Gwen begun contemplating half of her life decisions as soon as she was shoved into an army wagon crowded with candidates.
Male candidates.
She shouldn't have been surprised, considering that the people of Gwimvell were most likely not to send any of their women to military. It wasn't some news to her that their sons were no less than brutish cuntivores with the sizes of human gorillas and yet, their daughters were just bred for the sole purpose of reproducing.
So, what if she had to spend the night with animals in the skin of humans? She was no less than them and she refused to be intimidated.
Even if she was shoved at the far-right corner, near the Drakare pulling the open wagon.
Even if Derik ass-smelling Mayfield was gawking at her for the past two hours.
Even if she was a punch away from breaking that nose of his.
The guy was banging mercilessly at the cottage door by the time Gwen sheathed all her daggers and prepared her satchel.
Apparently, he was the lieutenant in charge of the travel operation of candidates from Grimvell to Mount Percival and came to personally escort Gwen to the wagons. After several arguments, Edward half-heartedly allowed Derik to take Gwen with him but not before throwing some colourfully nasty curses at him.
Gwen heard a shuffle to her left. After a beat, she could hear a couple of snickers followed by clearing of a throat. She sighed, rolling her eyes.
Here they go again.
"Hey, Mayfield. You know Emily, right?" asked the smirking blonde next to Derik.
"Your betrothed?" replied the village's asshole, receiving a nod from the former guy.
"She is so clingy, that one." The blonde clapped is hand on Derik's shoulder, the cyan-shaded moon stone on the back of his hand glinted in the moonlight; a wind manipulator. "You know when I was preparing to leave, she asked me if she could come too. I shut her up by some good little beating, but not before relishing my hard-on in her ass." Some of the audience sniggered, while the others peered at Gwen hungrily.
Derik snorted, "C'mon, Atkins. That was a bit harsh, don't you think?" the blonde– Atkins– just laughed soundly. Too loudly for Gwen's liking.
"You still have a lot to learn, my old pal," Atkins glanced at Gwen before adding, "We need to keep our bitches on a leash before they begin to jump out of their limits. Right, brothers?" The wagon roared with laughter and howls of agreement.
The dog was probably wishing for his death.
She did pity the woman who was about to be bound to him, yet she could not help being a little frustrated at her for letting him cross so many limits.
Women should know when to say no, and they should know better not let their self-respect get crumbled by someone as trivial as a man. But now that she thought about it, maybe it was for the best of his betrothed that he left. Maybe all their lovers were happy now that their men were leaving them.
They were all going to die anyway.
"Now that I think of it. You are right, brother." Derik drawled, "We men are made for war, and women are made for bed. Afterall, if those cunts are not going to fulfill their duty by pleasing us, then who will?" another wave of laughter and praises echoed in the wagon. Meanwhile, every little ounce of pride in Gwen was screaming at her to bite all their heads off.
The only thing stopping her from doing so was the group of fire-breathers surrounding their wagons.
"Hey, lass." Gwen whipped her head to the guy sitting in front of her, right next to Atkins, "You're Edric's sister, right?" Gwen had no idea what to respond to that, so she just nodded.
"That man is so cunning, I tell ya," uttered another brunet, "All those years, and he didn't even let us get a whip of the beauty he had right under his nose."
Gwen scowled when Derik replied, "If I didn't know any better, I would say that you were rather happy that he left, Barlow."
She wasn't surprised that these guys knew Edric. Afterall, he was one of the most popular guys in the village between women and men alike. It was also true that Edric was never really fond of guys getting near as much as a 6 feet distance to Gwen.
Especially since he got to know about her creepy tendencies and chilling episodes. As for all the village ladies, they never got near Gwen voluntary.
Gwen preferred to think that all those efforts of Edric were for the safety of the village people more than hers.
"Oh brother, I don't know about that. But I do know that the guy would piss his pants off if he ever knew that his oh-so-precious little sister was off to defend the kingdom because he shitted in his pants and ran away when the soldiers banged his door!" the Barlow guy replied between his laughs.
"At least my brother had some nerves to think better of his future unlike the rest who'd rather climb up the ranks by picking on the scraps left by the generals."
Silence.
She bit her tongue.
Of course, out of all the retorts in her head, this was what she preferred to stick with.
She raised her head and surely, Derik was fuming.
What she actually meant was that he pounded his way through the military ranks, bedding whomever he wanted to use for his advantage and from the looks of it, he got the hint as well. He looked like he would make his Wyvern eat Gwen alive.
She gazed up at the fire-breather. It looked like it wouldn't even have the decency to leave out her bones.
Derik's smile was threatening when he gritted out, "We'll see who has better nerves if you manage to pass the trials. You don't really think that you will be able to survive a day in that mountain, do you?" he chuckled, "Don't tell me that you believe that old man's hollow words, do you?"
"What else can you expect from a woman?" Atkins was the one eye-pounding her this time, earning another session of laughter from the others.
This woman was capable of slitting this jackass's throat from eye-to-eye. Oh, how much she craved to do just that and maybe run away while she was at it.
An escape plan was already brewing in her head.
As if sensing her thoughts, one of the Drake's head whipped towards her, its eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
Gwen gulped down all her escape plans and bowed her head.
Yeah, no.
She was in no mood to be torched.
She dared to raise her head only when the Drake's attention shifted to the route ahead. So, she released a series of colourful curses in her head and gritted her teeth to stop any involuntary retort from slipping out of her rebel tongue.
