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  “Yes sir, that’s the price.” Willow flashed her best smile at him and her customer’s gaze flicked from her, to the box and back to her again.

  “Okay, I’ll take it.”

  With a show of counting out his fifteen tokens, Mister Wells handed Willow the money and she offered him the larger of the boxes.

  With the box under his arm, he walked to the side of the room just as the door to the classroom opened and Tristan walked in.

  Willow’s breath caught when their eyes met and Tristan gave her a warm smile as he approached the counter.

  If any of the students in the class had been bored before, Willow suddenly felt their eyes staring directly at her as the Governor’s son walked toward the table at the front of the classroom.

  Tristan cleared his throat as he scanned the table serving as the store counter. “I’m looking for a large box. Do you have any for sale?”

  The smile on Tristan’s face and the nod Mister Polumny gave to Willow was all the information she needed. Her teacher must have enlisted Tristan to help with this test.

  Willow retrieved one of the spare large boxes from under the table and placed it on the counter for her new “customer” to inspect.

  “Yes, sir. This is the finest box you’ll encounter in all of the Academy stores. I guarantee its workmanship and it should serve all of your box needs for a long time to come. If you’re interested, I have a deal for you. I can offer you a special price of fifteen Dominion tokens today.” She leaned across the table and gave Tristan a knowing smile. “With the cost of goods going up, I can’t say that you’ll be able to get the same deal later.”

  Tristan frowned. He studied the box, making a point to look at it from all angles and made a clicking sound with his tongue. “That’s too expensive. I think I can find something with a slightly lesser quality for much cheaper.”

  He put the box down and made a point of turning away from the array of boxes when Willow held her hand up. “Wait!”

  Tristan gazed at her, a hint of amusement registered on his face, and Willow could tell that he was enjoying his part in this skit.

  Willow knew that getting a customer in the door was oftentimes the hardest thing about selling an item. Letting a customer walk out the door would probably be noted as a failure by Mister Polumny.

  “This is the last of these, and I’d rather clear the inventory than keep it in stock. So if you’re willing to purchase this item right now, I can offer it to you for a ridiculously low price of ten tokens. It’s the absolute best that I can do.” Willow knew that most merchants tried to keep their material costs to one-third the selling price, but occasionally selling something at a moderate discount still left the merchant with an acceptable level of profit.

  Tristan picked up the box, made a show of studying it once more and held out his hand. “Deal.”

  His warm hand gently engulfed hers as they briefly shook hands. Tristan dug ten of the wooden tokens out of his pants pocket, placed them on the table and tossed her a brief wink. As he walked away with the wooden box in his hands, he commented to the bearded buyer who still held his box under his arm, “Check this out, I just got a deal of a lifetime. A genuine large Academy box for only ten tokens”

  A surprised look grew on Mister Wells’ face and he stomped over to Willow’s table, his cheeks turned red and his voice growled with indignation. “How dare you cheat me!”

  Willow’s eyes widened, but she kept her voice calm as she responded, “Sir, I don’t understand. I don’t believe that I’ve cheated you whatsoever, but let me try to fix whatever is wrong.”

  The bearded man wagged his finger as he stomped his foot on the stone floor. “I’ve seen this kind of behavior before, and I simply won’t stand for it! Just because you flirt like a whore with a younger man, offering him special favors doesn’t mean that I’ll let you take advantage of John Wells. I’ll have you know....”

  The heat of embarrassment burnt Willow’s cheeks as her customer yelled in her face in front of the entire class. Somehow, knowing that Tristan was watching her get berated made the embarrassment even worse. The customer continued his diatribe, calling her all sorts of names and threatening to report her to the authorities. She shot a glance in her teacher’s direction and noticed Tristan leaning over, whispering something animatedly to Mister Polumny as her customer screamed irrationally.

  She made eye contact with her teacher and he gave her the slightest of nods, as if to affirm, “I’m watching you.”

