Four hundred ninety-eight.
Four hundred ninety-nine.
Five hundred.
I lowered the wooden sword and let my arms shake. The sun had barely cleared the east wall of the estate, and my shirt was already soaked through.
Today's the day.
In a few hours, I'd kneel at the altar of the shrine, and one of the gods would choose me. Fire, lightning, wind. I honestly didn't care which. Anything I could use with a sword in my hand.
Anything that would let me stand beside my sisters instead of behind them.
"You're dropping your right shoulder."
I nearly jumped out of my boots.
Big Sis was leaning against the fence of the training yard, arms folded. I hadn't heard her come in. I never did.
Naomi Valcrest. Twenty-five years old, head of House Valcrest, knight of the realm, and the tallest person in our household by a mile. Her silver hair was cut short, just above her ears, because according to her, long hair was a handle for your enemy to grab.
She said a lot of things like that.
"Good morning to you too, Big Sis."
"Morning." She pushed off the fence and took a training sword from the rack. "Spar."
"Now? I just did five hundred swings."
"Then you're warmed up."
That is not how warming up works.
But I didn't argue. I never said no to a spar. Not once in seven years.
It had taken me three years of begging to get here, plus one hunger strike that lasted until lunch. Men don't need to fight. Men don't need to work. Men don't need to do much of anything except exist, apparently. Every adult in my life had told me that since I was old enough to pick up a stick.
I picked up the stick anyway.
Naomi stepped into the center of the yard and took her stance. Loose. Relaxed. Her left hand tucked behind her back.
"Still one-handed?" I asked.
"Until you earn the other one."
Seven years. Seven years, and I still haven't earned the other hand.
I raised my sword, took a breath, and charged.
Clack!
Her blade met mine without her feet moving an inch. The impact rattled all the way up to my teeth.
That's the thing about women. They're not just strong. They're strong. A knight in full armor can run all day without breathing hard. Naomi once lifted the back end of a loaded wagon so a stable girl could fix the wheel, and she finished her conversation while she did it.
Me? I'd just done five hundred swings, and my arms felt like wet rope.
I attacked again. High, low, high. She blocked every strike with tiny flicks of her wrist, like she was swatting flies.
Fine. Then I'll stop playing fair.
I stepped left and dropped my shoulder, the exact bad habit she'd just scolded me for. Her eyes flickered to it.
There.
I spun right and swept low at her knee.
For one glorious heartbeat, I thought I had her.
Then the world tipped sideways. My back hit the dirt. The tip of her wooden sword rested gently against my throat.
"Dead," Naomi said.
"I almost had you."
"You almost had me."
I blinked up at her. "Wait. Did you just agree with me?"
"The feint was good." She paused. "The follow-through wasn't."
She said good. Big Sis said good. I was going to remember this moment for the rest of my life.
"Again," I said, scrambling up.
"No."
"One more—"
"You'll faint at the altar." She grabbed the back of my collar and hauled me to my feet with one hand. For a second, my boots actually left the ground. "Enough."
Standing next to her, my eyes were level with her collarbone. On a good day. With my boots on.
I was seventeen. I was the only son of House Valcrest. And I was, by a comfortable margin, the shortest person on the entire estate. Including the stable girl.
Naomi brushed the dirt off my shoulder. Then she stopped and looked at me, really looked, the way she sometimes did. Like she was measuring me against a memory.
"Father would've laughed at that feint," she said quietly.
My throat went tight.
Before I could say anything, she let go and turned away. "Go wash. You smell."
"...There it is."
The washroom was at the far end of the east wing. I'd made it about halfway down the corridor, towel over my shoulder, when I found Sis Marika standing in my way.
Well. Not standing. Leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, glaring at a painting like it had personally insulted her.
Marika Valcrest. Twenty-three, second eldest, and owner of the sharpest tongue in the kingdom. Probably. Nobody had officially measured. Her pink hair was tied into twin tails that she swore kept it out of her face in combat. Naomi called them "two handles instead of one." They'd been arguing about it for five years.
"Morning, Sis Marika."
She pushed off the wall. "You're late."
"Late for what?"
"..." Her mouth opened, then shut. "Nothing. Forget it."