Drowning the teasing remarks of the jerks around her, she turned her head to the Drakare harnessed to the wagon.
She had a long, long way to go.
She was already missing her cottage.
–––––––
The trek from Grimvell to Mount Percival took longer than she expected. Three days with a pack of insubordinate ruffians who never seemed to miss a chance in throwing some a sultry comment or two and three whole nights without any sleep, whatsoever.
In those three days, it was approximately 4327 times that Gwen committed a mass murder in her head.
She figured that the men of Grimvell had the build of a bull, yet their brains could rotate inside a peanut shell for a thousand years and never touch the sides.
"There's no way I'm going in there first, brother."
"Well, bad news for you, Atkins, but I am not going first either."
"Like hell you won't!"
"If you are so impatient, then why don't you go first?"
"You're crazy, Barlow? There is no way in hell that I'm going anywhere near Thorndyke before Mayfield confirms that he's not poisonous."
"It's called toxic, mud-brain."
"It's called venomous, you dim-witted melons," a passing guy muttered under his breath, as the two continued their argument.
Like she said. These guys were so mercifully free from the wrecks of wits and heroism that for the past hour, they couldn't even gobble up the courage to get in the attendance of supposedly a general's son.
They arrived on the base of the mountain two hours ago at noon. It seemed that they were the last to arrive, judging by the overcrowded area and the slow departure of wagons. The whole mountain was covered with visible wards, preventing the candidates from taking peek at it's length. Before the wards, the men and women from all over Kruvarys stood in long lines, marking their attendance and slowly disappearing behind the thin veil of magic.
Soon enough, Mayfield explained the trials once again; enter Mount Percival through the wards, climb it, and reach the other side within a month. Easy, squeezy.
Soon after, he gave them dog tags to hang around their necks. All their birth, family and village names were engraved on the tags as a form of identification.
Mainly to identify the fallen candidates.
Ever since, she had been trying to calm her churning stomach and bury the idea that she may be one of the casualties in the near future.
The Blood Scroll be damned. Nothing could guarantee her life.
But now that she thought of it, after the three hell of days she just wanted to get away from these creeps as soon as possible. Especially since the spare underwear she brought with her was not in her bag this morning, along with some snacks that she managed to save during journey.
Pigs.
Though she could understand their need to steal the snacks, but no matter how hard she forced her brain, she couldn't for the life of it comprehend why a man would need a woman's underwear while being abandoned on a Mountain.
Gwen didn't want to think about the obvious reasons.
Steeling her spine, she pushed her way through the crowd, moving to the front of the line.
As if on cue, the person in front of her stepped and disappeared into the wards. Clutching her satchel, Gwen stepped ahead almost immediately.
"Name?" the man in front of her suddenly spoke in a deep monotonous voice, slightly intimidating her. He was tall, probably taller than Edric and his muscles were poking at his black tunic. But the thing that intimidated her the most was the intensity of his aura. A strange type of energy was radiating off him.
Dark. Shadowy.
Familiar.
She was well aware of the fact that after bonding with a fire-breather, the moon stones got absorbed in the bond, fusing the bearer's energy with the signets of the fire-breather. That gave them the ability to explore multiple phases of their stone's energy. But even then, she never met soldier with such a dense air around them.
"Gwendolyn Evegheden," she didn't dare raise her gaze from his chest. Even if she refused to cower, she wasn't a fool to mess with a general's offspring. If the other candidates from Grimvell were so dreaded to even talk to him, then he must be some real deal.
"Village?" he didn't raise his head from the list he was holding, completely preventing Gwen to glance at him.
"Grimvell," she muttered, accidentally dropping her satchel on the ground. She hurriedly picked it up and swung it on her shoulder again. She made to step forward, but a veiny hand clasped her elbow, making her halt on her steps.
She raised her head just in time to be met with a pair of breathtakingly dark eyes. Not honey, not brown, but night dark. Two billowing clouds of ash, burying the light in their depth. Something about those pools of ink seemed so familiar.
Empty. But familiar.
Her eyes trailed down to his features. With his sharp-cut jaw, and defined nose, combined with that tanned golden skin and the deadly edge he had due to the series of scars that lay just above his left eyebrow, travelling down to his nose and left cheek; he looked... ethereal.
Utterly gorgeous.
He was the most beautiful man she ever saw.
It took her a moment to realize that she was practically gawking at him.
Gathering her left over self-respect, she closed her mouth shut and noticed that he was scowling at her hair.
After a beat, he finally looked down at her, his eyebrows raised slightly as if in a question.
Gwen fumbled for a response, "They were naturally like this– of this colour, I mean."
He kept on frowning at her, a gaze so intense that it took everything in her self-esteem to keep herself from squirming.
Something flashed in his eyes, and it took even double the scraps of her pride to raise her chin in defiance.
He raised one of his eyebrows, looking somewhat amused.
Yeah, right.
The last thing she could desire for was to amuse one of the cocky army brats. So, what if he looked like he could slaughter a man with his bare hands and still manage to look gorgeous while he was at it?
Gwen refused to bow down to the insubordinate male species.
Before she could shrug him off, his hand left her elbow, and he stepped aside.
"Next."
Sensing the dismissal in his tone, Gwen rolled her eyes and stepped into the wards.
But before the world around her changed, she glimpsed a hint of a smirk on his lips and the glitter of his eyes from her peripheral vision.
He was amused that she would die here.
Not criticizing.
Not belittling.
Amused.
And somehow, out of all the men she came across these past few days, she decided that this Thorndyke guy was the one she loathed the most.