  It’s all probably part of the test.

  Ignoring the names she was being called, she patted at the air and tried to calm her irate customer. “Sir, please let me help. You’ve not told me why you feel cheated.”

  Mister Wells snorted with indignation and held up the box he’d bought. “You demanded I pay fifteen for this, yet you accepted much less from another. I refuse to—”

  “Sir!” Willow interrupted, “let me fix this for you. It truly was a misunderstanding, and I appreciate your business. I’d only given the other customer a discount because he was buying the last of those items and it would be my last sale of the day. To be fair, I’ll offer you the same price I did to him, and I promise that I’ll give you a ten percent discount on your next purchase from us.”

  Willow immediately counted out five of the wooden tokens she’d collected and moved them across the table, toward Mister Wells.

  Watching the tokens pushed in front of him, the bearded man glanced at Mister Polumney and then gazed at Willow, their eyes made unblinking contact. His scowling expression softened as he picked up the tokens and with a deep grunt of acceptance he gave her a brief nod.

  A feeling of exhaustion washed over Willow as her customer walked toward the side of the class and Mister Polumney’s reedy voice announced, “Very well Miss Park, you handled that acceptably well....”

  As Mister Polumney talked about the finer points of what the class had just witnessed, Willow noticed that Tristan had already left. Something about him not seeing that she’d righted her customer’s anger left her with a tinge of regret. She didn’t want anyone to think she couldn’t handle myself.

  Willow sighed as she tore her attention back to what Mister Polumney was saying. The last thing she needed was to worry about what Tristan was thinking. As a member of the Dominion, it wasn’t like he needed to go through a Choosing ceremony.

  Still feeling somewhat shaken after having been yelled at by an adult, Willow walked through the lonely stone hallway toward her dorm room to pick up supplies for her next class. She was only a few strides from her room when Willow heard footsteps behind her and turned just as Tristan was about to tap her on the shoulder.

  Willow gasped as she scanned the hallway, seeing nobody else around. “Tristan! You can’t be in the girls’ dormitory.”

  Tristan had an upset expression as he reached out and held Willow’s hands in his. “I’m so sorry that I let that teacher suck me into your pre-tests. What that man said to you....” His voice cracked and he stared at her, as if at a loss for words.

  She squeezed Tristan’s hands and felt the heat of his emotion as they stared at each other. All thought of Tristan being a Vanden-Plas vanished as she stared at him with wonder. His handsome pale face turned ruddy and the activities of the world seemed to suddenly run in slow motion.

  Willow’s heart thumped loudly in her chest as Tristan bent lower.

  What does he think he’s doing?

  The glistening of unshed tears in his eyes were evident as was his expression of uncertainty or maybe it was fear. His face only inches from hers, she felt the warmth of his breath and then, she took a step backwards and shook her head. “Tristan, no!”

  Whatever spell had been in the air instantly shattered as Tristan stood straight with a confused expression. “What? I was just going to give you a hug!”

  “I don’t need a hug, damn it! It’s not like I can’t handle someone yelling at me on my own.” Willow breathed a heavy sigh of relief as Trista
n stepped back and stared at her with that confused puppy expression of his. “It was all part of the testing. I can take it, and you can’t let yourself get involved on my account.”

  Tristan tilted his head with a look of concern and just as he opened his mouth to say something, Willow put her fingertips on his lips. “Shh ... don’t say anything.”

  The first hint of a smile crossed his face and Willow ignored the warning her mind gave her and buried her face in Tristan’s chest as his arms enveloped her in a warm embrace.

  Breathing in deeply, Willow noticed Tristan’s clean musky scent and she tightened her embrace, bringing him even closer. Having him nearby felt good. But Willow worried that she was giving him the wrong impression. “We’re friends, and friends worry about each other,” she muttered, more to herself than to Tristan.

  Willow softly pushed herself away from him and whispered, “I have to get to class.”

