29. Callum
CALLUM
The wind howled as we cut across the sky under the cover of the stars.
I felt the chilled desert winds whipping around me as I beat my wings, staying low to the ground, praying to Aeternus that the RSG couldn’t spot our forms as we snuck from The Wall.
I felt Axel’s illustratio affinity spanning across both our forms, shielding us as we flew from Raelyna’s apartment.
If I was right, the guards were far more concerned with keeping those inside The Wall in than they were about watching the surrounding desert landscape for angels flying through the sandy dunes surrounding Solis Quarter.
A gust of wind hit from my left, my wing pulling as it caught with the current, and I refocused on the task at hand.
Letting the wind catch my wing, I glided higher, putting slightly more distance between myself and the desert sands.
I could feel small granules pelting my wings as the summer sands blew across the open expanse of desert and could only pray that the granules didn’t embed themselves too deeply into my feathers.
With a glance over my shoulder, I tracked the distance we’d put between ourselves and The Wall—the towering, obstructive gray cement looming high into the night sky.
I shook my head, still in disbelief that Lucanus and those before him truly believed that trapping citizens within a boundary was the solution.
Another gust of wind whipped across the desert dunes, and a curse slipped from my lips as sand bit into my skin, even with my dunewrap high in place.
“Do you truly believe there’s a cave system this far out in the desert dunes?” Pierce’s voice sounded over the wind once we were well outside of the RSG’s visibility, his affinity still surrounding us as he tried to shield some of the winds.
I huffed a breath as my wings flapped, head turning toward my second. “If there’s not, it’s going to be a long flight home.”
“We don’t even know what to expect if we find the caves she mentioned.” His voice held a hint of doubt as he spoke.
“We didn’t have many options—” I retorted.
“Not sure if flying into the abyss is truly the better option,” he stated as we flew further into the dunes.
“It was either the dunes or the RSG,” I replied with a low chuckle. “Not sure either option was really calling to me, but we made our choice.”
“Well . . .” Axel’s voice was a long drawl as he cut me a look. “You made our choice, but sure . . . we made our choice.”
I laughed as we flew deeper into the unknown. “It can’t be much longer now.”
“He says regarding the unknown location we are flying toward with little to no directions.”
“Either shut up or help scout out the cave system,” I bit out as I refocused on the task at hand . . . finding the stars-damned caves that Raelyna claimed existed.
Was this a stupid idea? Perhaps. But I’d made far more idiotic choices on missions, so at least this wasn’t the worst decision I’d made.
Just look for the rocks. Raelyna’s words ran through my head on repeat.
As the wind whipped against my wings, I was this close to cursing her name .
. . starbound or not. Just look for the rocks.
What sort of stars-damned advice was that to begin with?
And for the love of Aeternus, why had I not demanded more details than that when we’d been inside her apartment?
Just look for the rocks . . . in a fucking desert filled with sand-covered dunes, whose landscape could change at the whim of the summer sands.
How I’d been lucky enough to spot the stars-damned entrance to the tunnel system was beyond me. The small alcove amidst a clustering of rocks hadn’t been much of an indicator.
Our feet touched the sand just as the first streaks of sunlight began to touch the horizon.
With a stretch, I fanned my wings wide, the golden feathers shining in the early morning light as I gave them a brief shake, praying to Aeternus that the summer sands hadn’t embedded themselves too deeply into the feathers.
With one last movement, I tugged them in, retracting my wings until they disappeared entirely, and felt every muscle in my upper back ripple from the released pressure.
“She expected us to find this?” Axel half scoffed as he looked around the barren dunes that surrounded us.
I just shook my head as my eyes narrowed on the rocks before us.
It wasn’t much . . .
A clustering of five rocks, not even half our size. The reddish hue of the stone had the cluster blend into its surroundings. I scanned each rock before my eyes focused on the small rectangle faintly etched near the bottom of one of the larger rocks.
I moved in, stretching my hand out, pressing against the outline, when I heard a faint click, and the panel popped out of the stone.
“Stars-damned,” Axel cursed behind me as we stared at a small keypad in the stone.
“Fuck,” I bit out as I studied the keypad.
“You’ve got to be—” Axel’s protest of annoyance cut off as I shot him a withering glare.
“You still have that fluorlite on you?” I asked as my fingers tapped rhythmically against the stone’s surface.
“One step ahead of you,” Axel replied as he pulled a small light from his pocket before tossing the device to me. Flipping the device in my hand, I hit the switch, waiting a moment before a soft blue hue of light began flickering from the other end.
