Chapter One

“Kassia ya Sia!” Falia ya Blac’s strident call echoed across the training arena. Several of the young combatants stopped, their focus shifting from their own mock battles to the target of their weapons instructress’s irritation.

Now what? Kassia thought as she ignored the summons and completed a complicated maneuver with her lance, dumping her inattentive opponent onto the hard packed dirt of the arena. The tip of her lance touched the skin of the War Maid’s throat, as she kicked her captive’s lance away, disarming her.

Any of the other weapons instructresses would have waited until the mock battle between the two had been completed so as not to distract the battling War Maids and possibly cause injury to one of them. Would have waited that is, unless the interruption involved her. Anything that might give any one of the War Maids the advantage over her had been tried repeatedly and had failed. Even as young as she had been, her mother, Sia ya Grental, had trained her well before she’d entered the Maiden’s Hall.

She could still feel her mother’s hands over her small ones, guiding her through the various weapon moves until they became second nature to her as a child. The pleased look in her mother’s tawny gaze, when she could do the weapon moves on her own, had warmed her on many a cold night within the hall.

Kassia had long ago given in to the ways of the Tesrant people, and had existed on their charity over these last few years. Her presence was only tolerated in Tesrant.

Kassia did not offer her hand to help her opponent to her feet. None of the War Maids she defeated in these training battles ever wanted her assistance. Turning away, Kassia ya Sia ignored the muttered curse, “Damn black one” from her bested opponent. She strode easily across the arena toward Falia ya Blac, the tall battle-scarred War Maid in charge of today’s exercises. She bowed to the War Maid, as was the accepted practice, and turned to face the messenger standing beside Falia ya Blac.

The weapons instructress ignored Kassia’s show of respect and turned away without even acknowledging her presence. Falia ya Blac walked out into the training arena and called all of the others back to their individual practice with a sharp command. Then she started helping one of the younger Tesrant War Maids with her lance work.

“It is time!” The messenger snapped out her message. “You have an hour before meeting the Elders in the Judgment grove. Do not be late!” The messenger didn’t wait for any response from Kassia. She left the training arena by the same gate she’d used to enter the arena.

Kassia didn’t let her shock show as she headed toward the door of the nearest of the five long Maiden’s Halls. Today marked her sixteenth cycle since her birth. It had been so long since anyone had remembered the day that she had forgotten as well. Usually there was nothing to celebrate, but this particular day would set her free from the Maiden’s Hall and with that would also come the acknowledgement of her as a War Maid.

She had resided within this hall for seven cycles since her mother’s death. The halls were part of the only permanent dwelling places within the land of Tesrant. Long buildings built of stone surrounded an arena where the War Maids trained. She’d always thought the long buildings and arena looked like a wheel turned on its side. Inside the building, the high set windows let in light but the coolness of the stone walls kept the temperature comfortable. They’d been here so long ago, none knew when the buildings had been built or who the first War Maids were that had been housed within them.

Just inside the door on the right, the bathing room awaited many a weary War Maid as she returned from a training session. Kassia stripped off her sweat-stained practice clothing and stepped under the cool cascading water that fell from a wooden spout down into the shallow basin. The cool cleansing waterfall was very welcome after a strenuous work out.

So, my time has come, Kassia thought to herself. For most of the maidens, they came at ten cycles to the Maiden’s Hall from their family’s Holding. Kassia had come just short of her ninth cycle, at the time of Sia’s death. And for the next seven cycles she possessed only the space that was required for one cot and a plain wooden chest at the foot of that cot. Small tables separated the headboards of each cot from each other.

Not that a maiden spent much time within the halls other than to fall sleep from complete exhaustion. Kassia smiled as she used the cleansing sands to clean her body. She knew she’d not done anything more than that for her first two years here. Warrior training started early in the morning with formal weapon training shortly thereafter, the learning of home craft skills, considered just as important, were studied throughout the day. It was never known till the moment of judgment which maiden would guard Tesrant as War Maid and which one would bear the next generation as breeders and keepers of the Holdings. This selection happened at the completion of sixteen cycles from the time of a maiden’s birth.

Meals were fitted in between lessons as a maiden had time to eat. The only guaranteed meal of the day was after morning training session. All the maidens came together within their own halls to receive their training schedules for the day from the trainer instructresses.

Kassia stepped out from under the water and wrapped herself in one of the bath sheets stacked on the shelf by the door. Gathering up her clothing, she headed for her cot at the end of the Maiden’s Hall. It was as far away from the large double doors leading into the training arena as it could be and still be in the building. She had liked the space actually, because she could turn and face the wall and shut out the rest of the girls’ chatter and ignore their whispers about her.

The hall was empty as usual for this time of day. It did not matter, no one spoke to her unless it was necessary anyway. For anyone else, at least one friend, a War Maid relative, or a weapons instructress would have assisted her in packing her belongings. Kassia did this alone as she had done everything else since her mother’s death.

