My name is Lyra, and I want to live.

MY SWORD SPARKS AS IT clashes with another, deflecting as I spin around my attacker, raking the blade across the back of his armor. More sparks fly as metal meets metal, and I push off the ground to put some distance between us. The soldier spins around, too slow, and I catch him across the hip, my sword digging into space between steel plates. He cries out and collapses to his knees. However, I have no time to waste on an injured man, and I turn to race back down the alley I'd just come from.

All around me, the sounds of combat ebb and flow. Silence lasts for seconds, only to be replaced by a crescendo of gunfire and explosions. The weapons our attackers use are more advanced than our own. We must rely on speed and our abilities to survive their onslaughts. The soldiers are fierce but slow, clad in heavy armor, carrying their burdening rifles and explosives. We bring knives to gun fights, as the saying goes, but that makes us fast and able to move in tighter spaces.

These soldiers are sent by a single man, so we're told: a king who sits atop a wicked throne. He's a tyrant who wants our people eradicated. No one remembers why, only that he does. He sends his soldiers without warning, their attacks showing no pattern or rhythm. They're always unexpected, although we try to be prepared.

There is only one thing that no one has been able to figure out: why the soldiers abduct far more of us than they kill. In the years since my youth, only four of our people have been killed in these attacks. On the other hand, more than fifty of our people have been taken prisoner. The elders are sure they've been enslaved, beaten, or publicly executed. A cruel end wrought of hatred no one understands. All we know is that they're never seen or heard from again.

I round a corner, the sound of gunfire getting closer as I close in on another attack. I can't get a feel for any specific person's location in all this chaos. Usually, I can sense another mage's location or at least their relative distance and direction. It's an ability few of us have, but I've heard it can also be taught to some. Right now, however, I only sense the madness that has befallen our village.

I come upon one of the large, open areas that dot the village and the larger city beyond, just in time to see a soldier get his neck snapped, his body instantly dissolving into ash-like dust, the way they always do. The sight makes my stomach turn. As much as I've seen combat and as many of these soldiers as I've killed myself, there's just something visceral and unsettling about seeing a man's head turn one-hundred eighty degrees on his shoulders.

I'm not great with broken arms or legs, just to set the record straight.

I approach the man who's just killed his attacker, the sour expression leaving my face. He's tall and built like an ox; his close-cut hair and broad shoulders indicate he is a warrior by trade. He's a fellow guardian of the village—one I'd happily give my life for, and I know he'd do the same for me.

"Doing okay, Lyra?" Dusten calls out to me, taking several steps toward me. I nod, but we're quickly interrupted again by more gunfire coming from close by. We both turn and head in the same direction, me taking the lead as we sprint down another narrow alleyway. Our breathing is starting to become labored. This battle has dragged on for too long. Much longer than any of the other attacks so far.

We burst out of the alleyway, coming upon yet another battle in mid-fury. Tove, another guardian, dances around her two attackers, a pair of daggers slicing through the air with a flash. Tove's white hair flows around her as she spins around the butt of a rifle, slipping her blades between the soldier's armor with amazing accuracy. She then turns before the soldier falls, throwing out a hand and sending a glowing, blue ball of energy at the other soldier. It smashes into his helmet, making him reel as the metal shatters. Before anyone can blink, one of the daggers follows the spell, driving itself right between the man's eyes.

Okay, so broken bones aren't the only things that make me squeamish.

I gulp down the urge to wretch, but thankfully, the man dissolves away before I have time to register the grotesque scene, the dagger falling toward the ground. Tove whips out her hand and calls the blade back to her before it hits the pavement. She catches it and sheaths both weapons at her side, turning toward us with a wink.

Gods, she's hot when she does that.

"Glad to see you're holding your own," Dusten calls out, pulling me from my blatant staring. We walk towards Tove, who gives us a casual wave. I'll never understand how she can be so calm in these situations. She almost seems confident that no one will go missing this time. I wish I could say the same.

"Have you seen Alven lately?" Tove asks, adjusting her tunic and the pauldron on her shoulder. Dusten's brother was last seen near the center of the village, where we usually bring any injured guardians after these attacks. But the fact that Tove is asking means he isn't there. I reach out and try to feel for him, but the messiness of the attack is making it almost impossible to pin him down. The lay lines I'd typically be able to focus on are like a tangled ball of yarn. The only two I can pick out are Tove's and Dusten's, for obvious reasons.

I shake my head, and Dusten at once takes off in the direction of the central square. I can't blame him and turn to follow him, but there is suddenly another crescendo of gunfire in the other direction. Tove and I share a glance before taking off as well.

We navigate a few smaller streets, heading toward the fight we hear raging in the distance. The gunfire typically doesn't last long as long as a guardian can close the distance. Rifles are useless in close quarters, and the soldiers aren't as good at hand-to-hand combat—most of the time. But the fact that we can still hear it means a guardian must be trapped, pinned down as the enemy moves in. We round the final corner and nearly collide with the soldier. His back is turned to us, his attention focused on the guardian he's firing at.

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I throw my weight into him, knocking him off balance but not down. He's able to turn and swing his rifle with considerable speed. I duck under the wooden stock, but I'm too close to get my sword up. Instead, I press my hand against his armor and push out, a blast of orange energy forming with explosive force as we are both sent backward. I skid across the pavement, coming to a stop right beside the other guardian, who is currently crouched behind an old steel crate.

