Page 10 of The Tree of Spirits (Paragons #2)

THE IRON WOLF

T he Watchers were so big that they blocked out the rain—and everything else too. The world shrank to the sliver of space between us.

When the Knights spoke through their helmets, they still sounded human. The Watchers always sounded like machines.

One of them proclaimed, “The General wants to speak with you.”

Of course he did. Making a conscious effort not to sigh, I followed the Watchers to the black iron gates that barred entry to their district. Or maybe the gates were there to keep prisoners in.

The General was in the middle of a video call when the Watchers brought me to his office.

The room had more personality than its counterpart in the Castle.

For one, the walls were actually painted.

It was a pretty ugly shade of grey that looked a little too much like bare concrete for my liking, but that’s probably why the General had picked it.

The ugly paint wasn’t the interesting thing about the walls, however; that was the huge glass display case filled with model airplanes.

It hung on the wall opposite the General’s desk, presumably so he could look at it while he sat there.

But the General wasn’t sitting behind his desk right now. He was pacing in front of the flat television fastened above the fireplace.

“You’re supposed to be the Many Realms’ leading expert in magic armor. You’re supposed to be the best,” he said, his voice strained, scratching like shifting gravel. He must have spent too much of today shouting at people.

“I am the best,” replied the man on the screen. He was dressed like an Alchemist, sporting a vest full of gadget-stuffed pockets, worn over a dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves.

“And yet you found nothing.”

“I found a lot of things,” the Alchemist replied. “Just not what you were looking for. There’s no magic in the Techno Knight’s armor.”

“Stop calling him that,” the General grumbled.

“The soldiers who brought me the suit called him ‘the Techno Knight’. I assumed that was his official name.”

The General’s brow furrowed. “It is not . It’s just the ridiculous name the Knights came up with, and it’s since spread to my soldiers.”

“Well, technically speaking, it’s a pretty accurate name. The armor was made to mimic magic, but it itself is not magical. It’s tech. Made from salvaged parts.” The Alchemist adjusted his glasses. “Materials salvaged from Gaia.”

The General stopped pacing. “Are you saying that someone on Gaia made that armor?”

“I can’t be sure where it was made. I can only say how it was made: with materials from Gaia.

Some of the materials were over two decades old, from the time before the Curse.

” The Alchemist drummed his fingers across his desk.

“This is very impressive work, General. I’ve never seen armor mimic magic so effectively without having actually been forged with magic.

I didn’t even know it was possible. This is astonishing! ”

“Yes, it’s just peachy,” snapped the General. “But I’m going to have to ask you to keep a lid on this.”

“Why? If the Court knew Gaia could produce such powerful armor?—”

“They’d admonish us for having such powerful armor and yet still failing so horribly at ruling our own world.”

“I see you watched Prince Fenris’s recent interview.”

The General somehow managed to turn both ghostly pale and bright red at the same time. “Just send the boxes of armor pieces back to the Black Obelisk.”

“I figured you’d react this way. I had your courier pick up the boxes earlier today. The armor is already on its way back to you. See you at the Summit, General.”

The General grunted in response, and then the screen switched to a news broadcast.

“Well, don’t just stand there lurking in the shadows, Miss Winters,” the General growled over his shoulder, like a wolf impatient for his dinner.

I moved slowly toward him. “That was Daykan, one of the most famous Alchemists in the Many Realms.”

When the General faced me, his expression was one of surprise.

“I read Ms. Featherdale’s guide on all the important players at the Summit,” I told him.

His eyes narrowed. “That guide is over two thousand pages long.”

“I’m a fast reader. And I have a good memory.”

“Don’t show off, Miss Winters. It won’t earn you any favors with me.”

I resisted the urge to glance at the Scoreboard in the General’s office. No need to torture myself. It was unlikely that I’d moved in a positive direction.

“No favors? Too bad.” I pouted out my lips. “I was really hoping to win a medal or two. Or maybe even a statue in my honor.”

He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. And maybe I had. Mouthing off to the grumpy old General was a pretty bad idea.

“So, the Techno Knight’s armor isn’t magical,” I said to change the subject.

But the General’s frown only deepened. “You have bigger things to worry about than sticking your nose in matters that have nothing to do with you.”

Well, technically the Techno Knight had a lot to do with me. I’d been right there when he’d attacked the Tournament. And I’d helped the Knights defeat him.

But the General didn’t need to be reminded of yet another time that I’d been on the sidelines of a catastrophe. He already thought I was a menace. And all because I’d taken magic without permission.

Of course he didn’t know I’d always had magic. That was a big can of worms that I didn’t want to open.

Looking at the General was making me kind of queasy, so I looked at the TV instead. The news was showing scenes from today’s protests in the Emporium.

“People seem pretty upset,” I commented.

The General gave me an icy look.

I should have just kept my mouth shut. I always talked too much when I got nervous, and meeting with the General made me very nervous. Maybe it was his nickname: the Iron Wolf. That sure didn’t make him sound warm and cuddly.

The General’s icy demeanor turned to fire when the Rebels burst onto the scene on screen. “Pesky vigilantes. This is what happens when you give teenagers magic.” He glowered at me like it was my fault that there were Rebels at all.

