Page 10 of A Legionnaire’s Guide to Love and Peace
“Now obviously this is a lot to take in,” Adrien Augustine continued. “I’m sure some of you had made your peace with having no heir at all, with the Augustine line crumbling, with demons overrunning this realm. I wouldn’t blame you. It looked bleak out there before I showed up.”
“How would he know?” Carrick muttered. “Unless he was waiting to make his entrance for maximum effect.”
“But the bleak years are behind us. And now we find ourselves tasked with something far more important—though slightly less dangerous, I’m thrilled to say.
Because you fine soldiers aren’t the only ones who need to meet their future ruler.
This entire realm must hear the good news and know that Adrien Augustine has arrived to lead them into a golden, host-blessed future. And to that end—”
The prince broke off suddenly, his gaze locking on the edge of the stage, where someone from his entourage was waving his arms desperately and making a shushing gesture.
“To th-that end,” he stuttered, holding up one finger, “I invite you all to join me at the real assembly where I will announce to the full legions’ forces ”—an approving nod from the relieved-looking adviser—“the next stage in our campaign.”
“ Next stage? ” an irate voice thundered from the middle of the crowd. “There’d better not be a next fucking stage. I’ve marched on the battle lines for nineteen fucking years, and you’re telling me you want more out of me?”
A murmur of approving noise chased the old-timer’s words, though there were plenty of hisses and tittering to counter it. “You’ll shut your fucking mouth and listen to your prince,” Mira snapped, though with no token power to boost her voice, her command lost some of its bluster.
“Easy, centurion, they’re right,” the prince said with a placating palm held up.
“Everyone who stands here today marched to the edge of Hell itself, and that feat will not go unrewarded. I know many of you did not get a choice about the weapon in your hands, but I promise you a choice about whether you’ll continue to bear it.
At the end of the r—” He broke off, glancing at his adviser, who had his head buried in both palms. “That is to say, when the next stage of the campaign is completed, I intend to offer every soldier in the ranks a full release from service.”
Kat had seen demon generals plow through an entire century in one devastating maneuver. If there was a hopeful inverse to that horror, this was it. All one hundred soldiers burst into joyous shouts, cheers, applause, and even a few uninhibited yells that echoed over the campground.
Kat felt like she’d just been headbutted.
She was eighteen years old again, sinking to her knees in the courtyard of the family forge with her shaking hands rumpling the conscription notice as her father rubbed her back and told her it would all be okay, that it was only five years, that her mother’s Aurean token would protect her, that maybe there was a chance to make something good out of this, that it was only five years.
She was twenty-one, and just days ago, she’d given up on the idea of seeing him again.
On the hope that she’d ever work side by side with him with hammer and tongs, her body not a tool for violence but an instrument that wrung potential and purpose from every molten piece of metal she could get her handson.
Not even in her wildest dreams had Kat dared imagine she wouldn’t be obligated to continue serving those two years she had left on her contract.
Only now was she realizing what a comfort it had been to leave her fate in others’ hands.
It hadn’t felt like a comfort at the time, only the yoke of an obligation on her back, but in the absence of its weight, she reeled.
Her gaze dropped to Ziva, who had a hand over her mouth.
Ziva, who’d been aching, whom she’d caught crying more than once because these lands they marched through were so close to her family’s home in southern Kaston and yet duty bound her to walk right by the fork in the road as if it meant nothing.
She’d met Ziva in basic training, both of them freshly torn away from the promise of a normal future—and now, just like that, the door had been opened to a new one.
If she went back to her village, and Kat to her own home on the outskirts of the capital, would they ever see each other again?
Around them, the rest of the century was ricocheting off similar trajectories, soldiers who’d marched side by side for years looking sidelong at their fellows, mouthing incredulous words and grappling with the notion that they could trade their sweaty, smelly compatriots for their families as soon as the prince put the order through.
On her right, Sawyer and Carrick bent close together, wearing matching disbelieving grins.
Kat’s gaze slid to Emory. He had his chin slightly tucked, his back squared to her, and he stuck out like a tree among reeds, so rigid was his posture compared to the rest of the shield line flanking him.
She reached out, meaning to knock her knuckles against the back of his padded armor, but a thought stayed her hand.
Emory, unlike most of them, had enlisted. He had fifteen years left in his contract, and he’d never once acted like he didn’t intend to serve them. Maybe this meant nothing to him. Maybe it didn’t change a single one of his plans.
And maybe none of his plans involved her.
Their one spectacular night had only been possible because they’d been certain it no longer mattered whether they followed the Telrusian army’s exacting rules.
In the aftermath of their unexpected victory, Kat had thought she’d have two years to wrangle the consequences and the flutter the thought of them put in her gut.
But the prince had opened an unexpected door—one that promised she could go home far sooner than she’d hoped.
When she walked through it, Emory wouldn’t follow.
If she could prepare for it, if she could practice ahead of time, maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much when the moment came.
Kat let her hand fall.
A long, piercing whistle blast shrieked over the noise, and the century shuffled back into order, though some of the giddy chuckles persisted.
“All of you, quiet, ” Mira snapped. “As the prince has said, this will happen when the next stage of the campaign is completed. Until then, you all still answer to me. Unless—” She broke off, frowning, as Adrien Augustine beckoned to her and mouthed something.
“Now?” Mira sighed—a bold maneuver in the face of royalty, but the centurion was understandably flustered and her high name would probably cover the damage.
“If you don’t mind,” the prince replied, then turned out to face the crowd. “Now I’m sure I’ve given you plenty of excitement to take in, so this is where I take my leave. I’m very much looking forward to our future exploits, and to getting to know all of you better.”
He tipped a wave and turned to dismount the platform. And his gaze dropped directly to Kat.
She knew, logically, that she was the most notorious person in the legion right now. She’d made an outright spectacle of herself, scrapping with Emory in the dirt, and beyond that, she was remarkably tall and hopelessly scuffed. It was only natural that he’d look at her.
But there was something more in the prince’s gaze—in the wide, sincere grin that spread over his face when they locked eyes—that told her whatever nightmarish drills Mira assigned, whatever disgusting chore rotations Kat would be trapped on for the rest of her days in the legion, whatever indignities she’d suffer to pay for her insolence, it would all pale in comparison to the grand plans Adrien Augustine had in store for her.