One Year and Six Months Before the Brilliance.

Zahara rubbed her right shoulder as she walked through the training grounds. She had dislocated it the week before, and the practitioner told her to let it heal—no exerting force until her muscles returned from the trauma. It would take another week or two, but she was too impatient to wait that long.

Before leaving the barracks in the morning, she removed her arm sling, eager to get back to her routine. But her limb only slacked like a piece of hanging meat.

She gritted her teeth as she tried to raise her hand and cursed at the pain that shot through her arm. She stopped in her tracks.

A squad passed by chanting left-left-left-right-left. Some of the cadets gave her concerned glances.

So what was she to do now? Wait until she could move again before running any of the training courses? There were only a few she could take part in. She could go for a run, of course, but she couldn't climb walls or ropes, lift heavy weights with both arms, do push-ups or pull-ups, and certainly couldn't spar.

Boredom and frustration had built up in her over the last few days, and she decided today was the day her shoulder healed. Her head held high with determination, muscles clenched, willing her arm to move, but her body refused.

"Cadet?" Kapitan Garvan called to her. He was among the jogging soldier, and he stopped when he saw her on the edge of the path. "Are you alright?" he asked as he walked to her.

Zahara looked at him and gave him a salute with her left hand. She didn't know what it implied to use the wrong hand for a salute, but she had no choice.

The captain raised his brows. "At ease," he said when he came to stand before her. His sweat darkened the front of his green shirt. "I heard you got an injury." His tone wasn't heavily influenced by the southern accent, but there was still a softness to it—a certain prolonging in his words.

"I'm fine now, Kapitan," Zahara answered, hoping he would believe her.

The captain cocked his head and regarded her with blue eyes. "Raise your right hand to your head, cadet," he ordered.

Zahara flinched and grimaced. She shouldn't have lied to her captain. When she tried to lift her hand, she trembled. Another pain shot through her shoulder, and she winced.

Kapitan Garvan smirked. "Never lie to me, cadet."

"Yes, Kapitan." Zahara released the tension in her arm. "Sorry, sir."

"Injuries are normal. I had several when I was young too. My first one was a twisted ankle." The captain smiled. He had a way of showing vulnerability as if he was not the leader of a company composed of over two hundred soldiers. "I had to get around using crutches then, and I couldn't join the rest of my platoon on their activities for days."

"What did you do?" Zahara asked. She never thought such a petty injury could happen to the captain, and she couldn't imagine him limping around among a squadron of soldiers. Whenever she looked at him, she saw the image of a commander—hard to put down in battle and difficult to kill.

"There was nothing else I could do," Kapitan Garvan said as he crossed his arms over his chest, unconsciously squeezing the muscles of his biceps. "I waited. Let myself heal." He paused and studied her, making her aware of how small she was. "You should do that too." His voice shifted into a command.

Zahara nodded, straightening her stance in response. "Yes, Kapitan."

"How are you these past few months?" Kapitan Garvan asked. It was an unexpected question, but Zahara knew the answer right away.

"Good, Kapitan. I'm fitting in alright." She raised her chin and looked straight forward. The change in the captain's voice made her conscious of her form.

"At ease," Kapitan Garvan said again, and she relaxed, shoulders falling, but she held her stance. "The sergeants giving you a hard time?" he asked.

"No, Kapitan. They're good, but I wish they wouldn't sometimes." The words rolled out of her lips without care, and once they came, she wished she hadn't told him that. She knew the captain only asked because it was the right thing to do. And the correct answer was everything was alright. He didn't truly care, did he?

"What do you mean?" And there was the question, probing into the problem that was not supposed to exist.

"I—"

"Tell me, cadet." Another command came, but this time, Zahara's body responded differently.

She almost balked, hunching over herself as if she'd done something wrong, but she still answered truthfully. "Sometimes they treat me like I'm a child. I see how hard they can be with the others. They don't treat me the same way."

"That's because you are a child." Kapitan gave an immediate point. "How old are you?"

"Two years over my first decade, Kapitan," Zahara said, looking down at her boots with shame. She was a child—that was a fact. She was small, weak, fragile, and injured.

"I understand what they see and why they treat you that way. They may be soldiers, shouting all the time, but they're still human." The captain's voice softened.

"I'm afraid that if they treat me this way, I won't grow as strong as the others." She'd thought of this before but never said it aloud. It had been her fear over the past months in Bickra. What if she wasn't good enough? She was not as strong as Arana, who would shrug the thought away and tell the rest of the world to eat their own dung. She was filled with worry and doubt.

Kapitan Garvan only laughed as if she was absurd. "You can't blame them if you fail. There is no one else to blame but yourself. To become stronger, you must will yourself to do what's necessary to achieve it. Their treatment should not make a difference."

Zahara glanced at the captain but kept her head down. She bit her lip, guilty for pitying herself.

"Do you understand, Zahara?" Kapitan Garvan asked.

