5. Barrett #2
My hands balled into fists at my sides, the flames surging beneath the surface of my skin, begging to be released.
I was no match for him, the head of House Stoicheion.
He was a powerful flame wielder, possibly the strongest in the village.
It was the only reason I willingly joined The Order, in hopes that the training might help me one day become strong enough to face him. To destroy him.
“You’ve always coddled them too much,” he grumbled to Mother before turning his sights back on us. “It’s why he’s so soft.”
I drew a deep breath, holding my ground under the weight of his glare.
“Answer me, boy, and you had better be honest. Why is she out of bed?” he demanded, stalking toward us, each massive step building a new layer of fear within me that only left me angrier at how weak I was.
I stood firm, my chin tipped up as Calliope tensed at my back, her hands trembling. “Night-blooming jasmines. They should be blooming right now.”
His fist connected with my jaw, and Calliope cried out as I crashed onto the stone floor. I groaned, pushing myself up before running the back of my hand across my busted lip, the taste of copper coating my tongue. Fuck.
Father turned to Calliope before he stormed toward her and grabbed a fistful of her hair. She cried out as he jerked her toward him. “If I see you sneaking about again, it’ll be the last thing you do.”
A knock at the door pulled me back. My hands recoiled at the sight of the water within the basin boiling and bubbling, and my eyes shot up to the mirror fogged with steam and cracked from the heat.
“You’ll be late for your first day of training,” Lucia said from the other side of the door.
I cursed under my breath and grabbed my shirt before pulling it over my head and heading for the door.
Over forty-five years later, the bastard still had his claws in me.
“You entered the recruitment program once before, correct?” Lucia asked as I followed her through the training yard, the morning sun already hard at work, beating down on us. The flames within me seemed to preen in its presence, like a lizard basking in the rays.
“I did once,” I said, humoring her despite the throbbing headache that hadn’t fully let up .
I eyed the recruits as we passed, each one quietly assessing me.
Did they know who I was? That I’d been in the dungeons since before most of them were born?
I cracked a grin at a male as he looked over me, curious if he had the balls to approach, to act on that judgmental stare. None of them came forward.
I huffed a laugh. Pitiful.
“What happened?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at me.
“I got thrown in the dungeons,” I deadpanned. “Did my file not say that?”
“Yes, it did, but I was hoping you could tell me more.”
“Look, Lucia.” I drew in a deep breath, irritation boiling in my chest, like a flame ready to be unleashed.
She was so focused on digging up information on what happened.
Why? It wasn’t any of her business, and it wasn’t as if it would change anything.
“I appreciate everything you’re doing, but I don’t see the point.
I killed my parents. The files didn’t lie about that. ”
“I understand their deaths; that isn’t the issue. What I want to know is what led to that, what truly transpired that night,” she said, turning to me.
I didn’t respond, wondering if she would throw me back in the cell if I didn’t answer, or if she would throw me back in the cell if I did —if all this was just some elaborate ruse to further drag out the misery of my sentence.
“You don’t have to tell me now. It’s difficult to talk about the past, I know.
” Her eyes dipped briefly, and I couldn’t help but feel like something lingered in them, as if she was reliving something in her own past. “We have all the time in the world, though. In the meantime...” She turned away from me, beckoning to a male who trained with another nearby. “Micah!”
His brown brows rose, and he halted mid-swing before dismissing his sparring partner.
He was shorter than me by a few inches but well-built.
His brown hair was a mess of sweaty curls, and as he approached us I could faintly smell juniper and sage.
A dendron wielder, perhaps? They always tended to smell like plants or flowers.
He dipped his head briefly to Lucia, his breath heavy as he spoke. “Your Majesty?”
She crossed her arms, and one corner of her lips tipped up. “Micah, you know better.”
He smiled guiltily. “Sorry, Lucia. What can I do for you?”
“I have a new recruit I’d like you to meet,” she said, lifting her hand to me.
He looked me over briefly. I was so fucking tired of the assessments. “Thalia already started with the new recruits yesterday?—”
“He won’t be following their training schedule. He has some experience, and I’d like you to see where he falls,” Lucia explained, as she glanced back at me. “I want to know what he’s made of.”
Micah gave a nod. “I can do that.” He turned to look at me. “Any former training? ”
I crossed my arms across my chest. “I killed a guard once.”
Lucia let out a sigh and rubbed her hand over her face.
“Wait.” Micah’s eyes flitted from me to her. “Is he the one you spoke of last night?”
Lucia placed her hand on her hip. “Yes, this is Barrett Stratos.”
“ Shit ,” Micah said, and I prepared myself for the insults, for the judgment to be dished out. He cracked a smile. “Heard you took out three guards unarmed.”
I frowned, unsure how to take the... Was he complimenting me?
“Yeah,” I said. “I wanted some peace and quiet, and they wouldn’t shut their mouths, so I shut em’ for them.”
He huffed a laugh. “How’d you get out early?”
“Good behavior,” I said dryly.
Micah cocked an eyebrow at Lucia. “Why do I have a hard time believing that?”
Lucia smiled. “ I pulled him out. He was up for execution in a month.” My heart stalled. Execution? They hadn’t told me that. When I had been sentenced, it was for life. “I stumbled across a record of his hearing the other day, and something didn’t feel right.”
