Chapter 11
Ever
MY FIST CONNECTS WITH THE PUNCHING bag, and a loud pop reverberates across the sand.
The shock of the hit vibrates up my arm in a soothing, familiar way, and I instantly feel as though I can breathe again.
I begin circling the bag, landing a combo of jabs, crosses, lead hooks, and other punches, all while dodging imaginary counterstrikes.
I get my legs involved after a few rounds, and the training area fills with the satisfying sounds of pops and snaps while I work through my thoughts and expel aggression.
I have a dragon mark, but I can’t shift.
Pop-pop-pop-snap.
I can feel my affinity, sense my dragon without any barriers, and yet no reveal. Thwack-thwack-thwack, snap.
What.
Pop-pop-thwack.
The fuck.
Snap-thwack-snap.
Is going on?
Pop-snap, pop-snap, thwack-thwack-thwack.
I work relentlessly as I search what I know for answers, but annoyingly, there’s nothing definitive to cling to.
It’s all nailing jelly to a tree, and while the Syphons have accomplished a lot on nothing more than that, I’m getting really fucking tired of always running headfirst into the dark and hoping for the best.
“I thought I’d find you out here,” a gruff voice declares behind me.
I ignore the interruption, keeping my pace and focus, exactly like the wyvern trying to disrupt my rhythm taught me to do.
Iker appears in my periphery and begins to make a slow circuit around me while I continue my workout.
His hands are clasped behind his back, and his silver gaze is shrewd.
His movements are casual, unbothered even, but it’s all a lie.
He’s studying my form, my execution, searching for anything worthy of criticism and correction. I give him nothing.
“I wondered when the winds would tell you someone was trespassing in your domain,” I tell him and then land a roundhouse kick that knocks the bag off its chains.
With an annoyed sigh, I drop my defensive stance and look around the large farm shed that serves as our training facility to see what will help me rehang the downed equipment. Storage crates border one side of the tarnished two-wall structure, and I make my way toward them.
Longingly, I think of the haptic simulators and other facilities The Horde has hidden within their keeps.
I bet Aeson’s gym is full of all kinds of fancy equipment I’d have to regularly wipe my drool off of.
Guarantee they don’t have to stitch or weld everything they use after every training session.
Envy starts to slink through my thoughts, but I shove it down.
Sandbags and rickety weight machines have served the Syphons just fine up till now, and if all goes as planned, we won’t have to do this much longer.
Iker watches me while I heft the heavy crates and begin stacking them under the steel support beam the bag was attached to.
He doesn’t lift a finger or offer to help in any way, which is typical.
Everything is a learning experience and an opportunity to get stronger, according to the wyvern who once trained his people’s Legions as well as The Horde’s Flights.
I have no room to argue with his methods though.
As brutal as they can be, none of the Syphons would have survived without them.
“Everyone’s gathered and eating in the dining hall,” Iker announces as I climb the pile of crates and reattach the bag.
I jump down and dust my hands off before looking over at the eastern dune that borders our camp. The sun is still hiding behind it, but there’s a band of orange and yellow lining its edges, and the sky beyond is gradually growing brighter.
“Everyone’s up early,” I observe, but I shouldn’t be surprised. I splurged on the provisions I brought back with me, and if this were any other day, I’d be just as excited for breakfast as they are. Instead, I’m out here stewing.
“I was sent to get you before the bacon runs out,” Iker continues, and I snort a laugh.
“Bacon? Really? Is that the best you could come up with?” I query, not buying it for a second.
I carry crates back to the wall I procured them from and shake my head at the grizzled wyvern. He’s here because it’s the first opportunity he’s had to assess me since I returned. He doesn’t give two flaps about anything else, and we both know it.
“I already debriefed with the queen ,” I point out, layering a little extra emphasis on my sister’s title, the one that was dispensed by him and the other wyverns the moment we settled here.
Iker knows he should be deferring to Enslee for whatever it is he wants—he helped instill that hierarchy, after all—and yet here he is.
He grins and offers me a nod of approval.
I couldn’t say if it’s for reading him like a book, for reattaching the punching bag on my own, or for closing ranks around my sister.
Knowing Iker, it could be any of that or a million other things I haven’t thought of yet. He’s tricky like that.
