Page 58 of Flameborne: Chosen (Emberquell Academy #1)

~ brEN ~

I dropped my face into my hands. Why was he doing this? Was he so angry, he wanted me punished by my brothers also?

“Are there any questions?” Donavyn asked gruffly.

“No, Sir!” my brothers answered as one. But I could feel their gazes on my back and sides. They would have questions—

“I have a question for our Flameborne,” Einar drawled.

Swallowing hard, I made myself sit up and meet his eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were in need?” he asked bluntly.

I was mortified. I swallowed hard. “I didn’t know I was going. I was invited after you left.”

A murmur met that, and they all turned back to Donavyn.

“Sir, how could we be expected to know if she didn’t?” Harle asked.

“You aren’t,” Donavyn replied simply. “But you are expected to have trained your newest, youngest squadmate to make sure you’re made aware of their plans when you return. Not only did this Flameborne not understand that anyone else should know where she was. She didn’t believe anyone would care.”

I shrank as low on that tall stool as it would allow while every one of my brothers turned to stare at me like Donavyn had just told them I’d eaten their sweets without permission.

“This won’t happen again,” Ronen muttered from where he leaned against the Instructor’s table at the front, his arms folded and his expression frustrated.

The others nodded, but he turned to look at each of them in the same way Donavyn had earlier.

“From now on, our squad has a new rule for any and all members: if you are leaving the Reach without telling me or Gil, you leave a written message for me in the Officer’s lounge and a note in the barracks.

” Then he turned to look directly at me.

“Bren, you won’t be given access to the barracks, but you can write a note and give it to a runner in the Academy building and they'll know where to leave it. Or in a pinch, grab a stableboy. They can get it to the Furymaster in a real emergency.”

I nodded and tried to look determined, but inside I was crumbling.

“A good plan,” Donavyn said quietly. “I trust this kind of oversight won’t be a problem in the future?”

“No, Sir!” they all barked in response.

“Then I believe you have a patrol scheduled. You’re dismissed,” Donavyn said.

He didn’t move, just stayed there at the front of the room as everyone rose quickly to their feet, their chairs and stools scraping on the stone floor.

I wanted to drop my head and disappear so they’d all leave without speaking to me.

But I knew I couldn’t. It took a moment to slide off.

I landed awkwardly and almost lost my balance, but when I found my feet I turned to find my brothers all lined up in front of me.

I blinked. “What—”

Einar was closest. He extended a closed fist towards me, not in a punch, but with his knuckles flat towards me. “I have been remiss in my duties to you, brother. Will you forgive me?” he asked through his teeth.

I was confused and instinctively looked at Donavyn over his shoulder whose jaw flexed, but he nodded once. His eyes cut to Einar then back to me.

I swallowed hard. “I… yes. Of course. And I’ve been, um, remiss as well,” I said, stumbling, uncertain if that was the right response. But no one winced or told me to stop, so I continued. “Will you forgive me, too?”

Einar nodded. But he didn’t move. A long moment later he looked down at his own hand and muttered through his teeth, “Touch my fist with yours, it’s our sign of a binding agreement.”

“Oh!”

I quickly made a fist and pressed my knuckles against his. Then he hurried down the aisle towards the door. Which was when Jhoare stepped up, his eyes that normally twinkled, pinched at the sides.

“I have been remiss…”

One by one, they all came to stand at my toes, offer their fists, and exchange requests to be forgiven and promises to forgive.

By the time they’d all filed through, I was on the verge of tears of embarrassment and fear.

Harle winked at me and whispered at me that it could have been worse, then clapped my shoulder and followed the others out the door.

They had to be so sick of me. All these stupid traditions I didn’t know, and all the ways I kept getting things wrong, or missing the mark. God, I couldn’t believe Donavyn had made them do this. It wasn’t their fault I was touched by an asshole last night and panicked!

But when I turned to see if Donavyn had left, instead I found Ronen.

Ronen. The Wing Captain .

He stood exactly as the others had, his fist extended, his jaw flexing. “Bren, I have been rem—”

“No,” I gasped. “You don’t have to—”

“I do,” he said firmly, but quietly, eyeing me with a warning in his gaze. Then he cleared his throat. “Bren, I have been remiss in my duties to you as a brother. Will you forgive me?”