Holding the fluorlite over the keypad, I watched as the faint outline of fingerprints began to emerge across four digits.
“I’m so glad she neglected to tell us the code before we left,” Axel stated as I began calculating the variations of the code in my mind, intent on getting access to the keypad on the first go.
I didn’t.
It took twenty tries and three rounds of arguing with the damn keypad before the stars-damned device finally lit up and a door magically slid open in the middle of the stars-forsaken desert.
SCOUTING DAY 16 (9 days since last contact with Guild)
“Two days,” Axel muttered as we lay back on the singular couch in the cave we’d been hiding out in. “Do you think she was serious about us staying here three whole days?”
“Fuck if I know,” I replied as I took a drink of whiskey from the bottle we’d found stashed in the cave.
“This has been the longest two days of my entire life.” His voice was a drawl as he gestured toward me. “Stuck here . . . with nothing to do . . . and no one but you to keep me company.”
“It’s not like I got the better end of this deal. I’m stuck here with you as well.”
“I guarantee I’m better company, just ask Eleana.”
I checked my phone for the twentieth time today. And just like every other stars-damned time I checked, it still said the exact same thing. No service.
“I don’t know why you keep checking,” Axel said as he took a drink of whiskey. “It hasn’t changed since we’ve been here.”
“Well,” I drawled as I looked toward him. “I keep hoping it will. Shoot me.”
He huffed a laugh. “What . . . are you expecting a text from someone? Maybe a certain brown-haired—”
“I’m a bit more focused on touching base with the Guild. You know . . . the mission we’re supposed to be on?”
“What mission?” He gestured around the room (cave) we were currently hiding out in. “We’ve been here for two entire days with nothing to do.”
“Still,” I replied, “we should stay alert. We never know if someone may stop by unexpectedly.”
“First of all,” Pierce stated as he took another drink.
“Even if someone did stop by—and that’s a long shot—we’ve already assessed that this cave system is run by the Remnant, based on everything we’ve found in the caves.
So nothing to worry about there. And secondly, we’ve been hiding in this stars-damned room for two days, and you have not once mentioned your new mark. ”
I cut a glance at him, opening my mouth to say something when he cut me off.
“Nope, no. I don’t want to hear it,” he insisted. “You can stay in denial for as long as you want, but it’s clear you’re attracted to her.”
Running my hand against the back of my neck, I looked at him. “Why are you so confident I am?”
He laughed. “Don’t give me that, Blackwood. I’ve known you for three centuries, and you’ve never once so much as looked at a female during a mission, much less risked getting caught for one.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, okay? It just . . . feels different. She feels different.”
“Maybe that’s because she’s, you know, your starbound. If you weren’t in such denial over it, you’d realize that.”
“I’m not in denial about it,” I insisted.
“Oh?” he replied. “My bad. You look like someone in denial over it. You talk like someone in denial too.”
“It’s not denial,” I stated, my tone rising with agitation. “It’s me being focused on the mission at hand.”
“Or it’s you being scared shitless that you’ve found someone who means something to you.”
I stared at him for a long moment, not speaking as his statement ran through my mind. “Maybe I am,” I replied finally. “But I’m not going to resolve anything sitting here in this fucking cave, hiding out with you. We leave tomorrow for Aurum, so just . . . can you drop it for now?”
“Fine,” Axel replied as he took another drink of whiskey before pulling out the deck of cards we’d found and shuffling the deck.
6 Days Until Mission
I sat in the debrief room, drilling my fingers against the table as I stared at Elion. We had only arrived back in Aurum Quarter twenty minutes ago, and we were already getting our stars-damned asses chewed out for the mission.
“You had one task . . . one mission. And yet, I’ve been fielding reports for the past four days about why the Aurelian Guild—the Shade, nonetheless—has been running missions in Solis Quarter.”
I sighed as I watched Elion pace the ground before Axel and me.
“I’ve got the King of Aurum calling me, demanding to know what’s going on.
I’ve got complaints coming from his commander, who’s been dealing with decoding messages and threats from Solis Quarter.
And what have I had to answer with? What, you ask?
Nothing! Because my two top spies in the entire stars-damned Guild have been off in the desert for the past few days, unreachable. ”
The doors behind Elion whirled as the keypad unlocked, and then the metal slid open, and Eleana walked through the room, grimacing as she caught sight of the two of us.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, dipping her head in respect toward Elion. “The training sessions with the new initiates ran late today.”
“Take a seat,” Elion commanded as he sat down at the head of the debrief table. “Blackwood and Pierce were just about to share the intel they’ve collected from their mission.”