Warrior's Heart (Book 1 of The Warrior Chronicles)

Chapter 3

Servants dressed in blue and red moved aside and guards saluted as she approached the ground floor. The sound of steel on steel came from the training yard, the large square field at the centre of the castle keep. Walking along the railing of the second floor, Leyla looked down at the third-year recruits that were completing their morning training. Though younger by two years, most of them, like Berk, were already taller than her. Warrior blood. King Tevuuk's blood. It ran through their veins, pure like the gold of their hair. As for Leyla, she did not know what ran through her veins.

A grim smile curved her lips as she pulled the rope tight on her short black braids and descended another set of stairs. The raised line on her face itched, but she did not lift her hand to touch it. Leyla was not one to lament the past. Regret was a waste of time. Only hard work and sacrifice could help her. By taking on all the despised tasks, sacrificing sleep and training her body until moving became nearly impossible, she had managed to keep up with the rest of the Cadets in the officer training program. She had kept up through sheer will, and it was that will that would enable her to reach her goal of becoming a Captain.

It was all she needed.

Once she was a Captain, she would have access to the Kingdom's archives where classified records were kept and it was in those records that she was sure to find a trace of her parents. Leyla had accepted long ago that her mother must have died in the Battle of Green Hill, but her father...he could be alive and out there. Somewhere...

"LINE FOR-MA-TION!" A Sergeant called from the quad one floor below, surprising Leyla out of her deep thoughts. Then a tall figure pushed forward from the wall just beneath her, his towering presence and air of authority unmistakable: Colonel Alec of the House of Steel. Bloody Diyu! Leyla moved away from the banister, quickening her steps on her way towards the west exit.

"Enough sword exercises." Alec's voice filled the training field as he moved to the head of the gathering, his long shadow falling over the recruits. Leyla was almost out of earshot when his words halted her. "Lieutenant Leyla, come down here please."

Damn! Damn! Damn! How in Four Kingdoms had Alec spotted her when he wasn't even facing her way? Every instinct in her body told her to run away, but she was too well trained to disobey.

"Yes, Sir." She turned back toward the stairs that led down to the training quad, taking steady breaths to prepare herself for what was surely going to be yet another unpleasant experience. The small knife strapped to the back of her brown belt tapped against her waist as she walked onto the dirt training ground and took in the stunned faces of the recruits. It was a reaction she was used to, although she was never sure what shocked them more; her dark hair, green eyes or her scarred face. A murmur began as those who had heard rumours of the mixed-blood lieutenant passed on the news.

"Silence!" Alec's command brought about instant results. He was very good at getting people to obey, she would give him that. "Sergeant, you can rest."

The Sergeant set down two buckets filled with arrows beside the four that were already at Alec's feet, then gave a short salute first to the Colonel, then to Leyla before moving to the far side of the field. Leyla came to a stop in front of Alec, awaiting orders. His golden hair came down in braids and waves around his face today, softening the strong lines of his cheek bones. He used to wear his hair down like this often, she remembered. Back when she first entered officer training...back when he had been her protector.

It was Alec who had insisted the orphan's be punished for scarring her face when everyone else would have let it pass. It was Alec who spoke up when her superiors distributed work unfairly and when she found her uniform covered in horse manure. With his backing, she had become a regular trainee and her confidence had grown. For her, Alec of House of Steel, became a warm hearth; by his side was the only place in the Warrior Kingdom, no in all of Gaia, where she felt cared for. And then, almost two years ago, when she became the youngest female Lieutenant in the history of the Kingdom, everything changed.