Alyx Veldor slammed her fist into the reinforced stone of the wall by her bed, her teeth clenched in fury.
“It went that bad then?” her personal guard, Marco, asked. He scratched his stubbly chin with a wince.
“It could have been worse,” Telis, her maid, said as she followed Alyx into the room.
Alyx spun on her. “He’s sending me to Uvana to die. How could it be worse?”
Telis didn’t quite roll her eyes. She was quite good at encapsulating that look without the overt disrespect the action itself entailed. “As if this the first time he has sent you somewhere to die.”
Alyx deflated, dropping to the end of the bed. “You say that like it should make me feel better about my father trying to kill me again.”
“What does not kill you, and all that.” Telis shrugged.
“We’re going to the Uvana training Range?” Marco asked. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
Alyx shook her head. Normally, her guard would be correct. Uvana was an exclusive training ground, only accessible to the rich and the favored. Her family easily qualified, and most of her older cousins had attempted to conquer the training ground already. Even several of her younger ones for that matter.
“It is less a problem that we get to go,” Telis explained, choosing her words carefully, “And more an issue as to when we have been offered the honor.”
Marco raised an eyebrow but waited for Telis to finish the explanation.
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“We are to leave tomorrow.”
His eyes widened. “Tomorrow? Did the family already gather the supplies for a conquest run?”
“Doubtful,” Telis waved the suggestion away. “We will likely have to pick up what we need on our way out. I am confident that will not be an issue.”
Alyx almost snorted at the blase attitude, but she knew that if Telis said the logistics would be taken care of then the logistics would be more than taken care of.
“Then what is the problem?” Marco asked.
“What month is it, Marco?” Telis asked.
He pursed his lips. “It's Janua—” He stopped mid-word, understanding dawning on him. “But if we leave now we’ll have barely any time before the Storm starts!”
“That did seem to be the idea my father had in mind,” Alyx said with a sigh.
“And we can’t just get ‘lost’ on the way to arrive after the storm?” Marco groaned.
“Not if we want to be back in time for the Festival.”
“We do not need to be back in time for the Festival,” Telis said. It was a half-hearted suggestion, but probably the most reasonable solution. Alyx hated it all the more for it.
“And I don’t have to go to Uvana,” Alyx said, sarcasm staining the words.
“Why are we going then?” Marco asked.
“Because if I refuse my father’s oh-so-gracious offer now, it will be interpreted as I don’t want to go at all. He will have a perfectly legitimate excuse to refuse my requests to go in the future. And I need the power even a partial conquer of Uvana can give me.”
Her words hung heavy in the air, frustratingly ugly and true.
“If it makes you feel any better, I suspect this was your grandmother’s idea,” Telis said, breaking the tension.
Alyx groaned. “She thinks I can pull this off?”
Telis shrugged. “She thinks you are not worth her attention if you cannot, more likely.”
Alyx’s groan deepened as she flopped back on her bed.