I didn’t bother to remind him that the Rebels had existed before I’d come to the Fortress. I was sure it wouldn’t help my case.

The words Pandemonium in the Park! scrolled across the bottom of the screen as the camera cut to the Rebels dropping off a bunch of commandos, gagged and bound, at the Watchers’ gates. They even left a sign with them.

“A present from your friendly neighborhood Robin Hoods,” I read. “Aww, that’s cute.”

The General’s gaze burned into me. And his voice hissed like an angry teapot when he said, “You think this is funny, do you, Miss Winters?”

Yes.

“No,” I told him. “This is serious. And the Rebels seriously saved your soldiers’ butts today in the Park. So maybe instead of glowering at them, you should be thanking them.”

His nostrils flared. “You are even more ridiculous than I thought. Thank the Rebels? They are criminals , Miss Winters. And criminals always get what’s coming to them.” He looked at me like he was lumping me in with all of those so-called ‘criminals’.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I told him in a calm, level voice, even though my pulse was racing. I checked the urge to wipe my nervous, sweaty palms on my pants.

“You didn’t do anything wrong?” The General laughed, though it sounded more like the splat of a fist hitting someone’s head. “You cheated the system to steal magic, crashed a stolen Government vehicle through the Black Obelisk’s gates, consorted with suspicious supernaturals and bandits?—”

“I wasn’t consorting with those bandits! They tried to rob me!”

The General ignored my protests. “Not to mention that you keep sneaking off during training. And wherever you go, mayhem breaks loose. The thieves in the mall. The Cursed Ones in the Garden. The armored fiend at the Tournament. The protestors and Rebels in the Emporium.” He counted off the incidents on his fingers. “You were right there every time.”

“So were a lot of people!”

“And then today you ditched your team at a critical junction?—”

“Critical junction? We were collecting dinner knives!”

“—and took an unsanctioned trip into a restricted district,” he pressed on. “Where outlaws attacked my soldiers. Outlaws who were later joined by Rebels.”

“I think you’re twisting the truth, General.” I crossed my arms. “The Rebels helped the Watchers fight those outlaws.”

“Hearsay,” he said with a dismissive flick of his hand.

“It’s not hearsay. I saw it with my own eyes.”

A cold, calculating smile curled his lips. “So you’re admitting that you went off on an unsanctioned mission?”

Fiddlesticks. I’d walked right into that one.

“What were you doing in the Park, Miss Winters?” the General demanded.

I tried to think of a response that wouldn’t make everything worse.

“Why were you at the battle site?”

“I sent her.”

The General and I both snapped our attention to the door. Kato was standing there, looking pretty formidable in his awesome white armor. His helmet visor was open. Magic snapped and smoldered in his blue diamond eyes. It was seriously freaky.

Even the General looked unsettled. He cleared his throat before he spoke. “You sent Miss Winters into a fallen district?”

“I did,” Kato replied, not blinking. His lie was so convincing, even I nearly believed him.

The General cleared his throat again, and that seemed to help him recover his composure. “You have no authority over Apprentices, Kato.”

Kato’s smile was small. “You gave me that authority when you made me a Knight Commander.”

“Miss Winters isn’t your Knight to command. She’s not in your Tribe. And she’s not even a Knight, for that matter.”

“In an emergency, a Knight Commander has the authority to recruit any Apprentice Knight.”

“This wasn’t an emergency!” the General said stiffly, falling back into his chair.

“Are you sure about that?”

The General followed Kato’s gaze to the TV, which was now showing footage of today’s battle between Watchers and commandos. And the Watchers were totally getting their butts kicked.

“You couldn’t have known that would happen.” The General flinched when one of his SUVs exploded.

“Couldn’t I?” Kato’s dark brows peaked.

The General frowned, but he didn’t seem to have an answer to that.

“I sent Savannah into the Park because I suspected outlaws were hiding there.”

Kato’s voice was so smooth, so convincing, that even I almost believed him—and I knew he was lying.

“And I was right,” Kato added as another SUV blew up on screen. “I would have gone myself, but you’ve kept me busy chasing after Rebels.”

“If you were really chasing after Rebels, you would have been there when they appeared in the Park.” The General pointed at the video playing out on the TV; the Rebels had just arrived on the scene.

Kato watched them coolly. “The Fortress is a big place, General. And there are a lot of Rebels out there.”

“And yet you’ve not caught a single one!”

Kato folded his hands in front of him. “They aren’t so easy to catch.”

“Or maybe you’re protecting them.”

Bracing his hands against the edge of the General’s desk, Kato leaned in toward him. “If you really think that, then send another Knight after the Rebels. And lock me up with all the other traitors.”

The two of them locked stares. But it was the General who blinked first.

“Go,” he said, waving his hands. “And take Miss Winters with you.”

Kato moved toward the door. I followed him.

“One more thing, Kato,” the General said, just as we were about to leave.

We turned around.

“Don’t test my patience. I expect you to catch those Rebels soon. If you don’t, I’m going to have to rethink your position in the Castle.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less of you, General,” Kato replied, his face impassive. Then he closed his helmet and led me out of the room.