23. Max
MAX
T he emergency drill ripped through the barracks at pre-dawn, and every cadet hit the floor and dressed at combat speed.
I was still dazed from last night. My body remembered things my brain was trying to bury, and the ghost of Nikolai’s mouth on my thigh made it hard to lace my boots with steady hands.
Light hadn’t cracked the sky yet. I ran after the other first-years, falling into the stream of bodies flooding through the barracks doors. Thane barked orders, directing squads into formation as we poured into the courtyard.
I caught fragments between cadets near the front of the pack. Senior cadets—the ones plugged into the base’s rumor network—traded quick, clipped words.
“The heirs are back.”
“All three?”
“Affirmative. Arrived an hour ago.”
My chest tightened .
The courtyard was already filling with cadets in formation.
First-years assembled by company in tight ranks, twelve abreast, standing at parade rest. Second-years held the left flank.
Officers and senior NCOs formed a rigid line at the front, facing the assembled battalion.
I counted over two thousand cadets arranging themselves into a grid of gray and dark silver under the pre-dawn sky.
I fought to shove last night out of my head as I searched for my position—sixth rank, fourth file. The formation was tight. Shoulders nearly touching. I couldn’t afford to be a pleasure-drunk zombie right now. Not with who stood facing the assembly.
Drakken.
His uniform didn’t have a single crease, as if the fabric feared him too.
He stood at the center of the command line with the stillness of a man who didn’t need to move to dominate a space—legs braced, hands clasped behind his back.
His dark hair was military-short. His shoulders blocked out the sky behind him.
Power rolled off him in waves that pressed against the formation, and every cadet stood so rigid they might have been nailed to the flagstones.
His cold gray gaze found me before I’d even reached my position.
I was dashing to fill my spot when his eyes locked on, tracking me through the ranks the way a predator tracks movement in a herd. I turned my head, met his stare. Tried not to flinch.
Surprise flashed in his eyes. Then something raw—a flicker of need so brief it might have been a trick of the pre-dawn light. But I’d spent years reading faces in the dark. I didn’t imagine it.
I understood the shock. I’d changed. Days of real food and sleep had filled me out—healthy, strong, my skin glowing instead of ashen.
I barely recognized myself in the mirror.
Of course, I’d cinched the chest-bind tighter this morning.
Nikolai had provided me with a spare, and I could wash and dry them in his bathing chamber that was exclusively mine to use.
I had no idea what the need in his eyes was for. He didn’t crave my blood like Nikolai. As I settled into my spot, my gaze still on him like every other cadet’s, I held my ground. This was a test of will. Same as last time. I wouldn’t fold under his alpha stare.
The need vanished. Loathing replaced it—aimed at me, or maybe at himself for the slip. As if he’d been caught in his own reaction and despised it.
And damn my height. I stood taller than every cadet in the formation—over two thousand of them. Only Drakken edged me out, and barely.
“Cadet Max!” Drakken barked.
I snapped to attention. Every other cadet was already locked in. I’d been trying to make myself shorter by widening my stance and bending my knees.
“Yes?” I asked, then caught myself. The cadets always shouted their responses. “Yes, sir!”
“Fall out of formation!”
What now? Hadn’t I shouted “yes, sir”? What else did he want? I had nothing to give him. Not even attitude—not in front of the entire battalion.
“Roger that.” I nodded and stepped out of the line .
The cadets nearest me shifted—angling their shoulders away, widening the gap where I’d stood, as if I were contaminated.
“Who the hell do you think you are, Private?” Drakken’s voice carried like a mortar round. The officers flanking the command line fixed me with identical looks of disgust. “You don’t walk to formation. You don’t stroll. And you sure as shit don’t swagger.”
I blinked. “I didn’t swagger, sir. That’s just how I walk. I’ve walked this way since I was a toddler.”
I’d been imitating boys since I could stand upright. I might’ve overdone it over the years, but I couldn’t unlearn two decades of performance.
“You’ve swaggered since you were a toddler?” Drakken sneered.
A few cadets snickered. The sound died instantly under Drakken’s gaze, like a match dropped in water.
“I can’t help how I walk, sir.”
“You do not address your commanding officer without permission!” one of his aides barked, as if I’d committed treason.
I understood that every soul in this courtyard would lick the ground where the dragon prince walked. But there was no need to sacrifice me for it just because licking wasn’t my thing.
I pinched my lips, stood at the side of the formation, shoulders hunched.
“Is that how you stand at attention, Cadet Private Max?” Drakken barked. “Where’s your bearing? Where’s your training? ”
I couldn’t win. I looked ahead, face burning. “Sorry, sir!”
Just get it over with, asshole.
At least the humiliation had scrubbed last night clean out of my head—no more phantom memories of Nikolai’s body pressed against mine on the chaise, his erection unmistakable.
“Who gave you the right to swagger, Private?” Drakken’s voice dropped, each word a fist. He just wouldn’t let it go.
“Generals don’t swagger. Combat vets with three tours don’t swagger.
You are the lowest cadet in this formation.
Act like it! Your insubordination disgraces this academy.
You will correct yourself. You will move like a soldier, not a street performer.
” He let the silence bite. “Twenty laps. Barefoot. Begin immediately.”
I bent, unlaced my boots, pulled them off. Two pairs of socks: one on my feet, one stuffed inside my boxers to fake a male bulge. Details matter when your whole existence is a disguise. I peeled off the foot socks and tucked them into my boots.
When I straightened, Drakken’s glare was still on me. I stared back. Then—I don’t know what came over me. Of all the things I could’ve done, I winked at him.
I didn’t wait for the fallout. I turned and jogged toward the track, a block from the courtyard.