  The footfalls of approaching students echoed through the stone hallway and she shooed Tristan away. “Go! I’ll be the one who gets in trouble with you here with me.”

  Tristan smiled, giving Willow a parting squeeze on her shoulder as he turned away.

  Willow watched him jog out of sight and her mind drifted back to the worries she’d had ever since she’d learned who Tristan was.

  What the heck am I doing?

  “Remember what I said,” Mister K yelled as the students huddled in the concrete corridor that led to the Forbidding. “This field trip is for you to see first-hand what we’re dealing with in the Forbidding. If you become a Ranger, this would be your normal prep for a crossing into the disease and radiation-filled zone. As a member of the Dominion’s Border Patrol, you’d be required to disrupt any gathering of the creatures that were found in the wasteland, because the last thing we want is for those wildlings to find a way back across the barrier.”

  Willow raised her hand and asked, “Sir, but what about in the frontier lands where the barrier doesn’t exist?”

  Mister K nodded, “Ah, yes ... I spent five years of my life running patrols along Yawning Deep. The preparation there is totally different and much easier. In the frontier lands, we worry about the wildlings only if they’ve crossed the giant chasm known as Yawning Deep. So much of what you’ll do today doesn’t apply. It’s in fact, much easier to defend on our own soil. Here, we’ll be going into the wildling’s territory.”

  Scooping the thick white paste from a nearby bucket, Willow slathered it on every inch of her skin. Reaching self-consciously under her tunic, she rubbed the stinking goop all over her chest as others did the same for themselves.

  Zeno muttered, “This stuff smells like a diaper.”

  One of the other students snorted. “If my sister’s diaper smelled like this I’d be taking her to the doctor right away.”

  Mister K yelled, “The balm may stink like death warmed over, but it will keep the radiation from making your skin bubble and fall off in ribbons.”

  Willow shuddered with the thought as she reached down into her pants and wiped the foul stuff everywhere.

  Moments later, soldiers entered the concrete corridor through thick iron doors. They wore face masks that completely obscured their facial features, and each of them carried a spare hooded mask.

  One of the men handed her a mask and Mister K’s voice resonated loudly in the corridor. “Insert your head through the hole and adjust the mask so you can see through it. Don’t worry. The mask has a filter on it, so you’ll be able to breath just fine. As I’ve told you before, not only does the Forbidding have radiation poisoning its land, there are diseases that float invisibly in the air. All of this is a horrifying reminder of the Great War, and that’s only the beginning.”

  Willow pulled the rubber hood over her head and for a moment, panicked as she tried to pull in a breath and couldn’t.

  Someone tugged at her hood, rotating it slightly on her shoulders and suddenly she was face-to-face with a soldier. He patted at the filter that stuck six inches from her mask and with a bit of effort, she breathed in the sterilized air.

  The soldier pointed at his eyes and then pointed at her as Mister K’s muffled voice yelled, “Every one of you will have an active-duty soldier as a partner. You are responsible for each other’s safety and each of you will watch the other’s back. No exceptions.”

  Willow nodded at the soldier standing next to her and he patted her roughly on the shoulder. He leaned closer and with a muffled voice asked, “Sword or Bow?”

  “Bow.”

  The soldier shrugged a long bow off his shoulder and handed it to her along with a quiver of arrows which she attached to her utility belt. The heavily-muscled soldier drew his sword just as Mister K yelled, “As soon as that door is opened,” he pointed to another iron door at the far end of the corridor, “we are on patrol and should be alert for anything. We’ll do a short patrol, ranging one hundred yards north into the Forbidding, a quarter-mile east, and then back to the wall. No more, no less. Students, I don’t expect you to do anything but observe. However, if trouble arises, you have your partner’s back, no matter what. Is everyone ready?”

  Both the soldiers and students yelled, “Sir, yes sir!”

  Mister K jogged toward the end of the corridor as the iron door behind them slammed shut.