I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. “Of course. But you haven’t. This is my fault—”

“Bren, that is not the response. When a man humbles himself before you, you do not argue with him,” Donavyn snapped.

I blinked back the pinch of tears, and nodded quickly. “Yes. Yes, of course. Sir. I’m sorry,” I breathed. Then I met Ronen’s eyes and begged him to forgive me, and with every word I prayed he understood how horrified I was by this entire exchange.

When we’d bumped fists, Ronen relaxed. He patted my shoulder and gave me a small smile. “Don’t worry. They’ll get over it,” he said quietly, before turning on his heel, saluting Donavyn, and trotting for the door.

I was left standing there, mortified and hurt and angry and embarrassed, staring at the door where they’d all left and would spend most of the day together, talking about this without me.

“You did well picking up on the need to—”

I turned on Donavyn, gaping and furious. “You didn’t have to do that to them!”

“Yes, I did,” he muttered.

“No, you didn’t!” I was so upset, I forgot my embarrassment as I strode towards him. “I know I was wrong last night, but that doesn’t mean you can destroy the only good thing I have left.”

His head jerked back, and his formal, steely exterior flickered. “The only good thing, Bren?”

“They’re all angry now!” I hissed. “They’ve lost their trust. They think I’ll—”

“They lost trust because you don’t trust them. That hurt them, Bren. They thought you understood. Last night it became clear to me that they’ve still left far too much unsaid with you. Trust me, they’ll still want to help you, just like I do.”

My jaw dropped. “I don’t want your help if you’re going to punish my whole squad for the thing I did wrong! You didn’t have to embarrass them and make them all angry, You could have just corrected me and I would have taken it!”

“I did correct you,” he growled. Then his expression went flat and he lowered his voice.

“My conduct in the aftermath undermined my authority towards you last night, and I’m very sorry for that.

There was no excuse. I assure you it won’t happen again.

But make no mistake: my discipline of the others has nothing to do with anything that may or may not have happened between you and I.

You need to learn to let your squad help you, and they need to learn to better watch out for you—and each other.

Do you want to reach the trials or not?”

“Of course I do! But if you’re serious about helping, making my squad angry with me isn’t the way to improve that!”

“Squad unity is paramount,” he said in that strained, formal tone that I hated.

“And an additional challenge for you because you don't bunk with the men, so you lose the natural intimacy of off-work proximity. Last night I learned that you’re alone so much, you still haven’t understood what it’s truly like to be a part of a squad.

They have failed you in that. They should have been working on it before now.

I reprimanded them because they failed you.

And they didn’t argue, because they know it. ”

“They didn’t argue because you’re the fucking Commander and what you say, goes!”

“Perhaps you should trust their judgment enough to follow the example, then,” he growled.

I reeled. Heart racing, head spinning. He would make my brothers lose their patience with me! And after last night, if they didn’t help me with the training, I wasn’t going to make to the trials—and he knew that! He fucking knew that, and he still did this!

“You want me to fail,” I breathed.

“Excuse me?!” True anger flared in his eyes.

My brothers were flying today. They’d talk to each other, realize that I’d spoken to him about them, and that’s why he did this. What if they thought I tried to get them in trouble?

I couldn’t breathe. “Stop blaming them for my failings! It’s not their fault!”

“I’m not. They were supposed to show you—” he snapped.

“I’m the one who went out alone, they didn’t even know!”

“Precisely my point!” That edge of anger in his tone grew sharper and his eyes blazed.

“Yesterday should have been a celebration with your own squad—if they had to patrol, they could have made arrangements with you for later when they returned. Instead I find you out with another squad who could have done anything and wouldn’t have been stopped until it was too late because not even I knew where you were!

” he snarled. I tensed as he took the two steps to close the gap leaning over me, eyes blazing.

“They were right to ask your forgiveness. They will learn the lesson—now it’s time for you to do the same! ” he barked, right in my face.

I shuddered and suddenly it was all too much.

His anger. My brother’s upset. My embarrassment… it all twisted together in my chest and I shrank.

He was right.

They were all right. Right to be angry. Right to be sick of me. Right to be impatient.

I had taken every step in this path wrongly and now they would turn their backs. And I couldn’t blame them .