Then she shoved a long, cloth-wrapped bundle into my chest. Hard. I stumbled back a step.
"Take it."
"What is—"
"Junk," she said. "It was taking up space in my room."
She was already walking away. Fast.
I unwrapped the cloth.
It was a sword. A real one, not a training blade. The steel was slim and bright, shorter than a knight's sword, and when I lifted it, it was so light I almost laughed. The grip fit my hand like it had been carved around it. Near the guard, someone had etched the crest of House Valcrest.
Junk, huh.
Junk that someone had ordered to match my exact height. My exact grip. Junk that must have taken a smith months to make.
"The smith got the order wrong!" Marika called over her shoulder without turning around. "It's too short for anyone with actual arms! Don't read into it!"
I grinned so hard my face hurt.
"Sis Marika! Thank you!"
"I can't hear you! I'm very busy!"
She turned the corner. A second later, there was a muffled thump, followed by a maid's startled voice.
"L-Lady Marika? That's the linen closet."
"I know it's the linen closet!"
I laughed all the way to the washroom.
"Hold still."
"I am holding still."
"You're wiggling."
"I'm breathing, Sis Hana. People do that."
Sis Hana clicked her tongue and went back to work on my hair with a comb, the way she had on every important morning of my life.
Hana Valcrest was twenty, the third of us, and the shortest of my sisters. Which meant she only had half a head on me instead of a whole one. Her long black hair fell in soft waves down her back, loosely tied with a ribbon she'd probably forgotten was there.
My ceremonial clothes had been laid out on the bed before I'd even gotten back from the washroom: a dark blue coat with silver trim, a white shirt with a stiff collar, and boots polished until I could see my own nervous face in them.
Hana had done that. Hana did everything.
"Your collar's crooked." She fixed it. "And your sleeve. And— Fabian." She caught my hand and turned it over. My knuckles were red and scraped from the spar. "Naomi hit your hand again."
"Technically, I hit her sword with my hand. So it's my fault."
"That is not how that works." She was already pulling a small jar of salve from her apron pocket. Of course she had salve in her apron pocket. She always had salve in her apron pocket. "Did you eat breakfast?"
"...Define 'eat.'"
"Fabian."
"I had an apple. Most of an apple."
She sighed the long, suffering sigh of someone who'd been raising a little brother for ten years. "I'll pack something for the carriage. You can't meet the gods on half an apple."
Sis Hana had been ten years old when our parents died. Somewhere in those first awful weeks, she'd decided that someone in this house needed to be soft. Naomi had to be the wall. Marika had to be the blade. So Hana became the hearth.
She'd never stopped.
"Oh!" She brightened suddenly. "Three more letters came this morning."
I knew exactly what kind of letters she meant. My stomach sank anyway. "Proposals?"
"Proposals." She dabbed salve on my knuckles. "One's from a baroness in the south. She says her eldest daughter can carry a plow horse on each shoulder."
"...Is that supposed to be romantic?"
"I think in the south it might be."
Ever since I'd turned sixteen, the letters had come like rain. Noble houses, merchant houses, a few houses I was pretty sure didn't exist. Everyone knew a man was expected to take more than one wife someday, and everyone wanted their daughter first in line.
Naomi had refused every single one.
"Burn them," said a voice from the doorway.
Right on cue. Big Sis had changed into her formal knight's uniform, all dark blue and polished steel.
"Naomi, we can't burn a letter from a baroness," Hana said.
Naomi considered this. "Then file them. Near the fireplace."
"Naomi."
Hana stepped back to look at me. She tilted her head. Fixed one last strand of hair. Then she clasped her hands together, and her eyes went suspiciously shiny.
"There," she said softly. "The most handsome young man in the whole kingdom."
"Sis Hana, there are maybe five young men in this entire county. That's not a lot of competition."
"Then you'd win even if there were more." She cupped my face in both hands. Her palms were warm. "I'm so proud of you, Fabian."
Something lodged itself in my throat and refused to move.
"...Don't make me cry before the ceremony," I managed.
"Too late for me," Hana said, and sniffled.
Behind her, Naomi looked away and cleared her throat. Hard.
