It was night. Dorothy continued marching her way towards the east. Across the blanket of stars in the sky, and the sickle moon above, there was the shadow of a distant castle. This was the royal castle of Justisar.

‘First time seeing it?’ Locke, who thought that he was the only one awake, jumped in shock. ‘Relaaax, it’s only me.’ Trys sat down next to him.

‘Yeah. First time. Lived all my life in Arindel.’

‘What was it like over there?’

‘Lots of sand, not much food.’

‘Sounds like hell.’

Locke shook his head. ‘I miss the people in the slums. There was more than just Fahrla, my sister, who I lost that day. I lost all my friends, all the familiar faces that I walked by and talked to every day. We had a strong sense of community in the slums. Everyone knew everyone, and everyone understood each other’s plight.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Trys twirled her orange hair around a finger.

‘For what?’ He met her gaze and playfully hit her on the shoulder. ‘Don’t apologise for no reason. Where did you come from?’

Trys pointed to the south. Dorothy was currently making her way through a thick forest. There was a village to the south, small lights shining through the shadows of the night. ‘It’s a village called Westvalis. I grew up there.’

‘What was it like?’

Trys shrugged. ‘Life there was pleasant, but my parents were eager to get rid of me, to the point of forging documents to get me conscripted.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When conscription goes out, they look for people that fulfill specific conditions. For new recruits, who they would train to become future soldiers, they were looking for fourteen-year-olds whose name started with S, T, U, V. My father thought it would be, uh, humorous, to forge my birth certificate to include a T.’

‘So, your name is not Trys?’

‘It is now. Before that, my name was Rys. Imagine walking home one day and finding four soldiers waiting for you, calling you the wrong name, and dragging you off before you can say goodbye to any of your friends.’

Locke’s mouth was agape. How could someone’s parents be so cruel? ‘When did this happen?’

‘The conscription happened two months ago.’

‘I just realised. So many people here are quite young, why’s this?’

Trys shrugged. ‘I suppose people don’t want to deal with us young ones too much. During the conscription process, they had us all go into a single room. All the army captains would look at us down from the balcony. Sometimes they would come down, ask us a few questions, then leave, taking whoever they felt would fit their group.

‘Before I knew it, I was one of the only people left. Some of them had talked to me, and I answered earnestly, then they would turn up their nose and walk away. It was so disheartening in that room, seeing all these people turn their back on you because they don’t think you are good enough. They say that those who are conscripted to no army are forced to labour endlessly. Of course, none of us wanted this.

‘We all feared the worst, until Stag entered, Miles and Arla by his side. He swept up his arm and said “come, all of you. You are one of the Amber Army now”.’

‘And that little stunt cost me quite a lot.’ They found that Stag was standing behind them. ‘They tried to turn me away the best they could, but I got one up over them.’

Locke tilted his head. ‘Why do they hate you?’

‘That is a secret between me and those involved. Rumours tend to jump between the mouths of those who do not know, so I bid that you ignore them. When people say that the Amber Army is the worst, they do not refer to the soldiers, they refer to me. They think I am disgusting and amoral. My murky renown has cast a shadow upon our crest.’ He pulled out a golden trinket from his pocket. An ornate A with a small amber embedded into the middle.

‘But you seem anything but disgusting and amoral,’ Locke said.

‘Yeah, you helped all of us,' Trys said.

‘This is where your inexperience speaks and your age shows. Politics don’t care for truth. Those people at the top wanted me out of their social circles, so they had me out of there. But just having me out of there was not enough, they wanted more. They wanted to make sure that I could never return, and that I could never have a chance of climbing to the top ever again.’ He stood up.

‘Oh,’ he added, ‘but don’t go thinking that I am some virtuous creature, either. I have committed many crimes in my life. Now go to sleep. I don’t want you to wake up anyone else. We’ll be returning to our headquarters tomorrow.’