Sol stopped in front of them, his expression calm as ever. He swept his sharp silver-crimson eyes over the three hundred kids sitting in the dirt, expecting to see the usual anxious faces.
Instead, he found something entirely weird.
The air around the recruits felt thick and hot, but it wasn't just from the blazing midday sun beating down on the parched flats.
Their eyes were burning.
Every single one of them was staring up at him with a wild, fierce passion, their jaws clenched so tightly that the bone structure beneath their charcoal-smeared cheeks stood out like rock ridges.
Some of the boys looked like they wanted to chew straight through their wooden spear shafts, and even the girl with the bubbly face who had been weeping into her hands just a few minutes ago was now gripping her weapon with knuckles so white they looked like carved ivory.
The deep, heavy shame that had been crushing them a moment ago had somehow morphed into a strange, volatile fire.
