Chapter 9 Aurora #2
When he spoke again, his voice softened, even for just a moment.
“If the Republic hadn’t turned on its own people, perhaps there would still be hope.
Your precious nation died years ago, princess—by its own hand.
It perished the moment its citizens decided to persecute innocents who were supposed to be their equals. ”
For all their quietness, his words carried a weight that seemed to bend the air between us.
Freedom and equality. Solidarity, justice, nobility.
The five values the Republic once cherished, each represented by a color on our flag, one for every race that had made our democracy great.
The values Father had instilled in me from my earliest days.
The values I vowed to return to my Republic.
A fissure split open in my chest to reveal the hollow pit I’d covered with years of duty and blind commitment. The war. The Total Rendition. The camps. How easily we’d abandoned everything we claimed to stand for.
I sank back into my chair, lungs struggling to pull in enough air.
The question I’d been avoiding for so long clawed its way to the surface.
Does a nation that imprisons and discriminates against its own people without cause, that’s responsible for countless deaths without a shred of remorse… does it deserve to survive?
Everything I loved existed within those walls. The answer should have been simple. But as I sat there, watching the pain etched into the faces of people who’d fought and suffered for a country that had betrayed them, I wasn’t so certain anymore that we deserved a second chance.
I’d been so lost in my spiral of thoughts, I hadn’t noticed Quakelord moving around. Not that this would be the first time he’d crept up on me.
The black jacket he wore had a subtle oriental influence, high-collared and tailored to emphasize his narrow waist and broad shoulders.
His fox-shaped eyes gleamed like fire agate as his mouth twitched in a way that meant he was either about to drop some philosophical bomb or crack a joke to break the tension.
“Damn,” he muttered, wrinkling his nose.
“The air in here is thick enough to choke a zmeu.” His voice aimed for lightness, but the tightness around his mouth betrayed him.
I supposed you never truly adjusted to the knowledge that your loved ones had been transformed into mindless killers, no matter how many years passed.
“Think we could all use something stronger than kafea. What do you say, Projector?”
He moved between us, distributing drinks—Terraknight’s ‘new and improved batch.’
I declined politely, and he simply nodded, moving on. My stomach was upset enough without me pouring gasoline over it. Quakelord paused beside Selena, extending the tray.
To my surprise, she accepted, but fisted her hand for a second to stop the trembling in her fingers before drowning the entire thing.
He followed in her steps, cheered to everyone at the table, and emptied another cup. The hiss that followed was the perfect rendition of a cobra poised to strike.
“Lieutenant, since we’re having a party,” he said, shaking his pitch-black hair about his shoulders, “do you know the infant mortality rate in camps without medical facilities?”
She looked at him with a dumbstruck face. I was sure mine wasn’t any different.
“When I was interned,” he said. “Barely any babies survived their first winter. Pretty sure it was the same everywhere. And those who lived were often… repurposed.”
Selena’s jaw clenched, but for once my reaction came faster than hers.
“What do you mean ‘repurposed’?” I choked out and gulped the dread pooling in my stomach.
“Guards, and sometimes halfbloods, tore those babes from the arms of their mothers and traded them for profit,” he replied, passing a cup to Terraknight. “Can’t say if they got coin or supplies in exchange.”
Blood drained from my face. He didn’t need to elaborate who they traded them with.
Citizens of the Republic—people who claimed to despise halfbloods—had used their infants as blood bags.
My stomach lurched violently. Acid shot up my throat.
It burned, but numbness spread from my fingertips up my arms as the horror crashed through me.
I’d found out in the worst possible way that the Wurdulaks fed on outliers who’d completed their service, but babies?
What kind of sick minds did we harbor in the Republic?
And why the hell had I been so blind to what was happening a stone’s throw from our walls?
Radu kneeled before me, his hand a brand against my thigh.
“Very soon, the halfbloods will cease to exist. And when they’re gone, will the purebloods step forward?
When you’ve never known true combat, when none of you knows what it means to survive on the battlefield, will you be able to continue the fight without them? ”
His voice remained gentle, but the reproach beneath was unmistakable.
