Chapter 7: Page Nine

"He said it at the gate," Asta whispered. "Before the wagon left."

Her fingers were still locked on my sleeve.

"He said the North kills them, and that you'd choose to go, so it would be a mercy to let you. He said if I wrote, I'd make it harder."

"And you believed him."

"I wanted to," she said. "I didn't want it to be me."

I looked at the top of her hooded head.

She was eighteen and afraid of everything, and I had spent all her life telling her it would be all right.

"I'm not dead," I said.

"I know." She was crying now, without a sound. "I saw you put Perrin in the snow. I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life."

The Academy master called the cadets to line.

She let go.

"Write back," I said, as she walked away. "Even if it's only your name."

She did not answer, but her shoulders squared before she reached the line.

That night I could not stand being indoors.

I went down to the sparring ring after the lamps were out and hit the post until my knuckles split.

I was not angry at Perrin.

I was angry because for nineteen years I had been the easiest person in the world to leave behind.

"That post has done nothing to you," Kjell said.

He leaned against the stone wall of the yard with his arms folded.

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