Looking at Raith has a way of bringing my mind straight to sex. To making me think that maybe a little nightly release wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, or how even if I’m sore as all hells, the right guy could still make it worth the effort. I'd blame my thoughts on the tension of knowing any of us could die at any moment, but that wouldn't explain why it's specifically him that triggers this response. In some ways, I think it’s how he wears scars on the outside that feel like a reflection of my inner self. Scarred. Broken. Both of us volunteered for this, and I wonder if that means there’s some kind of twisted kinship between us.

I tear my attention away, cheeks burning, and focus on the front of the classroom just as Instructor Pilton storms in, practically jogging down the steps until he's at the front, where he slams down a briefcase full of maps.

Instructor Pilton, like all in the north and eastern wings, isn't actually a primal. He's in his sixties with an explosion of gray hair and wild, tangled brows. His right arm is gone at the elbow, and the offering who asked about it on the first day got hit in the head with a piece of chalk.

In what I'm coming to see as "the usual," he spreads out his maps and begins going through historical battles and quizzing us on tactics and strategy. There's no introduction or preamble. He just launches straight into the topic.

Before he gets too deep, Mireen nudges me and points to something at the edge of the room. “Look!” she whispers.

I follow her finger and see a small gray rat scurrying along the wall.

“He’s a little survivor. Just like us,” Mireen says. “So godsdamned cute. I wish we were allowed pets here…”

“You want a pet rat?” I ask with a sideways smile.

“I’ll would take what I can get, Nessa.” Mireen’s expression is wistful as she watches the rat slip between a crevice in the stones and disappear.

"Now," Pilton says half an hour later as he whacks a large map with a thin, wooden pointing stick. "Empire had intelligence reporting that Red Kingdom had already moved this deep." He jabs a point several miles in from the border at the time. "If you were given two primals and a thousand soldiers to handle the threat, where would you start?"

Questions are lobbed around the room.

"How many primals does Red Kingdom have?"

"Two," Pilton answers, his voice carrying easily through the space. "They have the same number of primals, but twice as many soldiers."

A few students complain about the impossible task. Their voices rise in a chorus of protests about the unfair odds.