We Are Blood and Thunder by Kesia Lupo

Author:Kesia Lupo
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408898062
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-02-21T05:00:00+00:00

A knock woke Lena. She was fully clothed, lying on top of the bed. She had one hand under her pillow, curled tightly around the stiff silver card from the magician, and the other hand around her butterfly. She loosened her fingers, the sharp edges of both items imprinted on her palms in vivid red. Pins and needles ran up and down her arm as she sat up. The card had lost its sheen and was curved, frayed at the corners.

She’d been dreaming of Duke’s Forest, she realised. She remembered lying on a stone tomb in the crypts, the Ancestors whispering with voices of dust and shadow as they drew closer, closer. She’d been crying, afraid. But when she raised her hands to catch her tears, a pair of glittering gems had fallen into her palms, smooth and heavy.

A cold sweat still clung to her neck, streaks of tears on her cheeks.

Another knock. The light filtering through the window was suspiciously weak and pale. Lena wiped her face.

‘Hello?’ she called.

Emris opened the door a little awkwardly with an elbow. In one hand, he held a paper bag full of something greasy and sweet-smelling – a pastry? – and a dark, bitter-smelling mug of coffee. In his other hand, he carried a different set of grey clothes, neatly folded.

‘Sleep well?’ He set the mug and paper bag down on the chest.

She flexed her fingers, wincing. ‘Not really.’

‘Tough. Your training starts today. Eat, drink and get dressed. I’ll be waiting in the map room.’ Unlike Lena, he looked entirely the opposite of dishevelled – his regular uniform neatly pressed. Shevelled, Lena thought blearily.

She set aside the coffee, which tasted like poison, but ate the sweet roll in two big bites, finding herself ravenously hungry. Afterwards, she stripped off her grey robes and pulled on the new clothes, which consisted of baggy trews and a long-sleeved tunic. The tunic was of rough-spun cotton, a huge sickle moon emblazoned in white on the front. She tied back her shoulder-length black hair with one of her bootlaces.

When she stepped out, Emris set down his newspaper and led Lena through the maze of corridors – passing hardly anyone at this early hour – to a large, plain room in a different part of the temple. ‘A practice room,’ he said. The floor was sprung wood, the windows very high up and the walls cracked and punched, as if someone had been at them with a hammer.

‘Today we’re going to try some basic attacks,’ he said. ‘Practising this kind of thing should give you a better hold over your powers.’

‘Attacks?’ Lena raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re already teaching me to fight?’

‘It’ll be in your test. Plus, it’s a good place to start – simple, for the most part. Like pulling a punch.’ He was digging around in a cupboard in the corner. ‘Some people are better at it than others, but everyone is taught the basics. Other stuff is … well, a bit more fiddly.’ He chucked a few heavy punchbags from the cupboard on to the floor.

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