  The patrol moved toward Mister K as a single unit and Willow cringed as the sound of metal scraping against metal shrieked in the air.

  Willow’s heart thudded loudly as the inch-thick metal door swung open and for the first time in her life, she saw the wilderness of the Forbidding.

  A Soldier’s Trial

  “So, what was it like?” Mel stared wide-eyed at Willow as she changed into her sleeping tunic. “Weren’t you scared?”

  Willow shrugged. “It was just a routine patrol. But it was exciting to see what the real soldiers did and how they prepared. I never knew exactly how dangerous the radiation and diseases were. Besides, we didn’t even see anything out of the ordinary. All I saw was the forest, the squawking of something deeper in the forest and I think I caught sight of a swarm of werebits, but they were gone before anyone could even do anything about them. Evidently most of the patrols are like that, but sometimes they encounter groups of wildlings.” She gave Mel a sly grin. “I kind of wish we could have encountered some of those.”

  I owe them for what they did to Dad and to me.

  Mel gave her a sour expression and shook her head. “Do you know that you’re totally and completely insane? I can’t believe I’m best friends with a crazy person.”

  With a laugh, Willow lay down and wrapped her blankets tightly around her. “Mel, we’ve known each other all our lives. I’m pretty sure you’d be disappointed if I suddenly stopped being crazy.”

  Blowing out the lantern, Mel sputtered unintelligibly in the darkness.

  Imagining what real combat would be like in the dark forest of the Forbidding, Willow smiled and closed her eyes.

  Willow’s legs pumping hard, she raced across the field like a gazelle, keeping pace with Mister K’s steady stride as they led the class into the forest trails. It had taken months of practice, but as her teacher weaved through the trail ahead, Willow felt comfortable running through the natural obstacle course contained within the woods on the outskirts of the Academy grounds. Ducking an overhanging branch, jumping over a root or dodging the occasional unexpected boulder were now almost instinctive. It was as if Willow’s senses had expanded, detecting the obstacles just as she raced toward them and she felt her body automatically reacting.

  Yet this time, things were a bit different. This time was the first time that she’d managed to keep up with Mister K’s pace throughout the entire multi-mile run and as he slowed, she heard the distant footfalls of her class as they struggled to catch up. As they jogged in place, waiting for the stragglers, Mister K glanced at Willow and gave her an approving nod. “Miss Park, you continue to impress me.”

  Willow blinked at the unexpected compliment and moments
later, the first of her classmates staggered into the clearing deep in the middle of the woods. Within roughly a minute, the entire class assembled in the clearing, the sound of heavy breathing echoed in every direction while Willow spied Zeno collapsing to his knees as he threw up on a nearby oak.

  She smiled at the huge student’s back as he heaved up whatever was in his stomach and added his own form of fertilizer to the roots of the nearby tree. “Zeno, if you keep feeding that tree your breakfast, we should probably name it or carve your initials in it or something.”

  The good-natured giant waved dismissively at her as he leaned his forehead against the trunk and grunted his breathless response. “I recall ... you had ... your own tree ...” Zeno waved toward his left, “... over there, somewhere....”

  He staggered to his feet and grimaced as he tried to suck enough air into his lungs. Zeno was probably as strong as any two people put together, but his huge body clearly had difficulty keeping up with Mister K’s blistering pace.

  Willow gave him a playful jab to his large bicep and then it dawned on her that she could probably help him with the same breathing techniques Tristan had showed her. She leaned closer and was about to suggest just such a thing when a huge deer crashed through the underbrush, raced through the clearing, and barely avoided knocking over a couple students before disappearing into the deep-green foliage on the far side of the clearing.

  Mister K whistled an alert and everyone’s eyes fell on their instructor as he used hand signals indicating, “Follow me.”

  Willow and the rest of the class snaked through the woods as Mister K followed the path the deer had taken.

  Along the way, their teacher made a point to gather everyone’s attention as they passed markers that indicated the deer’s passage.