I forced my expression into one of indifference. “She thinks I’m some sort of saint. Perhaps I’m a messenger sent by Celestia herself, come to deliver us from the darklings.”
Lucia shook her head and looked at Micah. “Can you get him started for me? I have to meet with Damien to discuss some news from the Godsrealm. I fear someone is reorganizing The Pits in Tenebria.”
Micah’s skin paled a bit.
Lucia’s voice dipped, and she leaned in closer to him. “Don’t mention it to her. No need to stress her out.”
My gaze snagged on Lucia. Who were they talking about?
“Are you going to send a team to look into it?” he asked.
Lucia nodded. “She won’t be on the team, though. I promised I would never ask her to return to the Godsrealm, and I stand by my word. Damien and I will oversee it.”
He offered her a smile. “Thank you, Lucia.”
She patted his shoulder before pinning me with a knowing look. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m sure you can find your way to your room without winding up in a bar fight?”
I sighed, and Micah looked between us before his gaze locked on me. “You didn’t...”
“Oh, yes, he did. On his first night out no less,” Lucia said with a knowing smile before brushing past me.
I glanced over my shoulder to see her wave a dismissive hand without looking my way. “Try not to burn my training yard down, hothead.”
I groaned. I couldn’t quite figure her out. What exactly did she want with me? The training yard was filled with countless warriors and recruits, and it was clear she had more than enough bodies serving The Order. Why go to the trouble to pull me out of the dungeons?
“You can trust her, ya know,” Micah said, as if my thoughts were plastered across my face.
“What is this supposed to be? You talk her up, and I suddenly fall to her feet, willing to serve at her beck and call?”
Micah huffed a laugh and shook his head as he walked toward the training ring. “Man, they really did a number on you in there.”
I rolled my eyes but followed him. “I hate to break it to you, golden boy, but getting thrown in a cell for over forty-five years doesn’t exactly inspire trust in others.”
Micah didn’t seem to have a response, and I shouldn’t have been as satisfied as I was that he’d finally shut up.
After a moment of silence, he spoke up as he rerolled the sleeves of his black tunic.
“I’m not saying it lightly, so you know.
You can trust Lucia.” His eyes shifted to her as she made her way through the training yard, stopping periodically to speak with recruits.
“She looks out for us. I’m proud to serve under her. ”
“I’ll be sure to tell her mate how much you love serving under her .”
Micah huffed a laugh. “You’ll figure it out in time for yourself, but be careful talking like that about her around Damien. He’s rather protective of her, especially when it comes to males cracking jokes.”
Damien. The King of the Immortals. I’d heard stories of him, the sole living heir to House Skiá, the only surviving member of those who wielded shadow magic. I wondered what he was like.
“So, the king is a possessive male, then?”
Micah shook his head. “It’s not like that.”
“Why are you so confident she can be trusted?” I asked, crossing my arms. “What’s so special about her?”
He smiled as he grabbed a waterskin and took a quick swig before saying, “She knows each of us by name, takes the time to listen to us— truly listen . She fights at our side instead of barking orders at us from a safe distance while we fight for our lives, hunting the darklings.”
I didn’t speak, didn’t have a response, because the words he spoke.
.. I could somehow see them in her, but I’d been too afraid of taking a closer look, of opening myself up to her.
The last time I’d done that, I’d been thrown in a cell to rot for the rest of my unending life—or perhaps not, as clearly someone had other plans for me, if an execution had been scheduled so suddenly.
“What’s this pit she was talking about?” I asked.
Micah blinked, seemingly caught off guard by the question, and he seemed to search for words.
“Um... Ten years ago, Lucia and Damien caught wind of an illegal fighting operation in Erebus’ domain.
I don’t even know how long they’d been running it when Lucia learned they had been taking not only human children, but they had two of our kind fighting for them.
The fae running it had been taking children across the veil for decades—possibly even centuries.
We learned they had several immortals at one point, but sadly, only one made it out alive in the end. ”
Something twisted in my chest, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of nostalgia. Children being taken across the veil...
Don’t stay out too late, now. The fae like to take little ones across the veil.
Who had said that to me? Mother had told me scary stories of the fae…but the voice that clung to a lost part of my memory wasn’t Mother’s. It felt slippery in my memory, like poison, and I couldn’t understand why.
“Who was Lucia not going to send with the team to look into it?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.
“I—” Micah hesitated. “That’s not something I can talk about. Sorry.”
For once, I didn’t argue. The look in his eyes as they slid away from me carried enough sadness to make me bite my tongue.
I tracked his gaze to a female watching us from afar, her hair pale in the sunlight.
She averted her eyes from mine the moment ours met, and she yelled something at the recruits sparring before her.
Something stirred deep within my chest, something familiar, and I frowned.
“So,” he started, dragging me back, and I couldn’t miss how eager he was to change the subject as he widened his stance, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Show me exactly how you laid out three guards unarmed.”
My lips twitched at the tone in his voice, at the hint of curiosity and amusement, as if the thought of it entertained him. I rolled my neck and cracked my knuckles as I stepped toward him, and I couldn’t help but feel like I might grow to like this male more than I’d cared to admit.