17. Max
MAX
I rose before anyone else in the barracks.
The room was still dark, the only sound the breathing of two hundred cadets fast asleep.
I slipped from my cot and moved quickly toward the bathroom stalls at the far end of the corridor.
I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and checked my chest-bind, cinching it tight. All done in under four minutes.
By the time the reveille bell tore through the building, I’d changed into my uniform and was standing beside my cot, the bed made with corners tucked the way I’d watched Thane do his.
The room erupted. Cadets rolled from bunks, scrambling for boots. I followed the flood of bodies out the door and into the gray morning light.
The track stretched before us, a wide oval of packed dirt bordered by low concrete barriers, large enough to hold thousands of runners without crowding.
Beyond it, one of the towers rose dark against a pale sky to the far south.
Harrow had mentioned two tracks and three training centers on the compound.
This one sat right at our doorstep, built for the academy cadets.
The morning run wasn’t mandatory, Thane had explained—just a routine most cadets kept because Drakken’s training program ground down anyone who showed up to drills already winded.
I was all for it. More than that, I needed stamina.
My plan hadn’t changed: cross the Scorched Wastes again, get back to the mine, get Missy out.
That meant building endurance I didn’t yet have.
I merged into the crowd but still stuck out. My uniform draped over my large, bony frame like a flag on a pole. I was taller than everyone on the track, taller than the second-years who’d joined the run, taller than the handful of officers doing laps on the inner ring.
If anyone wanted to take a shot at someone in the crowd, I’d be the sole target.
The rhythm of running steadied me. I kept a measured pace, not fast enough to draw attention, not so slow that I fell behind.
The cadets were different out here than they’d been last night.
More disciplined. Focused on building strength rather than channeling their hatred for the White Witch onto the nearest scapegoat.
No one talked to me. Plenty of glares, though.
Let them look. I wanted to smirk back, but it wouldn’t do me any good. So I kept my face blank and ran.
After a couple of laps, the electronic tablet Harrow had given me vibrated in my uniform pocket. He’d said to carry it at all times and showed me the basics—swipe here, tap there, don’t drop it in the latrine .
I pulled out the palm-sized device and squinted at the screen. An added schedule notification: orientation briefing starting in five minutes.
That meant no breakfast. Shit. I’d been looking forward to it. Meals were the highlight of my day here. A full stomach made every indignity worth swallowing.
Don’t get spoiled, I warned myself. You survived on scraps for years. Your friends in the mine are hungry. Your sister is hungry.
Then I thought of Desta and Kaid, still missing.
Their faces flashed behind my eyes—Desta’s grim, set jaw. Kaid’s frightened eyes. Lost somewhere in the Wastes, or worse.
I’ll come for you. For all of you, I vowed.
I ran off the track toward the classroom buildings.
The classroom block sat to the left of Greycrown Hall, where Drakken kept his main office.
The academy’s administrative building was a gray stone structure flying the banners of the Zodiac Covenant from its parapets.
East of it stood a library—I could see its peaked roof from the track.
I intended to visit as soon as I had a free hour.
Beyond the academy grounds, the fortress spread into its military quarters.
All the way to the northwest border, the Fae army held their position, with a stretch of forest shielding their encampment.
The vampire army was posted at the east border, their domed barracks built to block sunlight.
I hadn’t yet pinpointed the locations of the shifter army under Caspian or the hybrid forces under Drakken’s direct command. I’d find out. Information was survival.
I didn’t need a map to find the classroom. The brown-red brick building was impossible to miss—a wide entrance already funneling a stream of cadets inside. I followed the crowd into the first room on the right.
The class was nearly full. I found a seat in the last row, back to the wall, with a clear sightline to the door. The remaining seats filled within a minute. After that, cadets stood along the back wall or crowded into the corridor, waiting and chatting with barely contained excitement.
Was every class so high-demand? The room was packed with far more bodies than it was meant to hold. I didn’t need to look far for answers. Whispers curled around me like smoke.
“I heard Prince Aelindor is lecturing the class himself. He’s never done that, not even for graduation.”
“But this is just orientation for the new recruits. We only got seven this month. Plenty of instructors for that.”
“The prince wouldn’t waste his time on second-years, let alone fresh cadets who can’t find their own asses with both hands.”
“Maybe it’s about the mutant wyvern attack last week.”
“Then he’d address it at assembly or have his captain brief us. Like always.”
I agreed with that. Common sense said the most powerful heir of the Zodiac Covenant didn’t carve time out of a war to lecture a handful of nobodies, myself included. That would be like deploying a siege cannon to swat a fly.
You still don’t get it, do you, Max? The demon’s voice purred through my thoughts, and I nearly jumped out of my chair. He’s here for you.
That kind of self-important thinking would get me killed faster than a knife in the dark. I sneered inwardly. Unlike the creature squatting in my skull, I’d never fool myself with delusions of grandeur. And I never trusted its flattery.
“This is unprecedented.” The woman soldier in front of me—half-shaved head, voice bright—leaned toward her companion. “One of the heirs, especially the Fae heir, actually instructing a class in person? This is huge.”
“Second-years are here too,” the cadet beside her muttered. “Everyone just wants to see him.”
I felt Aelindor before he entered.
His magic flared in the matrix of my mind. The air rippled.
The ambient noise—the shuffling, the whispered gossip, the nervous energy of hundreds of cadets packed into a room—died in an instant. Every spine straightened. Every pair of eyes fixed on the door.
Ooh, powerful and delicious. The demon perked up, its voice sliding through my thoughts like silk. The Fae’s here.