As she approached her cot, drying off with the bath sheet, she dropped practice gear on the floor. She picked up a towel from the top of her chest and dried her hair, then pulled a soft leather tunic from inside the chest and slipped it on. Next came leggings. Only then did she begin lifting out each folded piece of clothing contained within the wooden chest and piling them on a skin laid out on her bed. She had always kept her belongings to a minimum so this would not take long.

At sunset this day she completed her sixteenth cycle of life. Preparing her pack for the final move from the Maiden’s Hall was part of the ritual. If she had been as others within this hall, after judgment, she would have returned to her bloodline’s Holding for her final training.

But she did not look like the rest of the fair skinned, golden haired maidens. Though half of her bloodline came from one of the greatest war clans in Tesrant, none had let her forget that other half was part of something else, of the people who dwelt beyond Tesrant.

She was as tall as any Tesrant fully trained War Maid--that had not marked her as different. Her golden skin, her curly black mane of hair that hung in a wild tangle of curls extending below her waist, and eyes as dark as the night sky marked her as different from the blond haired, fair skinned, Tesrant people.

Now her time of Judgment was at hand.

Afterwards, she would go directly to the War Maid’s camp. Kassia knew that not one of the many bloodlines within Tesrant would choose to blend her obviously tainted outsider’s blood with their own. Why risk passing it to the next generation by choosing her as a breeder? She could only serve as a War Maid and protect Tesrant. For under the Warrior’s Oath she would swear to, her tainted blood would end with her. Tesrant War Maids did not mate, or so said the law.

She was Kassia, the daughter of Sia who was daughter of Grental, descended from an ancient bloodline of the Tesrant people. As Tesrant custom demanded, Kassia had taken her mother’s name as the last part of her own, to honored her mother, Sia, and her teachings.

Until Sia broke her Warrior’s Oath and bore a child, she had been much honored among her people. If her mate had been of the fair-haired, pale-skinned warrior people of Tesrant, perhaps that might have been forgiven in time. But Sia had bred with one who dwelt beyond the barrier that separated Tesrant from all else upon the planet. That could never be forgotten or forgiven.

On the day Sia returned from her explorations to her people with a child only a few days old strapped on her back, the Elders had stripped her of all her possessions. They had left her with her life, her weapons, and her child.

The Elders denied Sia even the telling of the tales of the wonders she had seen beyond the barrier. Forbade her from telling what she had learned and would willingly share with the people of Tesrant. Sia ya Grental and her heir, Kassia ya Sia, earned their keep by giving weaponry lessons to any who wished them. Sia even taught the instructors from the Maiden’s Hall. Later they relied on the charity of the Tesrant people when Sia became too ill to provide for them in the third cycle since her return. She had begun getting weaker from the moment she returned to Tesrant until, in her last few days, she was frail and bedridden. Only in tales, whispered in the silence of the night, were Sia and Kassia able to escape for a while to the lands of her adventures.

Kassia learned of the many wonders beyond Tesrant, the vastness of the lands beyond the barrier, of the customs strange and wonderful too, of a people far different--if Sia’s tales were to be believed--from those within Tesrant. When Sia’s death finally came, Kassia took with her to the Maiden’s Hall as her own, the Warrior’s weapons Sia had used.

Even as a child, Kassia had vowed that one day she would see with her own eyes the places of Sia’s tales. At only nine cycles when she entered the Maiden’s Hall, Kassia knew how different she was. None had made her welcome among those within the Hall, but she had never been welcome anywhere in Tesrant.

Kassia rolled up her sleeping robe, tying it with the thin leather strips she had laid ready on the cot. Next came the skin bundle, the last thing in the chest. It was not necessary to unwrap the bundle. She had not seen what it held since the day Sia had died.

Even through the thickness of the wrapped skin, she could feel the molded snarling beast heads on the hilt of the sword forming its guard. In her mind she could still see the reddish golden glare coming from the gemstone eyes of the beasts and ancient runes engraved on the long gleaming blade. Though she had never taken the sword from its wrapping, she had learned to use the same type of weapon with skill. She placed the bundled blade on her folded clothing covering all with a scarlet robe, heavily encrusted with golden embroidery, the only effort made in home training that was of merit to the sewing instructress.

Kassia gathered the ends of the skin at the bottom of the pile and folded them over the stack of clothing. She then rolled the bundle around the sword, tying fastenings tightly, testing the carrying straps to make sure they were strong. Placing the sleeping robe on the skins she would use to shelter when needed, she tied them all into another pack.

Weapons, the ones that had once been Sia’s own, were leaning against the cot. The golden-banded lance, a long bow as tall as Kassia with its quiver of arrows, and the long dagger that was already strapped to her strong right thigh within easy reach.

Gathering her packs and weapons, Kassia left the Maiden’s Hall for the last time with what little she owned. She walked with a lack of urgency toward the place of Judgment. No one noted her leaving, nor would they have, even had they not been out still training in the arena.