A lock of his ice-gray hair falls over his bronze forehead and he swipes it back with a large, callused hand.
The male doesn’t look a day over two hundred, although I’m pretty sure he’s twice that—not that any of us have ever gotten the truth out of him.
He’s dangerously lithe, ruthless in a fight, and the kind of person who eats, sleeps, and breathes readiness for every possible outcome.
It was under Iker’s watch and guidance that the Syphons have become as resilient and capable as we now are.
Usually this affords him a certain amount of deference, but today I don’t have it in me.
He can take his incessant prodding for weaknesses and shove it.
I’m well aware of all the ways I’m falling short; I don’t need them highlighted by him.
I start back in on the heavy bag. Thwack-snap, thwack-snap, pop-pop-pop, pop-pop-pop.
“You know, feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to solve anything,” Iker admonishes after watching me for a handful of minutes.
This insensitive asshole.
Outrage flashes through me, and my next hit doesn’t rebound off the bag like it’s supposed to. Instead, my fist sinks viciously into the leather and sand, and I punch a hole clean through the center of the equipment.
Shit.
Like a waterfall, sand spills from the bag, which rapidly starts to deflate.
Double shit.
I pull my arm free with a grunt and level Iker with a glower. “If you want to go a few rounds, old man, just say so. I’ve lost some weight, but I can still give you a run for your money. No need to try and goad me.”
He grunts out a laugh and lifts his hands in surrender. “No, no, I can see you’re already getting stronger. Your dragon is doing that at least. And I did talk with the queen—she’s worried about you, which is why I’m here.”
I fight back a grimace at his words, unsure which sentence I hate worse.
My dragon’s doing something, all right, just not what I need it to, and Enslee knows to give me space to work through my shit.
Iker knows it too, but it’s evident he doesn’t care.
A frustrated breath spills out of me, and I glance over at the stack.
I can only imagine the gossip that’s going down within its walls.
“Please pass the steaks, oh, and did you hear? Ever’s dragon is a dud and we’re all screwed! ”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes for a beat. If I don’t have a tension headache by the end of this forced conversation, it will be a miracle. Then again, maybe I can’t get headaches anymore, who knows?.?.?. not me, that’s for damn sure.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be back to peak form in no time. Double up on your meals and focus on your conditioning,” Iker assures me, misinterpreting my dismay. “We can start running drills and sparring in a couple of days.”
I hold up a hand in a silent plea for him to stop and wistfully look over at the limp heavy bag, now hanging listlessly from its chains. It appears I’m done punching out my problems today. Resigned, I unwrap my hands and clean up the mess I made. Naturally, Iker doesn’t help.
“So if you’re not out here sulking, what are you doing?” Iker asks innocently, pecking at me again like some fucked-up mother hen.
“I wouldn’t call it sulking ,” I counter.
He smiles, all too aware that he’s perched on my last nerve like a bird on a live wire. “What would you call it then, Scioness?”
“Processing,” I answer after a beat. “I’m processing. You should look into it. Might help with that whole surly asshole thing you can’t seem to shake.”
His grin widens. “Who says I want to shake it?”
I tip an imaginary hat in his direction, giving him that one, and then pull my hair out of the messy knot I threw it up in now that my workout is over.
I stare at Iker, trying to assess what it is he wants.
Unfortunately, that list is probably long and filled with booby traps, and the only way I’m going to identify even a portion of it is to drop some of my defenses so he can do the same.
“I needed a moment, okay?” I confess, carefully tracking his reaction, or lack thereof.
Behind him, hanging from the roof, is the sign Elenore made from some scrap metal left over after we built the garage for our sandcycles.
The Oven is scratched into the surface on both sides, and it’s hung from the gable of the farm shed by wire that protests loudly with every gust of wind.
The message feels apt, not just from the rising temperatures of a new day, but one wrong move and we’re cooked.
The Syphons have always understood that.
We’re on the precipice of success or failure, but I don’t know how to tip the scales in our favor.
I broke the curse; it should have been enough to even our odds, but it wasn’t, and now I don’t know what that means for us.
“How do we survive if we can’t reveal?” I press, the question aimed at the wyvern but also directed at myself. It’s what I’ve been out here trying to figure out since the moment my reveal failed.