give you lessons,” he said, he hoped she saw it was a way of him being sorry. Her eyes widened like she hadn’t heard him correctly. The disbelief on her face was a knife to his hurt and evidence of his poor relationship with his daughter. Determination swelled in his chest. He was going to mend his relationship with her and be a better father.

Nara put the spoon down, licked her lips and said quietly, “Thank you father,” as relief flooded her body. A small smile that he almost missed had spread on her lips before she ate another spoonful of beans. The guilt tightening in Jae’s chest loosen just a bit. His wife smiled at him and mouthed ‘I love you’, and he smiled all teeth and all in return.





Chapter Three


Murisa,

Vessener

Trainee Assembly.

At seventeen years

Nara

Despite being early spring, the sun shrouded by grey clouds, sweat trickled on her temples. Nara clenched her fists on her side as the pounding in her ears swallowed a girl’s squeaky voice. She felt insane, was she mad to volunteer to join the army? Knots formed in her stomach.

“He is intimidating the children” a soft voice commented. It belonged to the female soldier not standing that far from her.

“It is what feeds his cruel soul” a man replied. The smile in his voice sent a sliver of fear through her.

Nara began to have second doubts. Clearly, this was a mistake. What was she thinking? She asked herself, the swirling sensation in her stomach growing. She could walk away, she had nothing to lose if she did. No, people will stare. The thought of drawing attention to herself had her feet digging into the ground, her mind refusing to welcome any form of attention to herself. It made its high opinion known by sending sweaty goosebumps over her skin. Not today Nara!

“Why are you here?” the ironclad voice cut through the air she was breathing. A figured shadow had hovered beside her before black boots stepped in front of her. Nara swallowed and looked up slowly over the tall and strong man dressed in the standard dark blue military uniform, with an addition of a small silver wolf pin on his jacket. She tilted her head and met familiar blue eyes. Nara froze, while her heart began a new fervent race. She wondered if he still remembered her. Unlikely, they had not spoken since that day he’d caught watching those two men train. Nara never told him her name, yet she came to know him from hearing all the praise in town and from comrades in the military base that she had made a habit of sneaking in religiously the last four years.

Nara stood still at attention, clenched fist on her sides as his hard eyes took in her neatly plaited dark hair, pale freckled face and pristine new black overall training uniform she wore like every other fresh face in the arena who were trembling in their boots as they stood in a similar stance. Captain Barra clasped his hands behind his back, his lips thinned and looked at her.

“Did you not hear me?” he demanded. Nara remembered from that one encounter that he was a bit serious, but she wondered if the change of rank indeed turned him cold or he’d always been like this. He was now the captain of the Elite, a leader of a team made of exceptional assassins and spies from the whole army of Murisa.

It took Nara a long second to find her voice and even then, she stuttered. “I-I don’t know.” She winced when the words left her mouth. Should she say it was his suggestions that brought her here?

His thick brows pulled slightly together against his cold expression, his eyes speaking he isn’t one that tolerates bullshit.

“I wanted to join, Captain...Sir” Nara stammered again. Ground swallow me whole. The captain’s jaw clenched in irritation, his voice turning harder, “Who do you serve soldier?”

Nara bit her bottom lip, refraining herself from sputtering again. She was embarrassed already as it was. Her stomach knotted tight with a feeling this was a tricky question. She thought hard and careful before opening her mouth. “I serve the people.”

“You do not serve the king?”, The silence that accompanied the death sentence question was deafening. The eyes of the other two Elite soldiers and eyes of every other recruit settled on her, thick with curiosity. A shiver skittered down her spine.

“I serve the needs of the people of this kingdom, and among them is the leader who leads the people to prosperity” Nara replied calmly with confidence she had no clue where it came from while keeping her back straight.

The Captain’s jaw twitched but said nothing in return other than the burning gaze in his eyes before he stalked to the wooden platform and faced all of them. The additional height only added to the powerful aura of his as he spoke again loud and clear. “Now is the only time you can freely walk away. Some of you would die and get injured because of recklessness and weak conditions of your bodies. No one will save you, you are soldiers who serve.” He paused, letting the unveiled words sink in the young faces staring at him in both fear and awe.

Nara’s face whitened as if a bucket of ice cold water had been poured on her.

Clearly, this was a mistake Nara slowly dragged one foot in front, ready to run but her knees trembled. She sensed the fear of others, so palpable against the chilly weather. She heard the subtle shuffling of feet, moving weight from one foot to the other but one had yet to walk away from the formation. The desperation to run was high but she wouldn’t, not if it would make her a spectacle. Oh, this...Nara clenched her fists hard, short nails digging into both palms until she felt pain. This irrationality was crippling, and it was another reason she was here in the first place, to overcome this anxiety keeping her in a suffocating and overwhelming, lonely bubble. She snapped out of her thoughts and stared at the captain who let his hands that were folded behind his back fall to his sides. He lifted one fist to his chest, and everyone including herself followed his example and proclaimed aloud with him in a clear voice that claimed the morning.