When I came to again, I was no longer bound and gagged. My mother was nowhere to be seen, which was a relief, But neither were my brothers. I was laying on a old metal framed cot in room no bigger than a coat closet. There was a second bed inches away from mine. On that bed was a boy who appeared to be about my age.
My movement must have woke him up because his eyes suddenly snapped open. "You're finally awake great now we won't be alone anymore. So were you sold off too?"
At his question, I suddenly thought back to some thing I overheard mother say on the way here and she thought I was unconscious. She had said that the Lord would pay a pretty penny for us and that she was planning on giving the money to an orphanage because she didn't need it. During our travels, I had noticed she was mumbling to herself a lot.
"Yes I believe I was my two brothers as well." "That's awful. We're folks must've been in pretty deep depth to need to sell off all three of you." "It was my mother that sold us. My father is off to war himself as a medic." "Well maybe by the grace of the heavens you'll meet him on the battlefield because that's where we're headed after basic training. I was sold off by my older brother after her parents died. He needed the money to pay off gambling debts." "I'm sorry to hear that, by the way, I didn't catch your name." "That's because you don't need to know it. It's best not to get too attached anyone here." " what do you mean?" " once we've spent a week training, it's off to war the odds of us surviving after that aren't great. This war has become especially bloody after the protector died. Not that he was helping much from what I heard for a protector he was a especially weak."
I was confused by his words. Putting aside that I was apparently going off to war and was most likely not going to survive. I was very confused about this protector he was talking about. "Are you talking about a sorcerer of some kind?"
"No one talking about the protector he's completely different different from a sorcerer. Wait do you not know what the protector is?" I nodded my head. "Seriously have you been living under a rock?"
"Not exactly but pretty close to it." The person I was going to refer to as my roommate chuckled at my response. "Well the protector is someone who is blessed with an ancient power from the spirits. there is only one in every generation and if that one dies, we have to wait until the next one is chosen and trained. Our protector died early winter of last year. they always come from the same family, the Lighten family." That last part caused me to freeze.
Lighten was my last name!
I didn't even have time to process this before there was a pounding on the door to the room. "Time to wake up you brats training, starts in 10 minutes."
"Come on new guy trust me you don't wanna keep them waiting." I followed him out of the room into what I could only assume was the mess hall.
After I got my food, my roommate left me and I started looking around. I spotted my brothers at a small table by themselves and headed towards them.
Before they could say anything to me, I told them quietly, "Don't tell anyone our last name."
Mike and Ben looked at each other confused, "Why?" They both asked me quietly. I quickly and carefully told them about everything I have learned and most importantly about the protector.
When I was finished speaking, we just sat there for a while. None of us wanted to say anything. Mike was the first one to speak up. "So this means father is dead. That he died in the very war that mother has sold us off to fight in."
I nodded my head afraid that if I spoke, I would start sobbing. I could also tell that the other two were trying to hold back their own tears.
After I took a minute to calm down, I said, "There's nothing we can do to change this now we need to face our new reality head on. That's the only way we're going to survive this."
"At least we still have each other. Most of the others here don't seem to be as lucky," Ben slowly said.
"We might have each other, but what about Sue? Do you think mother did something to her as well?" Asked Mike.
"I don't know," I said. "Also what happened to mother? Why did she do this?" Asked Ben. "I don't have the answer to that either, but right now we can't worry about any of that. We need to focus on staying alive until the war ends."
After I said that there was once again silence between the three of us.
"It's funny," Mike said after a while. "What's funny?" I asked. "I'm finally off the mountain, but all I wanna do is go back home."