Page 7 of Death’s Kiss (The Order of the Tide Raiders #1)

Truth be had, I’d been slowly drifting off to sleep in my seat before now.

Preceptor Chie’s voice is so dull it’s actually rather relaxing.

And after staying up half the last few nights since meeting with Beldham, reading anything I could get my hands on regarding former pillar tasks, I was just tempting fate .

“Correct. Very good, Captain Boreas,” Preceptor Chie praises, twisting the end of his long silver goatee between two gnarled fingers. From the narrow of his ancient eyes, it’s clear he isn’t entirely fooled, but he resumes the lecture without further question.

I relax back into my chair and try incredibly hard to focus on the board before us.

It's filled with periods of time and the events that mark them. By all accounts, this class should be fascinating to me—being the only frame of reference I have to the world outside these dark walls. But the excitement of learning the history of Pontus has only seemed to dampen with each passing level. All I’ve gained in these classes is the depressing knowledge that the world has and always will revolve around power.

Those who have it and those who want it.

The rest of it is just a repetition of the same wars parading about under different names. It’s mainly bullshit, in my opinion. There is never any ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ side because, at the end of the day, the winners half will be the only part of the story you’re told.

Not that anyone asked me.

Chie’s lecture ends just a few minutes later, and I’m saved from his dangerously tranquil voice before I can fall into another slump.

I leave the dim bell-shaped room with Kleio on my heels and Greer and Herse only a few steps behind.

The twins and Nimra have been selected to help train the new level-ones.

Davina is most likely either being used by the leeches or sleeping during whatever brief respite of time she has.

We make our way to the outdoor lyceums situated across a long stone bridge connecting our cliff-bound fortress to the rest of the minuscule island.

Being that it’s the end of summer, we won’t be able to utilize the outdoor spaces much longer.

The rainy season won’t be far off now, and Preceptor Ersatz is determined to use every last day possible outside.

We’re about halfway over the open-air trestle before Kleio speaks. “So how much longer are you planning to pull these all-nighters? I mean, normally I’m happy to kick you awake, but this last time I thought you might actually freeze my ass to the seat. You had that scary little look in your eye.”

My third and fourth snort their laughter from behind, and I throw them a glance over my shoulder. The kind that has them both pressing their lips into hard lines of silence.

“Yep, that’s the one,” Kleio sing-songs, pointing a finger towards my ice-cold glare.

I try and fail to keep a straight face, my lips pulling upward in eventual defeat.

“It’s not like I haven’t tried sleeping—I just can’t,” I begin to explain.

“Anytime my head hits the pillow, my mind starts running—no—sprinting in a million different directions. There’s so much I don’t know about the trials and the other cardinals. It’s overwhelming.”

Kleio sucks on a tooth, her eyes skimming over our approaching exit in thought.

Then Greer chimes in from where she keeps pace with Herse just a few steps behind. “Let us help you, Merena.”

I pause my strides and turn to find my third nodding in agreement. “Yeah, ‘Cap. Give us each a tome or two and we’ll knock it out. No problem.”

“Oh—yeah. That would be great, actually.” My voice is suddenly, stupidly thick.

I’m still getting used to this—to having actual friends. Having people that I care about and who seem to care about me in turn. Most days I don’t truly let myself believe it’s real.

For a while there at the beginning, the Order pits each of us raiders against the others.

The idea being that it will ensure only the strongest of us emerge.

Those casualties in the first few levels—either by our cardinal or sometimes even by our own hands—well, they were weaklings and would have sullied the reputation of a raider. At least, that’s what we’re told.

Each and every one of us has had to fight and scrape our way through, just to make it to the eighth level alive. It wasn’t even until around level four that those making up my crew started becoming allies. I would not have considered us friends at that point. Not by a long shot.

Except for Kleio. We became a duo years before accepting the others. She drove me nearly half mad those first few levels. I couldn’t stand her constant talk of home. I also wanted to smash my head into a wall every time I heard her swooning over Vash Larceon.

Back then, I kept mostly to myself. Partially because I didn’t care to make any friends, but mostly due to the fact that I’m a castaway with a bastard’s name.

Not to mention the fact that I was singled out regularly for disciplinary measures.

They all left me to my own isolation on purpose.

Honestly, though, it was in everyone’s best interest to keep their distance.

Except for Kleio. She could never leave well the fuck alone. She just had to go and risk her neck in level three for me.

Idiot.

The point being that even now—even when working with my own crew—sharing the load does not come naturally.

“Well, that’s settled,” Kleio quips, her fading black eye squinting in the sunlight. “Now we can go and enjoy Preceptor Ersatz's famously inspiring and always uplifting class.”

“You will all die. Every last one of you.”

Preceptor Ersatz’s lectures before affinity training are exceptionally harsh and unforgiving.

Her black boots shine in a rare appearance of the sun peeking out from behind its usual refuge of clouds as she paces up and down the grassy floor of the lyceum before us.

But then she halts her stalking for a moment to turn and face the line of us level-eights.

We're currently spread out in a crescent shape against the pine-strewn borders of the outdoor training grounds.

The preceptor who trains our affinities is middle-aged with piercing gold eyes and deep wine-stained lips that stand out starkly against the porcelain skin of her face.

