20. The Alliance
THE ALLIANCE
Seraphina
The next several days pass without another confrontation with Lilliana, mostly because it’s myself I’m more furious with for being so stupid.
Like last week, the demoness is being suspiciously tight lipped around me, and there’s no mention of the journal or what happened after the second game with our deal.
Just the occasional ‘Halo-rat’ name-calling or scathing comment when we are training or otherwise in each other's presence, which is surprisingly not that often considering we are both in Ferrum Company.
Spending R&R with my alliance helps with that, I guess.
But now, with the third game a couple of days away, it’s getting harder to keep searching and trying to find where Lilliana has hidden the journal.
Vulcaris is vast, which is why she gave the castle's name as the answer to the truth she owed me, but surely there are only so many places to look?
The living quarters on the West wing of the castle were the first, and most obvious, places I tried. Ferrum’s dorms, the bathhouse, the latrines. I’d even snuck into The Rec one night after the castle was sleeping to check under couch cushions, on bookshelves and behind the bar.
Then there were the Training Halls, the Sparring Yard, and the Mess Hall.
But so far, I’ve found nothing that remotely resembles the little leather-bound book. Not even among the scrolls of the records room or the many ancient tomes resting on the shelves in the library.
The demoness’s silence has started to make me wish she’d hurry up and make her play already. Consequences be damned.
Of course, I keep that to myself, not wanting to give Lilliana any ideas or have her ego feel obliged by the challenge.
Besides, there have to be a few places I haven’t looked in yet.
The Meet, or the Overlords office, maybe. She had made a comment about giving it to Silver. But if he had it, he’d have said something, right? He’s furiously loyal to the Sisters, if he got so much as a whiff that something was off with one of his cadets…
Perhaps not Silver, but there are a few others I could ask who might not run such a risk. Her followers? I shake my head.
But Elias...
How many secret dates have they had?
I sigh. Between my desperate attempts to find the journal, and the daily grueling schedule I signed up for, my plans where the Sisters are concerned have drawn to a complete halt.
I’ve not even stepped so much as a toe on the forbidden Eastern staircase yet, which I’m convinced must lead to their quarters or in the least, the war room where they plot their despicable plans.
I’ve been too distracted, and in my line of work, being distracted gets you killed.
So, my investigation and tracking down of them has had to be put on pause, just until I get the journal back.
I’ve been here for weeks now and haven’t so much as glimpsed a single one of them.
Not exactly true.
My stomach flips thinking about the sighting of a female I’d had after the last game.
Though there hadn’t been much death compared to the first game, Ferrum, Aes and Stannum lost six cadets between us.
As with the first game, we had all marched to The Valley of Fallen Blades to mourn the dead and say our goodbye’s.
That’s when a tall feminine figure, with wide pale blue wings and a long baggy traveler’s cloak had taken to the skies and disappeared around one of the volcanoes.
Diana had seen her as well and guessed by her wings that if she is one of the Sisters, she’s likely to be the one they call Tiriel of Indolence.
The Dream-Watcher.
Keeper of Sloth—
“Wrath is easy,” Khali says, making me jump. I glance across and see her rolling a silver weight in her hands. “Just think about Lilliana and you’ll be nice and ready to claw someone's eyes out for looking at you wrong. But its opposite…” Khali tosses the metal ball my way.
I snap out a hand and catch it.
Az introduced this weird game of catch between our alliance to help with mine and Diana’s reflexes and coordination, but it’s become a habit at this point and somehow makes it easier to open up to the cambion in our private R&R sessions.
Like the distraction of the game makes our lips looser and helps the conversation flow.
What had Khali been talking about anyway? Ahh. The impending game and what sin and virtue it could be testing us against.
The opposite to wrath.
“Patience?” I guess, throwing the ball up and down a few times before pitching it to Diana who sits in front of the fire next to Reiva, legs crossed.
She’s more relaxed during these more intimate sessions with Reiva, Az and Khali than she is at any other time or place. Though I keep my guard up a little, hers is fully down where the people in this room are concerned.
She catches the metal ball easily but shakes her head.
“Patience is not my strongest virtue,” she confesses. “It’s one of the reasons I ended up in the Repentance Academy.”
