Chapter 34 #2
Prima's jaw clenched and I imagined I could guess who the Geist's "best" squadron might be led by.
She frowned for a moment, considering, and hope began to blossom in my chest in a way I'd begun to think was no longer possible.
She might do it. She might agree to help us take back Sanctuary.
I might see my mother again, my brothers, my friends, and all in this lifetime.
I might not have to live all of eternity never knowing what happened to them, if they were happy, if they grieved for me forever.
I nearly fell to my knees and wept when Prima met her general's gaze and gave a curt nod.
"A plan," she repeated. "Gryfon, we need the humans."
"I beg to differ," he growled.
"General, you know as well as I do that we don't have the numbers for an operation of this scale. Skirmishes in the desert are one thing. This is the conquest of a city which has stood, untouched, for millennia. We need infantry support and we need her to be ready."
Prima glanced my way at that, narrowing her gaze to show she meant business.
"You just saw what she could do with your own eyes," Gryfon drawled, crossing his arms and staring Prima down as if she weren't his immortal commanding officer with more legend attached to her name than anyone else in camp.
"I've never seen Darkness like that before and I suspect it's only a fraction of what she's capable of. She wasn't even trying."
Turning toward the general, I gaped. I couldn't keep myself from blinking in shock. Had the surly general just paid me a compliment? And to Prima of all people? I must have misheard him.
"I want you planning this," she told him. "You're the only one I trust to do so."
He nodded as though he'd expected as much.
"Go to Leo," she continued. "Make a strategy that benefits both of our people. Take her with you. She'll need to keep up with her training."
Gryfon's gaze cut to me and I could feel the argument brewing in his expression before he opened his mouth.
"Do you really think it's wise to risk our greatest asset on a political errand?" he intoned.
"I think she isn't ready," Prima barked in response.
"Yes, I saw the small cloud she managed to summon when she lost her temper.
Do you honestly think it's enough to best a city of ancient beings who fashion themselves gods and have been training with their own power for eons longer?
I charged you with training her, General.
You will not shirk that duty just as you would not shirk any other. "
Gryfon's jaw hardened and, when he nodded this time, it was clearly with reluctance and a painful amount of restraint. Then the two of them were exiting the tent, already lost in the plans for the battle to come, the battle I'd suggested.
I watched them go, hope soaring even as my heart dropped. We could free Sanctuary. We could rescue our friends and families. We could see them all again. But at what cost?
This was a battle. Prima and Gryfon were already making the calculations, discussing the strategy, considering an alliance they'd held off on for centuries. This was a war. That had very recently been made horrifically obvious to me. I could still see Hugh bleeding out on the forest floor when I closed my eyes, still hear the gurgling sound he made choking on his own blood in the silence. How many would a war against the gods leave dead? How many would I never be able to save? Were these people truly better off now that I’d arrived or did my appearance just mean a quicker march toward death?
“We did it,” Zya gasped out happily beside me.
I turned to find her gazing at the closed tent flaps in wonder, a blissful grin gracing her lips.
“You did it,” I informed her with a smile. “I made a clumsy suggestion. You sold her on it.”
“And Gryfon,” Zya added with a nod, giving the gruff general his due. “I didn’t expect him to back you like that.”
“Me either,” I confessed.
Her smile faltered slightly as she glanced over my shoulder and I remembered who remained in the tent with us. My jaw clenched instantly and I fought to maintain control as Zya looked my former partner over.
“Do you want me to stay?” she asked, a whole universe of meaning behind her words.
I considered the question for a moment before shaking my head.
“I can handle a man in chains, Zya,” I told her.
Zya nodded but she hesitated before exiting the tent.
Silence settled around us the moment she was gone. I tried to hold onto the happiness I’d felt at our victory of convincing Prima to free Sanctuary, but even that was overshadowed by the man who occupied the same space as me once again. He ruined it. Just like he ruined everything.
I turned to face him, jaw so tight I feared it might break, and found him watching me openly, unabashedly.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said quietly.
“Since you thought you’d murdered me, you mean,” I snapped, crossing my arms. “Yes, it must be quite a balm to your poor conscience to know you aren’t a killer.”
“I am a killer,” he whispered.