Not the bitter satisfaction of someone watching deserved punishment unfold, but the frustration of a teacher watching students ignore critical lessons.
We’d fixated on petty divisions while blinding ourselves to the approaching catastrophe. We’d severed our own defensive limb.
Radu shifted in his new position, the slight squeeze of his hand pulling my focus back to him.
“With no volunteers to fill the ranks, compulsory service becomes inevitable,” he continued.
“But without our early defense, you’ll rely solely on the scanners.
And by the time those detect the enemy…” I could see the fires of destruction in his golden eyes. “It will already be too late.”
I sat frozen, unable to even recoil. The repercussions and the chaos of forced conscription would unleash rolled before my eyes.
Another fracture line through our already splintered society.
The wealthy would buy exemptions, while the common purebloods faced slaughter.
Civil unrest would tear us apart before the Souleaters even reached our gates.
My head shook in denial, though I had no counterargument to offer. I simply couldn’t accept this apocalyptic future Radu painted. And it was a mere blink of an eye away. Nowhere near enough time to implement enough change to stand on our own.
“The numbers don’t support that,” I muttered, racking my brain to prove him wrong. “Our intelligence reports show repeated failures on Russkaya’s side. Their attacks lack the coordination you’re describing.”
“Not to mention, Souleater numbers have been dropping significantly,” Selena added, her voice ratcheting up. She, too, had a hard time accepting Radu’s morbid forecast. “They’ve been reduced to half their former strength from just decades ago.”
“To the extent of what you can observe,” Harbinger countered, rising to his full height with that menacing ease that always made me think of wolves lurking in the woods.
His fingers traced the back of his neck, squeezed his nape in frustration.
“Your Republic’s surveillance extends only to the edge of what your scanners reach. ”
He zeroed in on me, the blood-red ring pulsing in tandem with his heartbeat. Not angry, but resolute.
“You have no means of knowing what gathers in the depths of their territory, where the Gloom shrouds everything,” he continued.
One finger tapped his sensitive ear—a subtle reminder that he could hear them.
“Yes, fewer Souleaters come to the front these days, but that’s tactical, not weakness.
They need only commit enough forces to exhaust us bit by bit, while their primary strength grows in the shadows, waiting. ”
The cold certainty in his voice left no room for argument.
I felt like crying and fainting at the same time, but I couldn’t shake his words.
Because that pattern of behavior could only mean one thing—Russkaya wasn’t losing.
They were conserving strength, building numbers, preparing for the moment they’d abandon this war of attrition and launch an overwhelming offensive that would shatter our defensive lines in a single, devastating blow.
“They couldn’t possibly possess the intelligence for such a sophisticated strategy,” I blurted.
He held my gaze for exactly five rapid heartbeats before delivering the final blow, his voice unnervingly calm. “They’ve already developed strategic intelligence. And that’s another reason why your Republic will lose.”
“You arrogant bastard!” Selena erupted, slamming her fist against the table. Wood splintered under the impact. Mugs jumped and clattered, kafea splashing across maps as Terraknight’s bread scattered to the floor.
The wild look in her eyes promised violence, and part of me—that stubborn fragment that still wanted to dismiss everything Radu said—wanted to join her fury. I wanted nothing more than to slap him into my reality, yell at him to take his words back.
But deeper instincts prevailed.
Harbinger never spoke without purpose or evidence. He’d proven his ability to hear the Souleaters was real. His long service was a testament of that.
We’d already confirmed the Republic’s plans for ‘welcoming’ mixed-breeds home as a solution to our own stupidity. Why should we doubt the rest?
“Sel, please,” I begged. “Let him finish.” I didn’t know if it was because I hadn’t wet my throat in a while, or if adrenaline and anxiety parched my insides, but my voice felt rough like sandpaper.
Terraknight righted her chair―another victim of her outburst―and steered Selena to sit. She glared at me, teeth savaging the inside of her cheek, but finally dropped back into her seat.
“Continue,” I told Harbinger.
He acknowledged with a barely there nod. The hard angles of his face tempered as he registered the naked fear I couldn’t hide. My heart galloped. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to flee, to abandon this room and its terrible truths.
But where could I possibly run?