Lexiana Acosta: Chapter Twenty-Two

Five years ago our empress vowed to take revenge on the Green Draconium Empire. And at the age of fifteen, I volunteered to join the army. Even though parties are still being hosted around the nation by celebrating Princess Valeria's birth. The day after her birth our best soldiers left the city… If it felt like war is happening. It certainly did now… Many families saying farewell to their sons and daughters. Even dragon families are crying… It was a large parade as they all walked out of the city… And it would be the first parade for this. They hosted one each week when more trained soldiers leave to fight. We had no idea where they were going only they are travelling north to the Green Empire. And many of those families… Feared that they will never see their relatives again.

Our Fire Ten leader who we named captain is Alinta. Acting proud you can tell that she is a soldier with her posture and mannerisms. She is a stocky older woman with dark skin with a distinct tattoo war paint, on her nose that looks like red scars. She wears basic heavy armour of the red draconium Empire. It covered her torso but it had no fancy embellishments. Her helmet that she sometimes shows us is also your basic helmet. (Round with a slit going across the eyes so she can see). But she never wears it since it is not needed.

She has a loud bombastic voice that you can easily hear from the other side of the barracks. She terrified many. Especially to the younger boys… Even though they look to be thirteen she treated them the same as the rest of the older conscripts and volunteers.

When we first met her it was strict discipline of just saying "Yes Sir" or "Sir Yes Sir". If you said it remotely wrong she will get up and close to your face and scream insults at you… I will not lie that experience is intense. She did it to every single person including me. By dinner that night after being shouted at for a whole afternoon. Hadyn says that they call it the intimidation tactic. They do it so many times to you that you no longer fear confrontation. Apparently it works… Well, I sure hoped that it did… I felt shaken by the whole ordeal. It was one of the moments during training that I wanted to go back home.

The next day we learned how to fold sheets and our clothes. This really tested the patience of everyone here… It was harder for people like me who had top bunk beds. Alinta will grab the sheets that are not folded perfectly and throw it in your face to do it again. Nuria and few volunteers from noble families struggled with this as they have never done chores themselves. Alinta got furious at them many times that day… Nuria ended up scrubbing the floors after dinner because she snapped at her. I only had to perfect mine a few times and Alinta is satisfied. Hadyn only had to do it one and it was pristine perfect… With him simply saying that he learned from his mother.

We all questioned as to why we had a whole day of just folding sheets. She did not give us an answer until later… After this day Alinta checks how our beds are made. I will not lie her attention to detail is phenomenal. Many of the recruits asked me and Hadyn to do their sheets for them… We of course declined but that made them annoyed at us.

Next day is posture… Straight back and shoulders back. We do this when we stand she walks into the room. But we learn to walk while balancing books on your head while holding a weapon. This one is especially tough… However, Alinta didn't seem to care much for the days' lesson herself. She only did it because her higher-ups asked for it… As she put it. "Folding sheets encourage discipline in timing and repetitive effect. Walking straight helps give you pride. But since there is an actual war happening now we need to speed the process up a little."

Our first week was really an introduction to army life… I admit I was not fully enjoying it… But I don't think anyone is… Though after that week our training really began… I had the most fun of being fitted for my armour. It is the most basic armour you can get. It really is for new soldiers. It is red with basic shoulder pads and knee protection. Underneath the armour is just our usual black robes. The boots I was given are too small but they were the only ones left and it was painful to wear after long periods of time. But I had to get used to it.

Sunrise we wake up to breakfast of porridge and bread. It was always hard to find a seat somewhere as the great food hall is crowded full of people. Most of the time we ended up eating outside…Then after having a quick breakfast, we run around the large battle arena at least five times. The arena is as old as the building of the volcano castle… It is so large that it dwarfs most of the city. Even though it's no longer used for leisure it is still useful in training soldiers. The fifty seat levels are still intact so many dragons and people do come in to watch. Even more so now that training is almost all day and night.

The arena hosts many different fire teams who are training with different captains at the same time. Each Fire team usually has thirty soldiers. But since it is wartime with many conscripts and extra volunteers. Each team now has at least a hundred. I'm in Fire ten which has an even amount of a hundred soldiers. And overhearing Alinta as she spoke to the generals there are fifteen Fire teams in this barracks alone. One-thousand-five- hundred recruits… And I know they have made temporary barracks outside of the cities and in the old battle arenas. Not to even mention other cities and military outposts…

After running around the massive arena we then did Squats, Push-ups, basic fighting techniques and sit-ups. This lasts until lunchtime for a small meal of fruits which contained half a pineapple, a segment of durian, one banana and half-shell of a coconut. It was easy to know that they delivered these fruits from farms just outside the city. As we looked in the bowl we are all repulsed because durian stank, but it was delicious. But many soldiers and workers tried their best to avoid the kitchens. Then soon after lunch and after our resting period, we are all back to training.