I saw it then. The blood on his clothes, staining his hands, his face, the tips of his hair. And the look in his eyes, haunted in a way the spoiled little rich boy from Sanctuary had never been before.
“What happened?” I asked, some of the fight leaving me. Not all. I maintained my rigid stance, my distance, and most of my rage.
“Too much to tell,” he answered. “You?”
“A lot.”
He nodded and we fell silent once more. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as it should have been.
It wasn’t awkward like I’d imagined it would be.
Despite all that had happened between us in the end, this was still Dante.
We'd shared a soul, a bond so deep no one could possibly understand. Sometimes, even now, I thought I could hear his voice in my head. He would never leave me, not completely. And I imagined it was the same for him. That made me feel slightly better, I had to admit, knowing I’d haunted him all these weeks.
“They expect you to kill me, you know,” he said.
I heard the despair in his voice for the first time. It was the resignation of a man who'd already determined he was going to die.
“I’m not going to,” I told him, and his eyes snapped to mine.
“You aren’t?”
“I want to. But I won’t.”
He met my gaze and I could see the question in them even though he wasn’t asking it. I answered anyway.
“Because I’m better than you,” I said.
He nodded.
“You always were,” he replied.
Something about that got to me. I stepped toward him, almost shaking with rage, eyes narrowing as I pressed a finger against his chest.
“No,” I ground out, my voice wavering more than I'd hoped. “You don't get to do that. You don't get to say that like you ever believed it, like everything is fine now because you’ve changed and we aren’t the same people we were. You tried to destroy me, Dante. And in a way that you’ll never possibly understand, you succeeded.”
With that, I turned on my heel and left him in that tent, chained and burdened. He wasn’t my problem. Not anymore.
I stormed back toward my own tent, fists clenched, dodging the people of the encampment as they tried to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives after the unprovoked attack the Geist had delivered last night.
I hadn’t slept, having spent all night helping any way I could and scheming with Zya about the best way to turn our fury about the ambush into a way to convince Prima to attack Sanctuary in turn.
I’d told myself I wasn’t avoiding my tent.
I was just busy helping clean up after the attack.
But that wasn’t true and, as I reached the edge of camp to see those three familiar tents nestled just far enough away from everyone else to give us some semblance of privacy, my steps faltered and I found myself quite unable to breathe.
“Did you kill him?” a familiar voice drawled, low and smooth. Velvet.
I didn’t have to turn to know it was Gryfon emerging from the shadows between tents nearby.
“No,” I answered, staring at the tents before me and the silhouettes moving within the middle one.
“You probably should have.”
“I know.”
He fell silent as he settled in beside me.
“Why aren’t you with Prima planning the battle?” I asked.
“She’ll be alright without me. She’s got to talk to the humans anyway. Besides, seemed like you needed me more this time.”
At that, I pulled my gaze away from the tents and peered up at him. His piercing blue eyes met mine and my lips parted. They were intense, like ice, and beautiful. It was hard to look away from them.
“You backed me up,” I said then, my voice barely above a whisper. “Back there with Prima. I wasn’t expecting that. I thought you would call our plan foolish, brazen, and reckless.”
“It is foolish, brazen, and reckless,” he answered. “But we haven’t gotten anywhere in the last two thousand years with safe and wise.”
I just watched him for a moment, considering.
“You’re a shit general,” I said.
His snort of surprise turned to a dark chuckle that made me smile.
“Probably,” he replied with a shrug.
“And if you think I’ve forgiven you for flinging that knife at Zya—”
“Zya was never in any real danger.”
“It would have struck her right in the chest if I hadn’t stopped it.”
“But you did.”
My brow furrowed in confusion.
“If there’s one thing I know about you, Adrian, it’s that you’ll protect your friends.”
“I almost couldn’t save him,” I murmured, turning my attention back to the tents. I didn't have to say his name. I was sure Gryfon remembered Hugh's cut throat and bloody chest just as well as I did.
“Chassina’s a bitch,” he replied, practically growling. “She didn’t give you time.”
“And they will? When we go to Sanctuary, when we fight, they’ll give me time to call the Dark?”
“No. But you’ll be better at it by then.”
I turned to face him again, but he was already stepping forward.
“Come on,” he said, not even looking back as he strode toward the tents. “It won’t get any easier the longer you stay away.”
I hated that he was right. So I went.