Max
The corridor outside the combat review class was packed by the time I skated up to it.
The class was new, opened on demand—not by us; cadets didn’t carry that kind of weight—but on Prince Aelindor’s authority. He’d promised the first-years a seat at the combat review, and he’d kept his word.
It wasn’t mandatory, so I hadn’t expected it to draw a crowd. Looked like every first-year in the academy had turned up anyway. The cadets along the aisle drew back to clear a path for my blades. That was new.
At the door, I leaned in for a look. Every seat full, cadets lined three deep along the walls.
Fine, I’d skip it, then. No one would give me grief for it; the heirs had already pulled me out of regular classes and training, and nobody in this academy had logged more hours at their side than I had.
Probably half the reason the aisle had opened for me in the first place.
Thanks, but I’d turn around and go. I’d sat in on the heirs’ and the generals’ classified war briefs. This would be child’s play. I’d come out of curiosity, nothing more.
“Max! Max!” Bryn’s voice cut over the noise. She was down in the front row, waving both arms like she was flagging down a transport. “Over here! Hurry up. I knew you’d come. I got here an hour early for these seats!”
Even as she yelled, she was fending off a cadet who kept trying to slide into the empty chair beside her. From the look of it, she’d nearly come to blows holding it for me.
I skated through the entrance, and a voice behind me brought me up short.
“Cadet Max Morning.”
Now what?
I glanced over my shoulder.
Lieutenant Vesper strolled in behind me.
Average height, healthy brown hair, pale skin, a pair of glasses perched on her nose.
She looked gentle for a vampire—none of the predator’s edge I’d braced for.
She wore the oxblood of Sagittarius, Nikolai’s house, in plain fatigues.
I’d learned by now that not every vampire had red eyes, though they all grew fangs when it was time to feed.
Hers stayed put behind a mild, almost scholarly calm.
“Since you’re here,” she said, stepping behind the podium and taking a swig from her flask, “you can join my demo. Up front.” She pointed to a spot off the podium, about three o’clock from where she stood.
“You deployed east with the Spartans,” she went on. “You’re the first and only cadet who’s seen real combat. It’s in the report I read. So tell the class.”
I scanned the room, and it landed on me again, what the heirs had built without ever making a show of it. Every one of them was protective of me, yet they didn’t treat me like glass.
Nikolai’s voice drifted up from memory. One day you’ll be our equal in every way. They already treated me like one. My chest tightened, and a slow warmth spread out from under my ribs.
On my skate shoes I had a clear view over the whole room—I towered over everyone, the way I always did. The old insult surfaced right on cue.
Scarecrow.
Plenty of looks came my way. Envy, mostly. Some respect. A few still openly hostile—Delia’s crowd, who’d somehow all landed seats.
“Uh, Instructor,” I said. “I can’t tell all of it. Some of it is classified.”
“I know exactly what’s classified,” Lieutenant Vesper said. “I’ll only ask for what isn’t. This is for their education. Will you do your fellow cadets the honor?”
Put that way, I didn’t have much room to refuse.
Lieutenant Vesper set her flask down and faced the room.
“Before the eastern corridor,” she said, “when did a demon last set foot on Covenant soil? Anyone.”
A cadet near the front ventured it. “Never, ma’am?”
“Not in living memory.” She paused meaningfully.
“Eighty-one years, the DarkVeil’s been a wall.
Things go in. Nothing comes out. And only the White Witch’s inner circle was ever known to summon a demon at all.
So when thirteen of them came pouring across our border in daylight, what does that tell you? ”
“The antichrist summoned them,” Bryn said, with total confidence.
That got a scatter of laughter. Some rolled their eyes at my friend.
“We don’t know if they were summoned, or if they came through on their own,” Lieutenant Vesper said.
“And note what they did. They didn’t raid.
They didn’t occupy. They hunted, in formation, and they cut the train off from its reinforcements before the first window cracked.
” She turned to me. “Cadet Morning was on that train. Cadet?”
Every head swung my way. I kept it plain.
“The wards didn’t hold,” I said. “That was the first bad sign. They came up the hull like a military force. And they don’t surrender. We cornered one, and it opened its own throat. They wouldn’t allow themselves to be taken prisoner.”
A low murmur moved through the room.
“Is it true you killed one?” a wide-eyed cadet asked.
“Two, I think.” I shrugged. “One for certain. The other I kicked off the roof of the train at full speed.”
“Does plain steel even cut them?” someone else called. “I heard fire doesn’t work.”
“Elemental flame isn’t effective against the high-caste fire demons,” Lieutenant Vesper said. “That’s our working theory. You want enchanted steel if you’re cutting one down.”
“Convenient.” Delia studied her nails. “A lot of trained soldiers died out there, and the academy’s pet scarecrow strolls home without a scratch.
Either you’re the deadliest cadet in our history”—she smiled like a cat that had just cornered something small—“or you spent the whole fight tucked behind three princes.”
The room went still.
“You think three princes have a spare hand for babysitting in the middle of a demon swarm?” I smiled, sharp. “You should apply for the next deployment, Delia. If you’re accepted, the DarkVeil’s right where we left it. Ride out and show us how it’s done.”
Someone in the back snorted. Delia’s smile thinned to nothing.
Lieutenant Vesper cleared her throat to take back the floor—
And the alarm went off.
It tore through the fortress, every Stormglass klaxon screaming at once, a sound I’d already learned to hate.
Another attack.
Right at our door.