Chapter 61 #2
“Right now, I'm trying to prevent the cities from going to war directly.
The squadrons are surrounding the gorge, but from a safe distance.
We still don't know what's going to happen, but we can't retreat or we'll lose the territory.
We also can't advance, because a war would shake all five nations and the king still hasn't woken up from his delusions about conquering Drutes.
He thinks we'll march in and conquer everything in a week.
It's not that easy—they know the terrain better and we don't even know their total number of warriors.
It's a shot in the dark; we could lose more than half our troops in an offensive like that.
Not to mention civilian deaths, because there are people there who didn't want any part of this war.
You know, Kay—you lived in Drutes with your family and with Joan Sanos.
There are families and children who have nothing to do with the war.
If we go in, the order will be extermination or enslavement, and then what will I do?
Let the squadrons descend on them? This war will breed another war, because one day those children will grow up and try to answer blood with blood. It's an endless cycle.”
“If you were the king, what would you do?” I asked, my eyelids heavy with sleep.
“A difficult question,” he replied, settling my head against his chest. His fingers ran gently through my hair.
“First we have to break the cycle of death, but for that, we need the Drutes' cooperation.
I think I'd try to negotiate with the queen first, even though that's already been offered and she refused.
But before, they had the advantage—now they're on the verge of collapse.
Maybe she'd listen to us. Then I'd try to establish agreements, but for that, we'd need to put a more sensible leader on the throne.
The queen is strong and has a good psychic at her side, which is why we haven't been able to reach her—we don't know her name, and we don't have a clear picture of what she looks like.
She's probably the paranoid type, like Elitium, and hides behind her armies.
After Lagherta, we've never been able to infiltrate spies again…” Zion stopped, as if he'd remembered something, and looked at the clock.
It was midnight. “Enough talk. We need to sleep—your test is in four hours.”
“I like listening to you. I'll be three days without hearing your voice—I'm trying to soak it all in.”
“You're going to spend three days without sleeping properly. You should be getting rest, not listening to me.” He smiled, caressing my hand where it rested over his heart.
“You're more important,” I insisted sleepily. We were quiet for a while, just watching the snow fall outside. Then I added, “As a last resort, I could work as a medic for the squadrons. I bet after what happened, they need elmedics on the frontlines.”
It was a possibility. One I didn't like, but I'd do it if it meant staying close to him. Zion seemed to weigh every word.
“When we met, you said you didn't want to join the military, that you didn't want to leave the walls.” He started playing with a little bow on my blouse. “What changed?”
“You,” I replied with a smile. “I don't like the forests, but I'd go if that were the only way for us to be together. Now that I know the basics of fighting, I can keep up.”
“You'd do that for me?” His war eyes fixed on my face with new intensity.
“I'd do anything for you, Zion.”
He smiled, then pinched my nose, which made me laugh.
“I'd never ask that of you. Especially after the massacre at the frontier medical facility and with the chimeras on the loose.”
I fell silent, now playing with the bow myself, anxious about the conversation.
“It's strange, planning for the future.”
“What do you mean?” Zion asked. “I like planning.”
“Yes. I'm discovering I like it too, because now I can afford that luxury. When I was a...” My voice faltered.
Sometimes it was hard to talk about the past. I tried again: “When I was a slave, there wasn't much to plan. My goals were to finish the day alive, manage to eat something, and hope to sleep next to other slaves, because two bodies together kept each other warmer. Nights are cold on the forest floor.”
Zion shifted to get a better look at me, his arm wrapping around my waist. The smile was gone, his posture turning protective and unyielding. It was the first time in years I'd talked about my life as a slave and what I'd gone through in the forest.
“If you don't want to talk about it, that's okay, my sunshine.” He caressed my cheek with his thumb. “We can wait until you feel more comfortable.”
I sighed. This man looking at me with such tenderness was my partner. I could open up to him without fear of being judged or misunderstood.
“What I mean is that making plans wasn't something I could afford when staying alive was already a miracle.
