Two years before the Brilliance.

Arana's legs buckled, hitting the ground, knees scraping the dirt. Her breath trembled in her dry throat, escaping her chapped lips. Her muscles ached, and she clenched at the pain, coiling like tight braids. When she pushed up, she could barely carry herself but managed to get on her feet.

"Go! Go! Go!" A drill sergeant ran up to the side of the obstacle course, screaming at everyone in the field. "Get moving!" His energy was unwavering since dawn, his tone consistent with commands.

The task was to get through the course twenty times, and she had already done twelve, but her body was failing her.

In front of her, logs lined up on posts coming up to her waist. She needed to jump or climb over them to get to the next route on the track. That would make thirteen, and then she would have to repeat it and circle back through the obstacles. But the thought of going made her legs buckle once more. This time, she allowed herself to fall entirely to the ground, her front hitting the grime with a thud.

"What are you doing!" The drill sergeant's voice was loud beside her, but she didn't look up. "Get up!" His tone remained the same, devoid of empathy or pity.

"Get up, Arana!" Someone else shouted, but she couldn't see who it was, and his voice sounded encouraging.

"Come on, Arana! You can do it!" An older female voice called to her.

Arana didn't move, staying there and closing her eyes, breathing dirt into her mouth. She didn't care if the drill sergeant or anyone else kept shouting at her. All she wanted to do was stay that way, as if it was her last rest before death came for her.

"What happened?" Someone shouted. Male. Mature. Not the sergeant.

The ground around Arana trembled with the running steps of the other cadets who still kept the course. She opened her eyes, cheeks pressed to the grime, dust obscuring her vision. She could only make out the blur of bulky black boots.

"Get her up," the man standing over her said.

Arms held Arana by the shoulders, pulling her to sit. Her eyes stung as tears formed in them.

"Are you dead, cadet?" Kapitan Garvan kneeled before her, blue eyes blazing in the light of the high sun.

"What?" She asked, but she couldn't even hear her voice, only a rough cough of air came out.

"You came here to be a soldier. Am I correct?" He leveled his eyes at her.

"Yes, Kapitan," Arana whispered, straining her voice.

"Soldiers go out on the field and usually run for their lives. When that happens, a soldier can't stop—shouldn't stop. Because when you stop, it means you've given up your life." He touched her lightly on the shoulder and repeated the question. "Are you dead, cadet?"

She swallowed, and the air that went down scratched a painful path through her throat. She couldn't help herself, and the tears in her eyes began to fall, rolling over her face.

"Don't cry," Kapitan Garvan ordered.

Arana's shoulders shuddered. She had the urge to comb her hair over her face to hide her eye, to hide from him. When she reached up, only smooth skin met her fingers—a cruel reminder that they had chopped off all her hair and shaved her head clean. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to stop, and she was surprised when she did.

"You lose water when you cry. You'll get even more thirsty," the captain explained. "What round are you on?" he asked.

"Thirteen," Arana answered, and her voice shook.

Kapitan Garvan nodded. "I didn't think you'd make it that far." As he spoke, a male cadet stopped nearby, walked to the edge of the course, and started to vomit. The captain grimaced and stood up, turning to the drill sergeant. "Bring the rounds down to fifteen, then get them some water to drink. Put them back on the course after."

"Yes, Kapitan," the sergeant answered and continued to shout at the cadets on the field.

The captain turned back to Arana. "If you can still go on, you should finish to fifteen before getting your drink. But if you choose to give up now, I'll know that you're not meant for this, and I'll send you back to the mainland with the next ship that sails out."

Arana looked up at him. Sweat streaked her forehead, under her armpits, and between her juvenile breasts—the hot sun burned her already burnt skin. "Why?" she asked.

Kapitan Garvan only looked down at her.

"Why do we need to do this?" She asked. Her words came dry and low.

"Because you need to become strong, Arana." Something heavy lifted off her chest when he called her by her name. "You are the youngest that I'm training to be a soldier. You will need to work harder than the rest to keep up."

To be a soldier. Was that what she truly wanted? When she left Kata with Zahara, they knew what they would become, but she didn't expect this—too hard, seeming impossible. She'd thought this was their escape from the life that imprisoned them, but this could likely be the same. And she wondered if Zahara was faring better on the other side of the island. She hoped and wished that Zahara had a stronger heart than she did.

"The soldiers here," Kapitan Garvan continued. He nodded to the far end of the field where older men and women trained. "Your drill sergeant." He pointed at the man shouting at the cadets all morning. "These people are not here to hurt you. I'm not here to hurt you. We're here to make you stronger, to turn you into what you need to become. When we shout at you with orders, we are not breaking you. We're pushing you on."

Arana recalled the voices from earlier, urging her, telling her she could do it. She didn't see who they were, but she understood they shouted to support her.

"You can depend on them. On us. On me. We are your new family now. But you have to ensure we can depend on you, too. You have to be stronger. Do you understand?" Kapitan Garvan didn't move from where he stood, looking down at her, waiting for her to get up and continue the course.

"Yes, Kapitan," Arana answered louder, although her voice was still rough and dry. She pushed up and stood on wobbling legs, but she kept steady.

"Good. Get back on the field, cadet." Kapitan Garvan nodded, and he turned his back to her only then.

"You're wrong!" Arana shouted, and he looked at her over his shoulder. "You're wrong," she said again.

Kapitan Garvan didn't say a word, his face a mask of unreadable calm, and he only waited.

"I'm not the youngest you're training," Arana said. "There's a girl in Tenyente Kumar's platoon. Her name is Zahara. She's three months younger than I am."

The mask over the captain's face vanished, and a tug on his lips became a smile. The slightest smile that could be not a smile, but it was, and it made Arana's chest fill with something she had always felt when she was with Zahara—hope.

Kapitan Garvan didn't respond, and he turned, walking away as she watched him.

Arana knew that she couldn't give up or let herself fall again. At the end of the day, she would come out stronger, more powerful. And at the end of the year, she would become a true soldier.

.