Chapter 11 #2
“Yeah,” she muttered, “Now I’ll be able to see their disappointment and derision.”
She walked towards the dresser, opening each drawer. Socks and undergarments. Undershirts. Trousers. She opened the hanging space to find two extra uniform jackets, all roughly her size.
An attendant had stocked the room. That was supposed to be her job, but in the Kingsguard barracks. She was supposed to be stocking wardrobes and making beds, all safe and cosy and well-fed, without the threat of brutal training ahead of her.
She quickly changed into a fresh set of clothing and snatched up her cane, tapping towards the door. She hadn’t even realised she had released the second sight until she was back in the hallway with absolutely no idea where she was going.
“Blind girl.” A man passed her in the passageway. His tone wasn’t friendly, but he clearly had more important things to do than bully the new recruit. “Washroom is down the hall. You look a mess.”
“T-thank—” She could already hear his boots on the stairs. He was gone.
She turned and traced her way across several other doorways before reaching the end of the hall.
She pulled on her second sight again as she entered the washroom.
It was a stone blur. Light streamed in through a high slit of a window, but it only illuminated the centre of the room and a single sink at the end of a long stone bench.
The room was circular, she realised, as she followed the curving wall to another high window.
Stone walls divided each section: the first, sinks and mirrors, the second, lavatories, and the third, showers.
She quickly did her business before tracing her way back to the sinks, stopping before the one illuminated mirror.
Sunlight painted her fingers in pale gold as she splashed water on her face.
She straightened slowly, anxiety twisting tighter and tighter as she forced herself to look at her reflection.
Her first thought was that she didn’t have her mother’s hair.
Not at all. Her mother’s had been smooth and wavy—at least in the painting—but Eiko’s was wild and frantic.
The coal-black curls were feral, bunched thick and tight, falling like a looming storm cloud to cover her shoulders, chest, and arms.
Pretty, Hymn said happily. Shiny.
What are you, a magpie? she griped back.
Her face had the delicate, sloping bone structure of most Stonesigh people, her skin the same golden dusk as her brother’s. Her lips were a pronounced bow, unlike the softer shape of Rion’s.
Her eyes had a cloudy white film over the walnut of her irises and the dark of her pupils, turning the colour opalescent.
She searched through her riotous curls to find the hair tie that had once secured the mass and began attempting to tame it all.
It was much easier when she couldn’t see just how bad a job she was doing.
Once it was all mangled into a long, thick braid, with stubborn tendrils still breaking free to spring around her face, she began to smooth down her uniform.
Her hand paused at her waist, her eyes narrowing.
Beneath the skin of her wrist, something dark and thin and sinuous curled and uncurled.
It clung along her bones, coiled in loops and whorls, little wings unfurling, little head slithering to the back of her hand.
Maybe Hymn wanted to see himself in the mirror too.
Don’t let them see you, she warned.
Okay, he sounded a little petulant, but the darkness beneath her skin flickered away, and she raised her eyes to the mirror again.
A complete stranger stared back, but she could find little hints of familiarity. A stubborn chin. Hard head. Eyes that burned even behind clouds.
She took a breath, squared her shoulders, and stepped back into the corridor.
The winding staircase at the other end of the corridor was less hateful when she could almost see it.
Her cane tapped the edge of each step as usual, but now she caught flashes of boot, stone, boot, stone, as slashes of light from high windows made everything jitter into clarity for a heartbeat at a time.
A few Eclipse soldiers passed her on the way down, and she tried to make herself small, sticking close to the wall and out of their way.
They didn’t pay her any mind, except for a few distracted and annoyed glances.
She supposed it would be annoying to feel like you were sleeping in a corridor with a ticking bomb, and that it would be your responsibility to jump into action the moment it went off.
By putting her on their floor, Chasin had made her their problem.
She tried to observe them beneath her lashes, catching sight of dark fabric, mesh and leather, bored scowls, worn boots, a litany of scars and even more concealed weapons.