However, in the afternoon they make us go through an obstacle course. Climbing ropes, crawling through mud pits and balance standing on one leg for a specific time limit. If anyone falls over they have to redo the course again. Which was mainly me… I was great at the simple discipline lessons. But the physical activities really got me down… For a long time, I felt like I was not getting better… I tripped, I slipped and I fell… It was regarded that I was one of the weaker in the Fire Ten group apart from the thirteen-year-olds…

My now friend Nuria, Hadyn and Brenton supported me the best they can. They all have experience in some kind of training. So they try to give me tips on how to do the basics. Over the past few weeks, we really bonded… Even though they had more of a privileged upbringing they are very down to earth. We always had our group talks which always made things a bit easier.

Nuria Fiammetta is from a family who is wealthier than all of ours combined. She is the youngest child of five of Shula and Azar Fiammetta. Rulers of Fiamme the second largest city in the Red Empire. She is tall and slim, with the perfect model build. The only part of her body that Daha is mean to her is her overly long feet. Which is even longer than all the males here. She once had beautiful brunette long flowing hair but had to change it to a short pixie cut due to army standards. She is easily one of the prettiest people in the army. Her brown skin is always perfectly smooth as it shines in the sun. I could not help but feel a bit jealous like all the girls here. I wished I was beautiful as her but I am shorter with a very average beauty. She always gives me beauty tips on how to deal with my pimples. (Even though we cannot use anything for beauty in the army).

She was sent here to Vulkania as a representative with her brother who is second youngest. He still acts as representative of Fiamme where Nuria wants to learn how to fight from the best. With her parents refusing for her to return home until the war is over. Fiamme does not have as a strong military might as Vulkania so she insists on being trained here. But she always mentions that she needs to go back home as soon as she can to Fiamme. Once she is a full-fledged soldier to fight. As the city is the closest to the Green Draconium border and she wants to protect her home.

Brenton Bodaway is nephew to Lord Egan Bodaway. Who is the taxman of my city district. You can tell he is from the Bodaway family…. Sort of. But where Lord Egan is plump and short his nephew is so tall and thin. Easily the thinnest man here with brightest of short red hair. He revealed to us as how he came to be conscripted. He said that he lived with lord Egan like a son. However, his childhood is far from pleasant… Which surprised me. He is a bastard child who is made legalized by his mother Adeen Bodaway. He doesn't know who his father is. So lord Egan made sure he is miserable after when she passed away. Lord Egan seemed to be such a nice man. Turns out he really can be a snake behind closed doors…

Haydn Fintan is from the Fintan family. They are famous for serving noble families. Mainly consisting of stewards and handmaidens. His mother and aunty serve the empress herself. His father serves as steward to the great general Kai. Which is how he got interested in becoming a soldier. While one of his other cousins serves Nurias older brother. Haydn is the first in his family to ever go to war as a soldier. He backed up Brenton with how Lord Egan treated people and that is how they became friends. Lord Egan was his first charge since he was an "easier" noble to begin with. He served him for a year and as soon as the war began he took the opportunity to leave to become something different.

He was the one who introduced me to my friends now… He is always cheerful and always gives tip of how to talk to superiors. He is very handy when it comes to high royalty etiquette. Like Nuria, he is easily not bad to look at. But I have always loved staring into bright green eyes. They were so hypnotizing and his blue hair has always been unique. Even though it is unique to have natural various hair colours. Blue is not usually one of them in the Red Empire.

A week went by and I am still struggling with physical training… With this, I started to get picked on. Mainly by a girl and boy named Kalama and Daha Deepavati. Twins who volunteered like me. They have an older brother who is conscripted. But that is all I know. I never really had a conversation with them. Only them giving me snarky remarks as they walk past. After a while, I had enough. I visited Alinta in her bedroom chamber and asked if I can have extra training sessions. With my lower performances, she agreed… She was impressed that I took the initiative to train more. Usually in normal circumstances, if you're not good enough they kick you out. But this is wartime now… They need all the soldiers they can get. I also know that I signed my name for our Empress I cannot back out anyway… Attempting to leave will mean imprisonment. They never mention how long for… But this is my choice I have to go through this. No matter how hard it gets. I have to prove myself! I have to prove myself! I have to prove myself! I need to become something more… I never want to be a handmaiden, I could never be a miner, I'm not good at cooking (As I have learned in the army kitchens. I only tried to help but the curry burned anyway…) or sewing. No matter how hard I tried…