Her long, burgundy hair has been tied back into a mass of various braids and I think she would have been beautiful if it wasn’t for the crazed light that often shone in her eyes.

It’s particularly bright when she’s describing to us the various horrific ways in which we will no doubt each reach our end.

“I would kill for a good coma right about now,” I mutter beneath my breath, to which Kleio tries and fails to hold back a laugh.

Ersatz notices the exchange, and I curse.

Nothing gets by that psychopath.

She turns her razor sharp focus onto me, her yellow eyes alight with the possibility of carnage. “Something to report, raiders?” Ersatz purrs, a small smile playing on her merlot mouth.

“No, Preceptor,” I reply, and Kleio echoes.

Ersatz tilts her head of maroon braids and takes a step toward where I stand at one end of the crescent-shaped lineup.

There was a time when that one step alone from this preceptor in particular would have sent me running for the hills.

But now I don’t even flinch. In fact, I don’t move a single muscle.

Her smile widens incrementally when pressing, “Was there something funny, then? Something humorous about you all dying?”

Running my tongue against the inside of my bottom lip, I contemplate just how much the list of sarcastic comments I’m itching to respond with would cost me.

But then, from the corner of my eye, I catch Greer shifting her weight at the opposite end of the line and I’m promptly reminded that this is not a normal year.

It’s no longer just my own skin I risk when talking out of turn.

Damnit .

The words I chose slip out from between my teeth. “Not particularly, no.”

Preceptor Ersatz’s hawkish gaze narrows ever so slightly.

I’ve held a very special place on her shit list these last few years.

Ever since she realized I possessed one of the only affinities she couldn’t steal.

One of the only gods-given blessings she couldn’t imitate with her own freakish power.

Elemental affinities are apparently too wild and unpredictable for her own to wield.

I think she’s about to push again—to force me into saying something that will absolutely end with a flogging—and I find I’m too exhausted to care. I wasn’t kidding about the coma; I can feel myself falling asleep standing up.

But instead, she turns away in a flash of brilliant speed. I hear Javin Supad gasp and then swear sharply from somewhere nearby at the feeling of her snatching his affinity for speed.

“Enough distractions, raiders,” she lashes out, brandishing her words like a blade. “We will be going over fatal blows today. I want each of you to work on at least five ways in which your blessing could kill. No weapons involved or partners allowed.”

I’m onto my seventh technique for a fatal blow—this one being a bit of a stretch. Technically, the ice daggers I’ve crafted are weapons, but since they’ve been crafted by my own affinity, I say it counts.

“That would be cheating.”

The unexpected sound of Captain Larceon’s chiding makes me loosen my hold on the daggers, and they splinter midair.

“Damn it!” I snap, glaring at Vash whose appears on my left.

Damn him and his stupid stealth abilities.

“You’ve already come up with five. Don’t tell me you’re playing at being Preceptor Ersatz’s pet now,” he snarks admonishingly.

“No. I just so happen to have a plethora of ideas on how best to maim and murder.” I give him a false smile before adding sweetly, “What can I say? It’s a gift. ”

He laughs, and I find the sound of it unnerving.

My eyes quickly find Kleio standing across the outdoor lyceum.

She grins at us, and we both wave back at her in turn.

My second is quite annoyingly determined to force Vash and myself into a camaraderie of some sort.

A very difficult task indeed, considering the rather grim history between us.

“Any reason you’ve chosen to disrupt my concentration today?” I ask airily, more irritated than usual. Which is undoubtedly due to my lack of sleep. At this rate, I’ll have to skip water combat training and slink off to our bunks just to avoid tearing someone’s head off before dinner.

“They’re coming tomorrow night,” Vash reveals, no trace of humor left in his voice.

I look back up at him, my brows lifting in uncertainty. “You’re sure?”

He gives a sharp nod, the angles of his face drawn and slightly pale. “I’m positive. Raider Oneiros had a dream last night.”

Glancing away from Vash, I look over the scattered level-eights, all sharpening their affinity to kill.

Searching further, I find Riggs Oneiros sitting in a patch of honeysuckles several yards away from the bordering pine trees.

Preceptor Ersatz mostly ignores him and anyone else with an affinity the Order has deemed Vek .

That is to say—not lethal, and therefore unworthy.

Raider Oneiros is a big kid, always has been.

He’s the tallest in our level by at least a foot, with pasty arms and legs the size of tree trunks.

He could probably palm my head with his hand if he wanted to.

I’m sure our Grand Preceptor—and the rest of the Cardinal North, if we’re being honest—were positively devastated to find out he didn’t possess a mean bone in his body.

Choosing him as fourth in command for their crew was a strategic move on Vash’s part. I’ll give him that. Even if Raider Oneiros can’t fight worth shit, the value of his so-called 'Vek' affinity to dream in visions has been unforgivably underestimated in my opinion.

“Well fuck,” I mutter before turning my gaze back on Vash. “Thanks for the heads-up,” I say, and mean it .

He gives me a smile in return that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. And I watch as his golden-flecked gaze flickers to something behind me. “No problem. They’re supposed to hit Giant’s Crook at sundown. Riggs thinks we’ll be expected to receive them at the docks.”

“I’ll be sure to bring my most welcoming attitude,” I promise, my grimace falling right down into place.