They moved like predators, terrifyingly silent and efficient. They were also terrifyingly fit. The Eclipse uniform left almost nothing to the imagination, the form-fitting leather and mesh sticking to every muscle and bulge.
She didn’t see a single woman in black.
The next level down must have been for the Crescent banner, as the uniform changed from black to gold, and the hallway was vastly more crowded.
She spotted her friends in a group, all moving towards the stairwell, and she stepped out and tucked herself back to the wall, waiting for them.
This corridor was darker, without the windows on one side—instead, there were more doors.
It created a strange scene where the background consisted mostly of blurry shapes, while the people in motion were clear.
She cast her eyes over her friends, her jaw unhinging slightly.
They wore gold.
The Crescent uniform was beautiful. Dark weave shimmered in glimpses beneath a brushed metal breastplate that contoured to the body.
Matching plates protected the ribs, shoulders, and forearms—each piece secured tightly with leather straps so nothing shifted out of place.
Beneath the armour, the weave seemed to absorb sound and prevent metal-on-metal noise.
Their trousers were gold, reinforced along the outer seams, and tucked into brown boots with gold trimming.
A short cape hung from their shoulders, reaching just past the waist. It was deep gold on the outside, cream on the inside, and fixed in place with a crescent-shaped clasp at the collarbone.
Ky noticed her first, his brows furrowing in.
Kaito followed his expression to where she waited, relief rushing over his strong features before the expression was chased away by something more perplexed.
Ky mouthed something to him that looked like “I told you.”
They reached her in silence, and as soon as they stopped moving, their features became blurred, the edges of her vision growing distracted with the outlines of the other Crescent soldiers who were still moving.
“You okay?” Ren asked quietly. She couldn’t make out his face anymore, but she could feel their attention on her.
On her green recruit uniform.
“Fine,” she said. “Better than you lot, anyway. I’m starting my own banner. It’s only for the most elite of the elite of the elite. I’m calling it Nighty-night banner. I’m also going to be the section leader.”
Kaito sighed, ruffling her hair. Ky and Rion chuckled, moving either side of her as she tucked her cane beneath her arm and wound her hands through the crooks of their elbows.
With her friends there to guide her, she instinctively released her hold on the second sight, sinking back into comfortable darkness.
Ren followed behind, a quiet, looming presence.
“Eiko …” he started.
“Not now,” Kaito snapped.
Ooh, trouble in paradise, she thought.
Are they a couple? Hymn asked.
No, best friends all their lives. I’ve never seen them fight before.
Is this because he ran away in the Quiet?
If by “ran away” you mean “left us for dead,” then yes.
Hymn made a thoughtful sound. Maybe it was the only way he could survive. I think his monster may be the most vicious of all four of them.
But his monster manifested before the others?
I can only guess, but it’s possible he almost lost control, and it was about to tear free; that’s why it happened faster.
They made their way down to the ground level of the barracks, Kaito and Ren peeling off as they passed the kitchens and catching up with them again as they stepped into the main courtyard.
She activated her second sight again just as Ren pushed a bread roll into her hand.
He did it silently, not even looking at what he was doing, but instead scanning the area, his squared jaw holding so much tension.
The sun burned down, bouncing off metal, glass, and gold, turning Ren’s chocolatey eyes molten as they fixed to a point in the distance, his brows lowering in a fierce expression.
She glanced that same way, blinking at the structure before her.
The “stone courtyard” was only partly what she had pictured.
There was a courtyard—a flat forecourt of pale stone—but it opened directly into a much larger, sunken arena.
The ground dropped away in a broad rectangular basin, its floor made of the same smooth-cut stone, divided up into sections with different flooring and apparatuses she didn’t have the time to examine.
Along the far side, the wall rose high and structured, built in tiers.
Wide steps climbed upward to a series of open chambers—viewing rooms, it seemed.
They were carved straight into the stone, each positioned to overlook the arena below.
It was one of those viewing chambers that Ren was glaring into, but she didn’t have a chance to examine it before someone grunted at their group to get out of the way, forcing them to move into the arena with the other soldiers.