The door creaked. Marika poked her head in, saw the three of us standing there, and froze.
"I wasn't watching," she said immediately. "I was walking past."
"Your room's in the other wing," I said.
"I was walking past from far away."
Then her eyes dropped to my hip, where her sword hung from my belt. Her face went the exact color of her hair.
"You're bringing that? To a shrine?"
"It's a gift. Of course I'm bringing it."
"It's junk."
"It's my favorite junk."
Marika made a noise like a kettle and vanished from the doorway.
The carriage was waiting in the front courtyard, black lacquer with our crest on the door. Four household guards in full armor stood beside it, and two more waited on horseback by the gate.
Six guards. For one trip to a shrine. With three knights already riding in the carriage.
"Big Sis, isn't this a little much?"
"The law requires two escorts," Naomi said.
"So why are there six?"
"Because I require six."
There's no winning this one.
That's life as a man in this kingdom. You don't go anywhere alone. Not to the market, not to the shrine, not to the end of the street. The Queen's law says a man outside his estate needs an armed escort, and my sisters had decided the law was a little too relaxed.
We rolled out through the gate and down into town.
I knew what would happen next. It happened every time.
The baker stopped kneading. Two women carrying a full-sized wardrobe down the street, one-handed each and chatting the whole way, set it down to stare. A cluster of girls outside the tailor's shop grabbed each other's arms.
"Is that the Valcrest boy?"
"It's his ceremony today!"
"Young Master! Good luck!"
I waved. A girl by the fountain shrieked like I'd tossed her a gold coin.
Marika reached across me and yanked the curtain shut.
I opened it again.
She shut it.
I opened it.
"Do you want to get kidnapped?" she snapped.
"In broad daylight? With six guards and three knights?"
"People have tried dumber things!"
"Name one."
"...I'm not doing this with you." She crossed her arms and glared out her own window, which was apparently fine to keep open.
Hana pressed a cloth bundle into my lap. Bread, cheese, a boiled egg, and two apples. Whole ones. "Eat."
I ate.
For a while, the only sounds were the wheels on the cobblestones and me chewing. Then Hana asked the question I'd been waiting for all morning.
"Fabian... what are you hoping for? Your blessing, I mean."
"Something I can fight with," I said around a mouthful of bread. "Fire would be great. Lightning, even better. Imagine it. Lightning running down the blade. I'd finally be able to block Big Sis without my arms going numb."
Nobody said anything.
I looked up. My sisters were exchanging a look. The kind of look that holds an entire conversation.
"Whatever you get," Naomi said finally, "you'll be fine."
"Hope for something boring," Marika muttered. "Like soil magic. You could grow turnips."
"Turnips?"
"Turnips are very nice, Fabian," Hana said gently.
Ah.
I understood. Of course I did.
They weren't hoping for my sake. They were hoping for something that would keep me home. Safe. Behind the walls of the estate, far from the front lines, far from anything with teeth.
Most men take several wives. Father only ever took one. In this kingdom, a choice like that doesn't come free, and the price he paid was simple: wherever Mother marched, he marched with her. Every mission. Every battle. His water magic always at her side.
Ten years ago, they marched into a monster tide.
Neither of them came back.
I set the bread down.
"I made you a promise," I said. "When I came of age, I'd help you carry this house."
"We remember," Naomi said.
Just that. Two words. But she reached over and put her hand on my head, the way she used to when I was seven and couldn't stop crying, and she left it there for a long moment.
When she finally took her hand back, I noticed the scratch on her gauntlet. A fresh one, bright against the polish, right across the knuckles. She'd brought it home from last week's sweep of the Gloamwood, and when I'd asked what made it, she'd said, "Nothing."
Big Sis said "nothing" about a lot of things. I'd decided not to worry about this one.
Mostly.
Marika kept staring out her window. Hana smiled at me with wet eyes.
Then the carriage slowed, and stopped.
Through the window, white stone steps rose toward a pair of towering doors. Above them, the shrine's spire caught the morning light.
Somewhere inside, a circle of gods was waiting.
One of them was about to choose me.
And I had no idea that the one who answered would be the one who almost never did.