The ground was icy. The cold bit into my bare soles with every step, and tiny stones dug into the skin. I paid it no mind. I’d been one of the toughest miners at Crimson Ridge, barefoot for a decade on rock that was sharper and crueler than the track .
Bring it on, dragon dickhead!
As I ran, Drakken’s address to the battalion drifted across the courtyard, his voice carrying effortlessly over two thousand cadets who hung on every word.
A battalion of sheep, I thought bitterly.
“Meeeh! Meeeeeh! Meh!!”
Silence hit the courtyard like a bomb.
Every head turned to me. Rage seared Drakken’s eyes from across the distance.
Fuck.
I hadn’t realized the bleat had torn from my throat. A bad habit from the mines—years of muttering to myself in the deepest tunnels, where the only audience was rock, dust, metal, and Coldiron. My inner monologue had escaped through my mouth.
I could try to explain. Food allergy. Acid reflux.
A physical reaction that couldn’t be controlled.
But then I’d have to explain having a steak dinner at Nikolai’s penthouse.
When you hoarded one lie, you had to build an entire narrative to cover it, and I had too many lies to keep the architecture from collapsing.
I couldn’t take it back. I didn’t mind the laps, but I was terrified he’d take away my breakfast. I woke up every dawn looking forward to that first meal.
So I did the only thing I could. I pretended the bleat never happened, pumped my arms and legs harder, and sprinted for the far end of the track.
Out of sight, out of mind.
So I hoped.
On the second lap, I heard boots behind me.
I turned my head. Bryn was running at my six. She flashed me a grin and closed the gap.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” I glanced sideways, surprised anyone would voluntarily run beside me.
“Bryn.”
“I know. Heard you in class. I’m Max.”
“Everyone knows the name of the new warlock.”
“I’m not a warlock.” I sighed. No one believed me. If Prince Drakken deemed me a warlock, then a warlock I was.
“Doesn’t matter to me,” she said. “I don’t judge. I’m a lesbian and a woman of color.”
“You’re white.”
“And white isn’t a color? That’s racist, Max.”
“Why are you out here?” I almost smiled. “Don’t tell me you got punished too.”
“Guilty.” Her grin widened. “When you bleated like a sheep—that’s what that was, right?—I let out a giggle before I could shove my fist in my mouth. So here I am.” She didn’t look remotely sorry. “Worth it. Prince Drakken noticed me.”
“That might not be good news, catching the dragon’s eye.” I spoke from personal experience.
She cocked a pierced eyebrow. “Ever heard there’s no bad publicity, amigo?”
“Can’t say I agree.” I gave her boots a covetous glance. “At least you still have your boots.”
“And I only have to run three laps.” She looked down at my bare feet, sympathy crossing her face. “ You’ll need the medic by the end of twenty. If the prince allows it.”
My feet would bleed. The skin would tear. I’d had worse.
“I don’t get it,” Bryn said, matching my pace.
“Drakken’s always been fair. Loved across the academy and the army.
I’ve never heard of him singling anyone out, let alone punishing a cadet for how they walk.
The warlock label didn’t help your case, but he’s never had issues with other witches in camp. ”
“Guess I’m special.”
“You sound bitter, but I don’t blame you.”
“What I wouldn’t give for your boots right now.” I steered away from the edge. Sarcasm wouldn’t lift my spirits, and I couldn’t afford to spiral. Survive first. Feel sorry for yourself never.
“I’d lend you one,” she said. “But you’re a big boy with big feet, and mine are three sizes smaller.”
“Don’t worry. I’m used to bending my toes.”
“You’re cool, Max. Good-looking too. If I were into men, I’d dig you.”
“You haven’t seen my asshole side.”
“There are plenty of assholes here.” Her voice dropped. “Just watch your six. The Sorting is coming.”
“What sorting?”
“Mild term for culling. You know Greycrown trains elite soldiers and officers, right? Everyone here either has magic or superhuman strength—the one percent the Rupture’s flood of magic actually changed.”
Culling. The word sank through me like ice.
“How will they cull? ”
“No one knows.”
“There’s been no culling before? Nothing for reference?”
“No.”
My blood went cold. I remembered the look in Drakken’s eyes when we’d locked gazes across the formation.
It didn’t matter that I’d done nothing wrong.
He thought I was a threat. He’d marked me as the closest thing to the White Witch—his mortal enemy—and the Sorting was a clean, legitimate way to get rid of me.
“Lots of speculation,” Bryn continued, her voice low enough that the wind nearly swallowed it.
“They say during the Sorting, there’ll be death.
Anyone deemed disloyal to the Zodiac Covenant gets cut down.
The trial scores you too. Even if you survive but score low, you get shipped to a regular training center outside Denver.
Standard infantry. Career over before it starts. ”
If I failed, I’d either be killed or be expelled. No more Drakken breathing down my neck. No more cadets lining up to make my life hell.
But I’d never see Aelindor, Nikolai, or Caspian again.
They wouldn’t grieve for a failure, no matter what they’d said about my potential. Pain stabbed through my ribs at the prospect—disappointing them, being separated from them. The reaction was so sudden and fierce I frowned at myself for it.
I hadn’t known them long. I shouldn’t be attached. But this went deeper than attraction, deeper than gratitude. My blood hummed when they were near. My body ran hot the instant any of them appeared. I couldn’t explain it any more than I could explain the demon or the Coldiron.
And I knew I’d be the target. Every cadet in that courtyard had watched their general single me out and strip me down in front of the battalion. For them, the Sorting was permission.
If the dragon got his wish and tossed me from the academy, I’d lose the best training and resources on the continent. I might never be strong enough to get Missy out alive.
I ran faster. Lifted my chin. Forced the dread out of my gut with each exhale.
Failure was unacceptable.
And fuck the dragon.