So now not only did I have my whole day of training. I now have extra training at night. It was easily the most exhausting month of my life… And by this point, we still haven't even touched weapons. But I do notice that our bodies are becoming more… Muscular. I started to get abs and my physical skills have most definitely improved. I started to run better than most of my group except for Kalama, Daha. Nuria and Brenton who are easily the best trainees. Eventually, their teasing of me evolves into a rivalry against all of us (Nuria, Haydn and Brenton). They have also improved as I can see they have also started to change physically. I have always dreamt of beating them during training. But with how things are going it seems to be impossible.

I couldn't help but be looking at Haydn on the odd occasion when he is shirtless. Even though his bright green eyes always seem to get my attention. I admit my feelings of him grew. But we cannot afford to dwell on our feelings as we are focusing on training most of the time. We never even had time alone as my training always got in the way. But in partner exercises, we always went together. Eventually, after a while he asked Alinta if he could join the night training as well… And he did! But still didn't make much alone time.

After the month of excruciating training I notice that as we trained another person has been standing next to Alinta. He looked familiar… It was like I have met him before. Alinta and he are talking and it has become word, that they could be testing us on our physical prowess. We don't know who this man is but he was wearing more elaborate dragon armour. We all admired it… We all hoped to wear armour as beautiful as it… Dark magenta and black covered him entirely. It shined underneath the sun and glowed in the darkness when he used his draconium magic. He carried his dragon head helmet under his arm. But loved put it on when people asked what it looked like. And it looked like a full-fledged matching dragon armour set. Large horns spiked out of his shoulder pads and spine. And converting his fingers to claws. The eyepieces are bright yellow and he can see in the dark.

Everyone would love to see him in action but he always said no when everyone asked him. With him being secretive about his abilities to everyone including me. Rumours certainly spread that he could be from the priesthood. Since the war has started they seem to have come out of their volcanic temple and the royal palace.

After two more weeks of exhausting training, Alinta stopped me doing the night training. As it was becoming almost too exhausting for me to almost bear. I was so glad. She was so impressed with my initiative and did gain favour from her. Daha and Kalama did not like that at all… The bullying from them became worse back in our rooms.

But at long last now that we have mastered hand to hand combat. They gave us blocking staves to learn how to use properly. They are not as easy as the guards around noble mansions make them look.

But I well-remembered there was a point that Daha made fun of my father (who must have overheard conversations about him). I was so furious I punched him in the face breaking his nose and making it bleed. I would have been lying saying that I did not enjoy it. I was sentenced to scrub the floors early every morning for three weeks after that. It was a strange feeling… I have never done anything like that to anyone before. People laughed when I did it. Alinta only gave me scrubbing duty because she overheard the whole conversation. She said that Daha is punished enough for antagonizing me. This result, however, made Kalama despise me. I could write a book on how much she hated me during these months.

Half the time I almost forget how much I miss home. Everything in my life has changed after my drastic decision to prove myself. Even though my family lives across the city we are not allowed to leave the barracks or the training grounds. We don't even get letters sent to us… Even though they said it's cruel. We need to learn that there will be long periods of time without even communicating with our families. The only time there will be proper communication… Is for them to find out that there has been an accident or if you're dead… A situation that I would like to avoid…

One night that seemed like every other night Alinta and the mysterious armoured man walked into our dorms. There is to be a test… We all looked up in excitement. They only said that this test is only to see who the best is.

The next day we had an early wake up with the same routine every single day that we have done for five months now. Prepare our beds and eat breakfast. Alinta then guided us out in soldier formation in front of the mystery man. We looked around the arena and it had signs pointing around the obstacles. First was a lengthy run, then to use the climbing ramps, which connects to a rope that swings us to the other swipe where we have to climb down the platform. The fifth obstacle is the mud crawling spaces with a final climb up with another swing and run to the finish line.

The overall obstacle does not look so hard. We have been using these obstacles for three months. We all jumped up and down anticipating what we will get if we finish. I just hope we get a chance to write to our families as a prize. Even though it is clearly naïve to think that.