So that's where Alven went.

He gives me a sheepish grin, but I can see the terror in his eyes. Alven isn't used to being in the fighting. He's a healer, not a guardian. This all must be like Hell for him.

Before I can get up, the soldier has already recovered and trained his rifle on us. "Lyra!" Tove calls out a warning just as I throw up a shield. The bullets smash into the translucent field of energy, little pops and sparks emitting as they make contact. The bullets are dissolved instantly, but too much more of this, and it will break. Luckily, Tove is already on the move. She skirts the soldier's gunfire, running to his side and running one of her blades clean across his throat. He dissolves away without a sound, as if he simply expired. The light show mere inches from my face makes it hard to see exactly what happened, but that's a good thing. I've almost lost my dinner twice already.

Why did I become a guardian again?

I get to my feet and offer Alven a hand. He takes it, and I haul him up. He's unsteady at first, and I have to brace him until he finds his legs. My hands resting on his shoulders, I lower my eyes on him. "Are you okay, Al?" He takes a moment to respond, probably registering that I'm even real—poor kid.

"Y-yeah, I'm. . . I'm fine." His answer isn't convincing, but he's standing on his own, so I don't press him for now. Instead, I nod and turn to see Tove approaching us. She's returned her daggers to their sheaths, brushing sweat-matted hair out of her face.

"We should head back," she advises, and I agree. The three of us return to the central part of the village sector, where we hope to find as many people there now as there were when this attack began. Our hopes aren't very high on that front, however.

• • •

A large gathering of mages crowds the village square. Tove, Alven, and I push our way to the front of the crowd, where we can see that everyone has gathered around something. My stomach drops before we even reach the edge of the group, knowing what we might find. My suspicions are confirmed only seconds later.

Dusten stands at the front of the crowd, along with several other guardians, trying to usher people away from the scene—or at least keep anyone from rushing past. There, lying directly behind Dusten, is a dark cloth, the shape of a body visible beneath. As we pass, I make brief eye contact with Dusten, and it's enough to tell me it's someone he knows. Which means it's someone I know, as well. My heart begins to race as the crowd starts to simmer down, and I make my way to the side of the body. Kneeling beside it, I can see that it's smaller than the average person.

A child.

Those bastards killed a child.

There aren't too many children among us right now. It's a bit totalitarian, but procreation is something that our people try to control. Rather than populating the village at random, adults are given windows of time in which they are allowed, or rather encouraged, to reproduce. This helps keep our numbers in check so that we can survive the harsh reality we live in without food supplies falling short or the village becoming overcrowded. The last set of children to be born was roughly nine years ago. Reproduction happens every ten years or so, right around the time the previous group of children are old enough to adequately help out around the village. Tove and I are both 19. Alven is only 15, born almost halfway between reproduction cycles, but it's not a perfect system, and there's no punishment for one person breaking protocol. Dusten is 20 now, only about half a year older than Tove and me.

Judging by the size of the body lying before me, this child was born in the last cycle or even afterward. My blood begins to boil as my hatred for these damned soldiers grows somehow even more. I reach out a hand and peel back a corner of the sheet. Golden locks of hair, matted together by blood, are enough to tell me what I need to know. Elyas was the only blonde child in the last cycle, and my heart breaks right there. A tear falls to the pavement beneath me as I replace the sheet, standing up and turning away. Dusten is facing me now, and I only just realize that the crowd has gone almost entirely silent. I look up at him, his expression cold but stoic. Tove walks over and places a hand on my shoulder, her expression solemn, sadness masquerading as bravery. Alven is turned away from us, his head lowered, his hands clenched in fists as his sobs cause his shoulders to shake. I can't blame him. He and Elyas would play together when he was only a few years younger. Elyas would joke that she was going to marry him. I don't think he ever took her seriously, but they were close friends, nonetheless.

I step over to Alven and wrap my arms around him from behind, placing my head on his, his yellow curls brushing my cheek. I can feel his whole body shaking, but his sobs are barely loud enough to hear. Dusten jobs us, placing a hand on Alven's shoulder. "I'm sorry, little brother," he says in a low voice, but we both know it's not enough. Not now, not ever.

"I should have been here!" he yells between sobs. "I wanted to do more than just wait around for people to get hurt so I could heal them later. I didn't think about the people who would need me before the fighting ended." He chokes on his words, his sobs getting stronger, more prevalent.

"Hey, you can't blame yourself for this," Dusten chides him gently but assuredly. "You can't always be there, and you're not our only healer. If something could have been done, it would have." I know that Dusten's words are true, and he wants them to be enough, but I know they aren't. I feel like he knows it, too, as I watch his shoulders sag in defeat—something I've never seen from him before. I turn to Tove for . . . something, I don't know what. Encouragement? Assurance? But it's not there. None of us can provide it. This is something we're all going to have to get through in our own way.

Alven must have decided this for himself as well since he brushes us off and runs through the crowd, his grief very much apparent. Dusten tries to go after him, but I reach a hand out, heaving his shoulder gently. He stops and looks at me, and I see the sadness on his face. My heart breaks all over again. But Alven needs time, and trying to encourage him to buck up and keep his chin held high is more likely to just drive him further into his grief.

"He needs space, at least for now." Dusten turns to look in the direction Alven ran, sighing but nodding, his shoulders slumping even further. I squeeze the one I'm holding.

"We'll make them pay, Dusten. Every last one of them."