Page 14

Chapter

Nine

ARA

Considering he’s my squadron leader, I guess I have to be proud I made it this long without coming face-to-face with him. And the hope he wouldn’t recognize me was more wishful thinking.

Joel Cassius blinks his beautiful brown eyes at me as if he hopes I will disappear if he keeps it up.

He pulls me into the room he just stepped out of.

It seems to be some kind of storage room.

Rolled-up maps and boxes fill the shelves that occupy all the walls and are even piled on a small table, which makes it a rather cramped space.

He closes the door behind him and leans against it, effectively trapping me in the room with him.

“What are you doing here?” His eyes travel from my boots up my body and end at the cap on my head. I’m very aware of just how unflattering this uniform is.

“Uh, you pulled me in here,” I joke, but he doesn’t seem to appreciate my humor. His eyes linger on my hair.

“What have you done to your hair?” He sounds shocked. His fingers graze my neck when he grasps the short strands that always escape my braid.

I’m suddenly too aware of his closeness and of just how broad his shoulders have become. The place his fingers touched is still tingling.

Dammit, not helping.

“Just braided up.” I shrug. “Sloan stopped me from cutting it.”

“Thank the gods, she was always the reasonable one,” he says.

My gut twists. So that makes me the reckless, stupid one. The annoying little girl who always ran after her brothers.

I cross my arms and take a step back.

“I should set you on the next carriage home,” he grumbles, and I can only stare. Is he serious? Does he think he can get rid of me that easily?

“Since you've made the vow, they'll count it as desertion, but you’re here under a false name…” he goes on, ignoring my glare. “No one will be looking for a girl, or better yet, we’ll write Dar—”

“What? No!” I shout.

“Ara.” He sighs. “This isn't a game.” He says it like I’m a little kid who decided to play soldier for a while. I grind my teeth.

When he sees my face, he throws up his hands. “You could get hurt, and Ben will kill me if he finds out…” His eyes grow even wider. “Wait, where do your brothers think you are?”

“In Telos.” I give him a sugary smile.

His eyes narrow. “You want to tell me they know you're with the Third Aerie?”

I scoff.

“Ara,” he snaps.

“Do you think I'd be here if they knew?” I place my hands on my hips and look at him incredulously. He knows my brothers as well as I do, so I don’t know why he even asks.

“Fuck.” He runs a hand over his eyes. “Okay, let me think. We could…”

Stay calm.

“I'm not leaving, Joel,” I state.

“Ara, you can’t …” He steps toward me, shaking his head.

Okay, that’s enough. My fists clench.

“You have no idea what I can or can’t do.” And he has no idea what’s at stake for me either. “I’m not a child, Joel! You can’t just send me home,” I hiss.

Joel opens his mouth to reply when the door behind him opens, and another rider pokes his head in.

“There you are. We’re waiting for you, Cassius. Kyronos is getting impatient.”

“Fuck. Right, I’m coming.” The rider leaves, and Joel turns back to me. “This conversation isn’t over.”

Oh, it is so over .

Joel shakes his head at my stubborn silence and leaves.

At first I'm worried that he'll make good on his threat to inform Dar, but when he still hasn't shown up two days later, I start to relax.

Joel's eyes are on me whenever I cross his path. He’s probably still plotting how to get rid of me.

I ignore him, but make sure I don't run into him alone.

I can do without a repeat of our nice little chat.

If he thinks I’ll change my mind, he’ll be waiting forever.

I only have to face two riders in the Aerie regularly. My squadron leader, Joel, and my division leader, Centurion Tate Kyronos.

The fates have a cruel sense of humor.

I’m sitting next to Calix in the strategy meeting. The room is filled to bursting even though some riders are out on patrol, and it is the biggest of the classrooms—the one referred to as the theater because of the little podium at the bottom of the swooping rows of chairs.

All four division leaders stand in front of a big map of the southern part of Belarra. Red lines indicate what I can only guess are the patrol routes. Little symbols of crossed swords appear along some of them, and I blink. One of them has to be gifted with Illusions.

Centurion Vega steps up.

“We had increased activity all along the mist line over the past week. I expect it to get increasingly worse, like every winter. There were already some coordinated attacks, seemingly focused here and here.” He points out two places close to the border with Muntos, with nothing but farms and villages around.

Coordinated attacks?

Since when did nightmares and monsters coordinate their attacks? I’m looking around, but everyone else just nods along like that’s nothing new. Are the mist creatures so much different in the South than ours in the North?

“One rider and his bird were wounded by arrows, no casualties.”

Arrows?

I try to remember when anyone was shot by an arrow during an attack at our fortress but come up empty.

Bites, stings, and slashes from abnormally sharp claws, shattered and broken bones, burns from fire, poison and acid, even damage by hurled rocks and trees—my mother and brother deal with all that regularly, but arrows?

However, the other reports are very similar to the first one, except that the northern division lost a rider.

I’m still trying to make sense of everything I heard while we walk to magic theory.

“You look troubled,” Calix comments. “What is it?”

“I … grew up at an outpost in the north …”

“Oh, so you are legacy military?”

“Uh … yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“Are your brothers skyriders as well, then?” he asks.

“No … they’re infantry.”

Calix laughs.

“You’ve gotten a lot of shit for joining the skyriders then?” he asks.

“Something like that,” I answer, since the rivalry between skyriders and infantry will be the least of my problems if they find out. When they find out… I’ll have to tell them eventually. My insides twist and I push the thought away. “We’ve never had coordinated attacks as far as I can remember.”

Calix chuckles at that.

“What … did you tiptoe into leadership meetings? Of course, you wouldn’t hear about coordinated attacks at an outpost because they never get that far, and it’s not like they would share that information with everyone.”

I open my mouth to tell him that I overheard quite a few of those, but that would lead to questions I can’t answer. I snap my mouth shut.

Could it be that I never heard about it? But the arrows… I would have heard about those for sure, right?

“But those mist creatures are animals … how are they armed with bows and arrows? And how have I never heard about it?”

“Not the creatures.” Calix laughs. “The titans are shooting the arrows.”

“Titans?” I gape at him. “You mean like in the stories? But they don’t exist, they are just … myths.”

“Every child knows that you don’t leave the city walls at night or wander too close to the mists because titans will snatch you up and feed you to their monsters.”

“That’s what I’m saying.” I roll my eyes. “Those are stories to scare children so they stay safe.”

“The monsters are real,” Calix objects. “And the titans sound real enough to me, if they shoot us out of the sky. Who cares what their actual name is? Titans works for me.”

I ponder that statement for a while.

Of course, I have heard stories about titans—godlike people, stronger than any mortal and wielding powers anyone could dream of. I have also heard of the mist court ruled by the demon king himself, biding his time to smother our world in darkness … and no one is taking that for the truth.Right?

The thought that there might be truth to these stories scares me. Because what does that mean for me? What about the stories they tell about cursed ones?

Even if people live in the mists. That doesn’t make them titans or demons, I scold myself. And it doesn’t make the stories real.

“Calix? Why do you think the attacks get heavier during winter?” I ask.

“Because there is less light, and the mist is thicker. It makes it easier to hide.”

“Yeah, maybe …” But something about it bothers me.