I recall what she’d told us about the argument she’d gotten into with her demonologist boss. How he’d been the one to contact the Repentance Academy and get her detained. All because she’d gotten frustrated with how slow his teaching methods were.
Apparently, her pay wouldn’t increase from a very modest apprentice wage to that of a newly qualified demonologist until he deemed her ready. Yet he was taking his sweet time helping her get there.
“That’s okay,” I say, thinking about the years since my mother died and after I’d showed up at Industria’s citadel.
Of the months spent in my turret, with nothing to do but wait.
At first waiting for nothing in particular, any kind of purpose, then, waiting for the next envelope with the name of my next mark inside.
“Patience is actually probably my best,” I admit.
“Well, it would kind of have to be, right?” Khali says and Diana tosses the ball up to her. She catches it in a fist without even looking at it. “With you being an assassin and all.” She pauses for a beat, then bursts out laughing.
Everyone joins in, but it’s not in a mean-spirited way, more like a private joke we are all in on.
I find myself laughing along too, even though I’m the only one who knows it’s not actually a joke at all. I could kill them all quicker than they can pass the ball from one side of the dorms to the other.
“Come on,” Az says. He hops down from his bunk and holds out a hand to help Khali down who’d been top and tailing with him for our meeting.
“It’s stuffy enough in here. And if I have to look at you,” his eyes trail up and down Khali’s leather clad body, her hand still in his, “half naked and in my bed for a minute longer…” A low growl rumbles in his throat.
Khali pulls her hand free to punch him, but no one misses the blush on her cheeks and the strange squeak she lets out first.
They seriously need to give in to the obvious lust between them before the tension literally suffocates the rest of us.
Khali clears her throat. “Let’s head over to the sparring yard before the others get there.”
“See if our angel friends are any closer to giving us a run for our money,” Reiva says, helping Diana up.
We all leave the dorm and head to the sparring yard an hour early, as we always do at this time.
The private training deal we made in the canteen a few weeks ago works, and we’ve fallen into an easy routine each day. Breakfast, then training halls with Silver, lunch in the Mess Hall.
Then the five of us sneak off to the dorms while the rest of Ferrum go to the Library or Records Room for R&R.
We split the time in half. The first half in the dorms where they question Diana and I on the virtues and how to exercise them.
We give them advice from breathing techniques, to thinking about things differently than they normally would.
They seem to get a fair bit out of it, and Diana finds it fascinating too, learning how the cambion’s minds work and comparing it to how we were taught and brought up.
She’ll be more than qualified to be a demonologist when she leaves here. Her old teacher won’t be able to hold a candle to her.
And how exactly do you plan to get her off the Iron Isle, Seraphina?
The thought is jolting, daunting even, and by the time we reach the sparring yard for the second half of our R&R time, my mind is reeling and I’m looking forward to the distraction of the extra practice we have before everyone else arrives to work out and warm up for the Triad.
“You’re distracted today.” Khali takes a few steps back as I regain my balance on the sun warmed ash, ready for her next attack.
We come here for the second half of R&R so people assume we are eager and early for the afternoons sparring practice and Triad. But it’s much more important than that.
Today Az and Reiva are helping Diana with her balance and coordination, which is slowly getting a bit better each day.
Meanwhile, Khali has been in Ferrum’s training ring, showing me mercy no other cadet would during a real game.
Her gaze flicks to the door just as our Overlord steps through, flanked by Yuvi and Zaheer.
It’s that time already?
“He’ll pick you soon,” Khali says, nodding at Ferrum’s leader. Just then, Lilliana and her followers hit the ash and head our way from another set of doors. “You’re one of the only ones who haven’t been picked for the Triad yet.”
“I know. And I’m sorry I was all over the place this afternoon, I’ll try harder tomorrow.”
Not a lie.
I’ve been gradually upping my efforts each day. Slowly showing them a little bit more of what I’ve been hiding. Of the real me.
“I said you were distracted, not all over the place.” Whether on purpose or not, Khali’s dark eyes flick over to poor Diana as she says the last part.
If only every game could be won with brains over brawn, she’d be okay. But we are all pretty convinced that sooner or later, a game is going to require every male and female to fight for themselves, and when that day comes, Diana is in trouble.