"Yes, Kapitan," she answered, straightening her back though her chin was stubborn, staying low.

The captain raised a brow at her posture. "Let me ask you one more thing. Why did you join the army?"

Zahara looked up, meeting his eyes. She was doubtful, but if there was one thing she was sure of, it was this. "I want to do something great. To be someone more than I am now. I want to kill all our enemies and be a hero."

Kapitan Garvan's face relaxed, and a side of his lips turned up. "I've heard that before. I was just like you when I joined. But I'll tell you what I learned the hard way. You shouldn't be eager to kill. Be eager to protect. Someday you will learn that you have to make decisions that will involve lives. Do you understand, Zahara?"

"Yes, Kapitan," Zahara nodded. Something hot bloomed inside her chest with the captain's words, for she hadn't truly grasped what it meant to take a life. Did she really want to kill? And suddenly, even her purpose for being in Bickra wavered.

"Alright then." The captain bobbed his head. "As you were. Move along. You don't want to keep the Maestro waiting."

"The Maestro?" Zahara cocked her head, confused.

"Yes. Weren't you heading to his gazebo?" Kapitan Garvan nodded toward the hills beyond the training grounds.

She glanced in that direction, then turned back to him. "I don't understand, sir."

The captain sighed. "I sent a messenger this morning. Master Taoro asked for you to join him for breakfast at his gazebo," he explained.

"Your messenger must have missed me, sir. I left the barracks early. But why does the Maestro want me to join him for breakfast?" She knew there was no answer; otherwise, the captain would have told her already, but she asked anyway.

"You can find that out for yourself. Get moving. You're dismissed, cadet." Kapitan Garvan dropped his arms to his sides.

Zahara saluted the captain again with her left hand and turned on her heels, moving toward the hills where Master Taor's gazebo sat.

The Maestro arrived on the island a month after her. The soldiers had built his quarters, and he'd taken up residence on Bickra, starting excavations on the side of a hill. The island had also received regular shipments of metal and other equipment for construction since he arrived. Smiths from the mainland had come to work inside the Maestro's workshop, a two-level building without windows. The only way in and out was a single door.

The cadets on Bickra tried to guess what the Maestro was doing on the island, spreading rumor after rumor until he requested some of them to visit him in his workshop. They stopped speaking about the Maestro's work in public and became secretive. Several times they returned to him. Most had gotten sick and were sent back to Kimracka without returning.

Zahara's thoughts went back to those rumors. Many believed the Maestro was gathering lakar, the black rock found only on Bickra. Some suggested that he had done things to the cadets and soldiers who got sick. But why? No one could answer.

An invitation to join Master Taoro for breakfast could only mean one thing. Zahara was now going to be one of those subjects. She only feared the worst—getting off the island and never seeing Arana again, having nowhere to go, and being no one to be.

Zahara had only seen Master Taoro a few times from afar since he arrived in Bickra. Now, she walked to an open gazebo atop a hill overlooking the army camp.

As she climbed the hill's path, she gazed down the side of a cliff. Most structures were hidden beneath the shades of trees, but the training grounds were exposed to the sun—a flat surface on the island with winding paths littered with obstacles and barriers.

When she looked beyond the trees, she saw the horizon where the dark blue Southern Sea calmly swayed. Beyond the sea were darkening clouds that turned the air hot and humid.

It had rained every afternoon for a week now, and she expected the typhoons would come to join them soon as they trained, no matter the weather.

When she neared the end of the track, she caught the scent of roasted meat, and she focused on her destination, wondering how the Maestro knew her. An invite to breakfast felt too formal—something to offer a friend but not to some child who he had never met before.

Zahara reached the shelter of four wooden pillars holding a triangular roof, where she found a man in his mid-years standing and watching the waves she'd seen a moment ago.

"You wanted to see me, Master?" She approached him slowly.

The man turned to her and smiled, creasing thin lines at the edge of his lips. His eyes were tired, as if he had not slept in some nights, wrinkles gathering around their frame.

"Ah. Zahara, yes?" A grin stretched over his face. His skin was unusual, lighter than most Darackan complexions. And his hair was a deep black.

"Yes, sir," Zahara said, stopping at the edge of the shadow of the gazebo.

"I'm Master Taoro, but you already know that, don't you?" The Maestro smiled again.

Zahara nodded.

"Come join me. I have a proposition for you." He gestured at a small table beside him with a spread of food—rice, dried herring, fruits, and roasted pork meat that smelled delicious.

Zahara came forward into the shade, but she stood, unsure if she should wait for the Maestro's command to tell her to sit and eat.

"We are waiting for someone else, but you can get started if you're hungry." Master Taoro offered, but then his eyes traveled over her shoulder, and his lips formed into an "Oh."

"Zahara?" Someone spoke behind her.

When Zahara turned.

Arana stood there, face coming into a grin.

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