A Nightingale's Tale

    The silence was maddening, which made what was about to come even more terrifying. Typically, friends and family of the contenders lined the streets to cheer for them as they made their last walk from the practice building to the arena. This year, however, no one cheered. No songs were sung, no prayers were yelled. There were no bouquets or grain thrown. Lydia Nightingale knew the deafening silence was for her. She was the last in the line of the contenders like she had been in every training class, the lone girl who was left in blood and dirt to clean up. No one had thought she could have made it this far. She wasn’t the first girl to compete for a Guardian position, but she was the first to make it to the tournament. No one was pleased. The women in long skirts to their ankles, lining the street to the arena, watched her with disgust. Their eyes automatically fell to her pants. Arabella Crane, her only friend now, made the pants in secret out of an old black skirt she had. Lydia shifted uncomfortably in the pants. They were baggy at the top and wrapped tightly around her ankles, with the right leg longer than the left. Arabella had laughed when Lydia first tried them on, however it was the only skirt she had to spare to turn into pants. In training, she learned quickly that a long skirt or dress was impossible to fight in. The first time she wore the pants to practice she was worried they would send her to Reformation, but they hadn’t. All the boys training for their chance at a Guardian position stayed far away from her, except for Marcus. He was the one that encouraged her to continue fighting, to keep practicing. He had been the first to give her a real beating for her to feel the true pain of battle. No one would fight her due to her being a woman. But not Marcus, he had beaten her so severely, she had been bed ridden for two weeks. He was there every moment through her healing process. And after she was completely rehabilitated, he encouraged her to keep going and kept her progressing. She would not be the greater fighter she was without his persistence. She owed everything she had accomplished to Marcus. She scanned a group of Guardians, previous winners of the tournament she was about to endure, looking for Marcus but he was nowhere to be seen. She hoped he would come and give her words of encouragement before the fight began. “You should be ashamed,” a woman with spat at her feet. Lydia kept her head up and walked on. The walk from the practice building to the arena had never seemed so long before that moment. The buildings were smaller and more dilapidated the farther they got into the middle of the island. The homes in this part of the village matched their owners: worn, unkept, forgotten. But at least, she couldn’t see the grey wall that surrounded them from this far in the island. The arena was in the center of the island with the poorer areas surrounding it and covering the southern part of the island while the richer areas were north, toward the mainland. The arena was the only thing in good shape this far away from the northern region. It loomed over the rest of the buildings surrounding it, blocking out the sun to certain houses permanently. A fourth of the way up the large stone columns the color was lighter, due to the salty winds that blew above the outer wall that enclosed the entire island. It was a lighter grey almost a pink, a much different color the all-encompassing grey of the buildings that the people were so used to. Children sat in windows that overlooked the main road they were walking on. A small girl wearing a flour sack as a skirt smiled and waved at her. Lydia smiled back as the girl’s mother yanked her inside. A few of the other contenders received pats on the back as they entered the back door of the arena. Most had started leaving when Lydia walked through the large archway. “Lydia!” Marcus yelled at her, pushing other contestants aside to reach her. Marcus Rutherford wasn’t worried now and would never be worried about being seen talking to Lydia. His father was Rex, the leader of Covet, the coven they were all a part of. The term Rex was an old term covens used for the leader. And because of his status, Marcus could do whatever he wanted which was exactly what he always did. Lydia and Arabella had watched Marcus exactly a year ago to the day, go through what she was about to bear. He had won gracefully and brutally and now was a Guardian. He wore the gold “G” on his shirt proudly. Most Guardians stopped wearing their badge a few days after their victory, but Marcus wore his every day. All the contestants were now underneath the seats of the arena in a holding area. Lydia and Marcus sat at a wooden bench as she tried to keep her anxiety down. The hundreds of footsteps above them sounded like crashing waves on a stormy night. “Who am I dueling?” she asked pulling at her glove without looking directly at Marcus. “You know they draw the names at each round,” he replied. “I assumed they would cheat and pull my name with someone like Gregory.” “That’s against the rules, you know that.” However, he didn’t argue that the Elders wouldn’t do something like that. “They don’t want me to win.” “No, they don’t and that’s even more of a reason for you to win. Come on, all our hard work these past four years was for this. You’ll be fine.” He gave her a nudge on her shoulder with his elbow. “Marcus, your father wants you,” a redheaded Guardian named Zachary yelled from the arena door. “In a few hours, you’ll officially be the first female Guardian,” Marcus said with a hug before running off to find his father. Lydia was alone again with her thoughts. The other contenders were stretching, talking, or mock-dueling in a group by the door. She unconsciously tugged at her glove. At her hand, the glove was black but as it led up her arm it faded into her skin like a hand dipped in black paint. The crystal in her palm felt heavier than it ever had. Everyone in Covet wore their stone, their praecant, in a different way, most of the time it represented what role they played in the community. Lydia’s was in the palm of her glove while the top of the glove went into her arm as it was a part of her body. The stone had to be connected to the body, and soul, to work properly. A muffled voice came from the ceiling. It was Rex announcing the