Jordan Mitchell's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Jordan walked home with the wooden box against their ribs and the champion's threat still ringing in their ears. Five days left, and every open field in RedWoodGlen belonged to someone who had laughed at the well. The champion had eyes on the pastures and the mill yard. Jordan needed a hidden place to drill the lizard on the last commands, or dawn would find them both dead before the trial even started. They stopped at the edge of their own yard and looked past it, into the cold line of trees where no one grazed and no one hunted. The old root cellar behind the family plot had a stone floor, a low ceiling, and a door that shut. It would do. Jordan cleared the cellar by lantern that night. They swept the floor, set stones at measured paces, and marked a target board with charcoal. They opened the box on a barrel and let the lizard climb out. Its tail curled once around their thumb before it settled. Jordan pointed at the charcoal eye on the board. The lizard shot across the stones, struck the mark, and returned. They ran it again from the far corner, then in the dark with the lantern shuttered. The lizard hit the mark every time. Near dawn Jordan latched the cellar door, pocketed the key, and walked back to the house with a training ground no one else knew about. The threat was still real. But now Jordan had four days to sharpen a weapon in a room the champion could not watch, and the drills could begin in earnest tomorrow night.