Author's Note: I already have the rest of the story written out so I certainly will update. I just don't know how long I'm going to wait between updates... Again, many thanks to Tamora Pierce for her wonderful characters of Tortall, and thanks to Salma-sol for picking up my oversights as well :)

The Camp

The seven day march to the capital was uneventful. No one approached me except Orri Smythson who showed me by example what to do: take down my tent each morning, wash my face in the trough, grab a roll for breakfast, march until noon, eat a pasty, march until evening, set up my tent, find dinner from my assigned mess around a campfire, and bed down without having said more than two words to anyone all day. We went at a brisk pace to bring me and the boys recruited to the training camp. The regular soldiers of Third Company were also eager to go and get time off to enjoy the city.

Many of the country-boy recruits were in awe at their first sight of Corus, the royal palace up on a hill with the city proper sprawling all around it. I likely would have been impressed too if I had never left the town of Zephyr, but my time spent in Port Caynn had taken away my wonder for big cities. I knew they could be complicated and sinister places, especially for a woman.

I shouldn't be writing or even thinking this. I am a soldier now. Anyone who tries to mess with me will suffer consequences—

The training camp, however, was right outside Corus. We, the fresh-faced boys and I, were left there as the body of Third Company went on into the city. I was shuffled into a line where they looked us over and threw a few sets of our sized uniform to each one of us. We got one dress uniform with finely embroidered silver trim. I stared down at the rich, neatly folded fabric and ran my fingers over it until the boy behind me cleared his throat for me to move on and follow the others in front of me.

We lined up straight across, clutching our stacks of clothing to our chests. A rough-looking soldier with a scar across one eye approached us. He was our training master. We only needed to call him 'Sir', and as far as any of us were concerned, that was the name his mother gave him. He looked us all up and down with his head turned to the side. I realized then that his scarred eye was unseeing.

He walked down the line like this and then made his way back up it, barking out assignments to each recruit. Some became pike men and a bunch of the younger boys were sent to be grooms. Others joined me. "You'll go into the archery unit," he growled in my face, "too scrawny for hand-to-hand." And my military career had been decided, just like that.

We, the new archers, were shuffled over to the archery teacher. On our first day we were trained to strengthen our arms with various stretches and exercises. One idea was drilled into us this session: the strength of our arms gave us our power.

After an agonizing afternoon—my arms could barely support me for three pushups—we were fed and shown to our barracks. Mine were mercifully separate from the men's, a long, low building near a small woman's privy. I entered a room with two rows of bunk beds, nine in total. It seemed that no one had much faith in women joining the Own if they only allowed for a maximum of eighteen to live here. I chose one of the bottom bunks in the middle of the room, but it felt empty and lonely as I drifted off to sleep.

The next day I was sent to the archery court for hours of practice. I had been placed with a few boys to the closest targets, given the lightest bows and arrows. We were the beginners group, starting from scratch.

I was a horrible shot. My arms wobbled from the strain. My arrows always fell short. I was humiliated as all the boys managed to hit the target a few paces away.

I remember questioning my decision to join the Own at that moment. I was alone. No one spoke to me. I was a freak, the only woman to fall for Commander Keladry's grand prank.

Then I heard them. That gods-blessed afternoon six women walked up to the archery courts, already changed into training uniforms. Later, I would discover that they were fresh recruits from the more liberal parts of Corus, but at that moment they were just my saviors. I was not alone anymore.

As they were handed their bows and arrows, the archery master adjusted my stance and watched me release another shot. This one planted itself into the bottom edge of the target, but at least it made it. I was given a fresh burst of confidence.

Some of the boys sniggered. It had taken me hours to achieve what they had done in minutes. As the other women joined the group, the teacher gave us a little speech. "Women always learn combat faster, I hear, because they listen. They don't try to act macho or show off—they do what they're told by their teachers." That shut up those boys, at least for that day.

All us women took his words to heart and practiced, giving each other encouraging smiles. I didn't dare introduce myself to them there, not wanting to get caught socializing during training hours.

Kel looked up when a knock sounded on her door. "Come in," she called, reluctantly setting the book aside and standing to receive whoever had come to visit at this inopportune moment. When Neal walked in with his ten-year-old daughter, she remembered that she had been invited to private family dinner by Yuki that morning. Kel mentally cursed her forgetfulness; paperwork could really take over your mind if you let it.

Neal did not seem to notice her slightly disappointed reaction to their appearance. "Mia has something to tell you," he announced in his usual good-humored drawl, pushing the kimono-clad girl forward.

"I'm going for my knighthood, Aunt Kel!" she burst out, unable to contain her excitement like a good Yamani girl. Her shoulder length black hair, long nose, and dark greenish-brown eyes were a perfect mix of her parents' features. Mia was a beauty but also an excellent candidate for combat instuction; she had already been training with the Yamani women's weapons of choice, glaive and shusuken, at her mother's insistence.

"That's wonderful, Mia! It's going to be a long hard road, but I'm so proud of you!" the lady knight replied, stepping out from behind her desk to embrace the young girl. She smiled both out of hope of the girl's success and from the memory of a little Seer girl who had once told Kel that this moment would occur. "And how long did it take you to convince your Da?" she asked with a teasing look up at Neal.

The emerald-eyed man put his hand on his daughter's shoulder. "I didn't want any hasty decisions, but she's determined. And she has the best godsmother in the world to help her though this. And I hoped you could talk to her about… everything," he finished meaningfully.

Kel nodded in answer to his silent question; the young girl would have to be told about the fights and insults and feelings that would undoubtedly come up as she battled to prove herself. She was prepared to be honest with her godsdaughter as she had been with the three failed girls before her, but Kel also believed that Mia was the most capable of the bunch to become Tortall's third female knight.

The female knight looked down at Mia, her mind already spinning with things to tell and teach to the soon-to-be page. "I can give you some things to start practicing so you'll be ready to face the boys the first day. We can start tomorrow morning. But for now, we had better get to dinner before your mother gets upset."

The three headed down the hall toward the suite of rooms assigned to the chief palace healer, and the journal was left open and momentarily forgotten on Kel's desk once more.