tournament was beginning. Lydia couldn’t hear the words distinctly, but she knew it was the drawing of the names from the roar of the crowd. Zachary stuck his head in the arena door. “Gregory Mallick and Matthew Stern,” he said. Matthew, a boy who was an entire foot shorter than Gregory, had a look of ultimate defeat already. Gregory didn’t look like a 17-year-old, the age as everyone else. He looked like a full-grown man due to his massive size and full-grown beard. Mathew was his antitheses, he was short and thin, with weak ankles. If Lydia hadn’t had classes with Gregory as a child she wouldn’t believe his age. Gregory’s praecant was a glove, like Lydia’s, but on his left hand. Matthew, one of the few Guardian prospects that didn’t have a glove for his stone, had a backward necklace that held his stone in the middle of his back. It looked as if he had draped a black scarf across this neck backward. His weapon of choice was a bow and arrow that would form out of the praecant on his back when he pressed it. Unfortunately for him, that was not going to be enough to beat Gregory. Lydia felt sorry for Mathew, four years of agonizing training destroyed by a few moments in the arena. However, she was relieved that she wouldn’t have to fight Gregory. The wooden doors swung open flooding the dark corridor with light and cheers from the crowd. Gregory and Matthew walked out into the arena side by side. For one last moment, they were equal. Lydia watched the fallen contenders re-enter while she sat impatiently in the corridor under the seats of the arena. The winners were brought up the stairs to sit at the winner's table and the losers were often carried back into the corridor. Matthew was unconscious when they brought him through the doors. For a moment, she thought he was dead until she saw him take deep, shallow breaths. It would almost be better if the losers did die. The loser very rarely found good work among the coven. Tending the wall and sewage maintenance was the most common jobs for those that lose in the arena. Others became beggars or drunks, of outlawed liquor as they often couldn’t purchase the legal kind, while their lineage almost certainly ended with them. Few would marry a loser of the arena. Maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible if their lineage did die with them, she thought as she circled her thumb over the oval crystal in her palm. That type of life was none life to live. Ruined and thus imprisoned by the walls they once called hope and safety, holding onto silk hopes as if they were concrete. If this is the final curtain call, let it be. She would rather die in the arena as to live one last day in this granular prison as a beggar or drunk. The sun moved its way across the southern sky, time was her only friend which she watched die slowly through the crack in the wooden doors. There were four of them left as Daniel, the last contestant to lose and now a scarred boy with a disfigured right hand, came running through the doors weeping. Ethan, Grayson, Coen, and Lydia, the final contenders, watched each other tentatively. Coen looked her up and down while the other two refused to acknowledge she was there. The men that wanted to be Guardians thought it was a complete disgrace that a woman would even be allowed to train with them, not to mention given a chance to be one of them. She had a class with Coen as a child, so she knew him well. He was good at magic but was always slightly off, like a baby bird that could fly, just not as high as his siblings. She remembered the time they were practicing First Matter, instead of transforming wheat seeds into bread he continuously made a liquidized bread. It was a simple spell which caused other children to laugh at him. Lydia had taken her time to help him perfect his spell when the class was over. They had sincerely been friends once, as much as children that don’t truly know what friendship is like can be, but they were still friends nonetheless. She didn’t meet Ethan nor Grayson until Guardian training began. They, just like the others, avoided her or mocked her. Ethan looked exactly as his father did, who came to every training session. He had long black hair that swept his back as he walked. His eyes were as black as his hair and they seemed to follow you around room no matter where he stood. His Adam's apple stood predominantly from his throat which he grazed with his hand often. Grayson was handsome, in a mythical way, as if he were carved from the same stone as the walls built by their elders. The prominence below the eye of his cheekbone was smooth like a razor's edge. His bottom lip pouted as if he had been sucking on it all day. Lydia looked at his brown, almond eyes and he stared at her with disgust. “Coen and Ethan,” the Zachary said called names for the second to last time of the day. So, there it was, she was to battle Grayson. She was slightly relieved she wouldn’t be fighting Coen. It felt worse if you knew who you were dueling personally. However, she had never even spoken to Grayson let alone dueled him before. She had no clue what to expect other than the fact that he had a glove on his right hand, same as she did. After a few, uncomfortable moments listening to the crowd react to what was happening in the arena, Ethan was carried in the corridor unconscious with a bloody stump where his right hand had been. Gore no longer bothered Lydia, it was all a part of the lifestyle of a Guardian-in-training. Zachary didn’t announce either of their names this time, he only nodded when the arena was cleared. Lydia stood beside Grayson and they walked into the bright light together. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the sunlight. The first thing she could clearly see was many people in the crowd were already leaving. To them, the dueling was over, Lydia had already lost, or she wasn't worthy of having a crowd to watch her. A group of people on an upper row behind them were cheering for Grayson. Probably his family, Lydia thought. She wondered, if she had had any family left would they cheer for her or be ashamed? Then she heard her name echo through the arena, Arabella was at the very top cheering for her best friend. People hushed and booed her, but she didn't stop. Lydia looked up at her friend, knowing if she was going to lose in this arena, she wouldn’t be leaving alive.