We all lined up to prepare to run and Alinta shouts GO! And we dashed through the first part of the course. Daha, Kalama, Brenton, Nuria and I are close together at the front. I slowed down at the climbing ramp as Daha tried to push Nuria off who is just above me. But she managed to avoid his attacks. Kalama then grabs the rope with Daha and they swing down together. Nuria and I grab our ropes and swung down. Brenton swings down just after us. Haydn I believe is still climbing up the ramp. I jump down to the climbing holes on the platform. With a rush I admit I was doing a dangerous feat by skipping holes. But I am quickly catching up to Daha and Kalama. Nuria has begun to slow down as it looks like she has used up to much energy. I tried to keep at an even pace. The crawling mud puddle was not so hard. But since your crawling under wires the mud is deep you're almost swimming in it. Daha slowed down in this area. This was his weakest area. Where Kalama loved it. She bursts out of the mud pit and runs, Nuria and I chase after her. Brenton breezed through the mud pit and ran soon after us along with Daha. We climbed the next obstacle and swung down. The end is near! We all started to sprint to the finish line and to my shock I am ahead of everyone else!

I felt so happy as I ran closer to the end. But as I checked behind me to see how far I am I noticed that Brenton tripped and fell. And without a second thought I ran to him instead.

"Brenton!"

Nuria ran to him as well as we rushed to make sure he was okay. He was trying to stand but he said he injured his ankle. I quickly see that Daha won the competition as he was jumping up and down in excitement. Even though I notice that he tries not to whack his own nose that is still bruised. Kalama jumping and being excited for him. But they quickly noticed that Alinta and the man are in front of me, Nuria and Brenton. Alinta went down and assessed his ankle.

"It's just a sprain, a few days in the healing wing will do you some good." As she gently puts down the leg. "Hadyn will you take him, please. I will join you after. Everyone is dismissed and go back to your barracks except for Lexiana."

Kamala and Daha looked completely dumbfounded. What was this even about? They won? However, Alinta gave them a stern look and they quickly walked of with the rest of the team.

"Lexiana this is Kenneth Ignatius. He is a member of the priesthood!"

"I believe we have met once young lady. I believe with your sister? If I remember right you were looking at the soldiers."

My mouth dropped. I remember now! He is wearing different armour now! I should have recognized by his voice! Me and my sister never asked for his name. I smiled and nodded in response. It was quite a while ago since we spoke and it was by chance.

Alinta looked excited for me as she had a huge smile on her face.

"The priests have been looking for young new recruits to train. They have been choosing one from each team. I offered your name as a suggestion."

"Me?" I stammered. "But why? Daha, Kalama, Nuria, Hadyn and Benton. They are so much better than me…"

"Lexiana when you first came here you were terrible at physical training. But then you asked me to train extra. You went out of your way to get better and you did. You trained so hard more than any ot-"

"Hadyn. Did it as well." I reminded Alinta.

"He did but he only did it, because you were doing it and even then he just wanted to talk to you all through it. He did not work as hard through those nights. You trained extra hard and you got better! Even though I know when you tried help in the kitchen you failed…"

I blushed at that mention. I destroyed that cooking pot with curry and it stank the kitchen worse than durian fruit.

Kenneth then came forward. "I have been keeping an eye out on you. I made this test just to confirm that I got the right person. I'm sorry that your friend had to fall. But you chose to help your friend over your need to win… You have never won before Lexiana. But you win today."

"Had to fall?"

Kenneth snubbed that remark. Did he? Did he deliberately make Brenton fall?

"He fell by accident. Accidents happen".

I just accepted that answer. After all, I could just be overthinking it.

"What about the others? Daha and Kalama. They are so much greater at everything."

"Except their attitudes…" As Kenneth scoffed and folded his arms. "They are too arrogant and you saw them dancing as they celebrated Daha's win. Took them a while to realise we weren't even there… As for Haydn, he would make for a better soldier. He brings up morale in the team. Men like him are desperately needed, we cannot take him away. Nuria wants to go home to Fiamma. If she joins us that will be impossible for we will not head there unless needed… Which could be never and she cannot go without permission. Brenton is an alright boy. You stood out because of your need to always get better and your willingness to learn."

"I thought the priesthood is very secretive? Like many people didn't think your people existed. The past few months you have members just lurking around. We have never seen or heard from you guys until the war started."

"Because Miss Lexiana this is going to be a large war… We need more priests, we know the risks… But we cannot use children since we need people who are ready to train and try to release their full potential."

"To release our full potential?"

He smiles at me and asked a single question.

"Lexiana Acosta will you like to come with me to the priesthood?"

I nodded in complete excitement and said "YES!"

He laughed.

"Go pack your things! It is time to go to your new home!"