He’d rarely set foot outside Drassil. He was allowed to: there were no restrictions upon him as a ward of the Ben-Elim. He was treated as an honoured guest rather than a prisoner, even if Jin said otherwise, so he was at liberty to walk out onto the plains around Drassil, or even into the forest, though he was hesitant to do so. He did not want to do anything that would make the Ben-Elim doubt him, or bring shame on his Clan. Bleda knew that the cords around him were not thick rope or heavy iron. They were bonds of duty and honour and threat, and they bound him more tightly than anything fashioned by man. He knew if he tried to leave, to escape, to flee back to his kin, that he would be responsible for breaking the peace between the Sirak and the Ben-Elim. He would not do something that would shame his kin, or bring the wrath of the Ben-Elim down upon them.

‘You must be strong,’ his mother had said to him all those years ago. And he had tried to be, every single moment from that day to this one.

Some days that is harder than others, he thought, lifting a hand to his throbbing face. One eye was still closed from his beating, and he could still taste blood. And he was walking with a limp, a pain in his hip. He knew it could have been worse.

Would have been worse, if not for Riv.

He knew her name. A lot of people lived within the walls of Drassil, many thousands, but after five years you tended to know most of the people around you. Especially the ones that spent time on the weapons-field, which he frequented most. He often went there just to watch others train when he was not being taught, or listen to Jin mock them, and he had noticed that Riv seemed to spend more time there than the others. Certainly more than her training regime required her to be there.

She confused him; she was clearly skilled with many weapons.

Though not the bow!

A warrior dedicated to her craft, and brave. But so weak, as well. She had literally no cold-face, didn’t even try, and her control over her emotions was obviously just as brittle.

I should be grateful of that weakness today, as she saved me from a worse beating. Maybe even my life.

There had been a long, terrifying moment today when he’d thought that they were going to kill him, as he had fallen to the ground from a dozen blows and felt their boots slamming into him, the weight of them pressing down upon him, suffocating.

And then she had been there: Riv, snarling and spitting like a wolven in a sack.