I could do something wrong and end up dying at a soldier's hands. My lungs could stop working during the night, or the men could see me as a woman and do to me what they did to the pretty slaves.” Zion took a deep breath, trying to control the shadows that stirred furiously.
“Every dawn was a battle won, and the one certainty of my days was that I'd die soon, so my only plan was to survive as long as possible. Despite everything, I had hope that someone would come to rescue me; it was foolish faith, but I believed in it.” I paused, trying to free myself from the weight of those memories.
“As you can see, they were small goals, you know? Short-term plans. But this? You gave me time, Zion. Enough time to start planning.”
He still looked ready to get up, put on his battle gear, and hunt down the ghosts of whoever had done that to me.
Silently, I was grateful they were all dead.
Knowing Zion as I did, I knew he'd lose every ounce of his sanity hunting them down.
The shadows gathered at the headboard, anxious and turbulent, so I continued:
“When I saw you in that basement, I felt like I knew you.
I knew you were the one I'd been waiting for, and I would have died happy just to see your eyes once. I felt less foolish for having waited and believed, because you had come.” My voice caught, tears welling up in my eyes. “You had come for me.”
Zion wiped the tears from my cheeks and caressed my arm.
“I'm sorry I found you almost too late.”
Fragments of memories flooded my mind—images of Zion apologizing over my cadaverous body in the hospital bed. I pushed them away. I didn't want to relive those memories.
“You found me, and that's all that matters.” I took a deep breath, blinking back the tears.
“Then you brought me here, and I was too broken to want to plan my future.
I let Ambrose plan everything for me, and he gave me reasons to live.
I followed his scripts without hesitation, but they weren't mine; I followed them because it was a path, and any path was better than staying in the same place.”
“And do you like the path you took?”
“I do. I like being a doctor, and I'm proud to be graduating.” I smiled despite my swollen eyes. “Then you came back. And in those first few days, I wanted to rub your face in the cobblestones of our street.”
“I had a reason,” he argued, returning somewhat to normal.
“You did,” I agreed, running my fingers through his hair.
“But I confess you were a pain, Zion Voluz.” He smiled in agreement.
“So now we're here, and this is the first time I'm planning a future: watching the sunset holding hands, having breakfast at a café every Sunday morning, visiting the five monuments of each nation, getting a tacky matching tattoo. Anyway...”
“Couple things,” he finished, and I echoed him in sync, wrapping up:
“Couple things.”
He studied me without showing any emotion.
“Do you still want all those things you mentioned? Because if you do, I’ve already got a brilliant idea for a butt tattoo. What do you think?”
I knew he was just trying to make me laugh, which worked perfectly.
“I think that’s a terrible idea,” I replied, stroking his hair. “What I mean is, the difference between living and surviving is this: being able to look forward to things and plan for the future. I like this new feeling.”
Zion hugged me so tight I nearly ended up on top of him.
“We’ll figure it out after the test. As long as we’re together, it doesn’t matter where. My home is you.”
His words, though meant for me, also felt like a warning to any fate or obstacle lurking ahead.
Δ
At 5 a.m., we stood in front of the enormous black gate leading out of the city.
Most of the students were already there, standing in two lines, and the academy director stood tall on a platform lit by improvised archemic globes—it was still dark out.
I headed over, stepping on the red, fertile earth of the outer wall, then stopped beside Breno and greeted him quietly so I wouldn’t draw too much attention.
“I’ll find you,” he whispered back, his eyes shining with anticipation.
Like me, he had several runes visible above his jacket collar, but the mark on his face was simple: two blue lines on the left side that started at his forehead, crossed over his eyes, and ended at his cheek.
He wore dark blue clothing very similar to mine, but his boots were military-style and his knives sat in a holster strapped around his right thigh.
“I promise I’ll try to find you too,” I murmured back. “And be careful.”
“I will. I saw your message—thanks for the warning.”
Breno smiled at me, the kind of smile that could light up an entire city. I smiled back, warmed by the light he radiated.
“Thank me by finding me.”
“It’s a promise,” he said, winking.