Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Adrian
“The others want to attack Viper first but you and I both know it is wiser to strike where they’re weakest. Avus is the obvious choice.”
— A Letter from an Unknown Rebel addressed to Rebel Leader Marsh Ackley
I’d never worn armor before. Even this set, molded perfectly to my form, made of steel so dark and shiny it seemed to drip from my body, felt strange.
Perhaps it was the ostentatiousness of it.
Most warriors wore simple leather or chainmail draped from their torsos.
But I’d been gifted an exquisite outfit of molten metal by the best blacksmiths in the encampment.
Apparently, they'd begun making it the moment word reached them about my breakout from the Underground.
“It suits you,” a familiar voice drawled from the tent opening behind me.
“It’s too much,” I muttered, dropping my arms as I turned to face him.
“Too much for the savior bearing a power they’ve been waiting over two thousand years for?” Gryfon asked, raising a brow as he stepped forward.
I rolled my eyes but froze as I realized just how close he was.
His face was only inches from mine. He reached out and my breath caught.
I cursed myself in the same instant. This gruff, arrogant behemoth of a man had no right to affect me like this.
But then he grabbed a strand of my hair, twisting the hazel locks around one finger, and my heart leapt into my throat.
“You should put this up,” he advised. His tone was that of the general inspecting his soldier before she went off to battle.
But his eyes, normally ice blue and frigid, had transformed into two shining sapphire pools beckoning me into their depths.
“Most women do. It gets in the way when you fight.”
I blinked, trying to regain some measure of control over myself.
It wasn’t until his lip quirked into a smirk that I realized how foolish I was being and how he still held that one strand of hair, twisting and twisting it slowly around his finger.
I blushed furiously and wrenched away, doing my best to ignore his dark chuckle and what it was doing to my insides.
"Will there be fighting on this alliance-seeking expedition of yours?
" I asked with a raised brow, reaching for the sword they'd made me as well.
It was a steel infused with something akin to the very darkness itself.
The blade was so dark it could hardly be seen at night unless some light glinted off its surface.
The hilt was deepest black and engraved with flying Zver and slithering snakes.
A reminder of my connection both to my power and to my past. I slid the weapon into its sheath and turned to find Gryfon holding the tent flaps open.
“We should get going,” he said then. “Prima wants you up front where you can be seen and we have a lot of practicing to do on the way.”
I nodded, aware that he hadn't quite answered my question.
I took a deep breath, glancing back at myself in the mirror once more before striding from the tent to where Zya waited beyond.
The general had already moved on to rouse warriors from the next tent, gathering our party and overseeing any last minute preparations.
“I’m assuming the General’s pre-journey pep talk was as chipper as ever,” Zya said as we walked through the camp together, trying not to notice all the people pausing in their work to stare at us with misplaced awe.
Zya had won her own set of armor after the way she'd defended both Kane and I in the forest during the squadron's attack.
They'd crafted her a set of leathers that were a soft brown meant to blend into the sand around her.
Apparently, they'd worked tirelessly all night to ensure it would be ready for her use on this journey to the human lands she insisted upon going along with.
“He reminded me of my duty and then told me to put my hair up,” I told her.
Zya scoffed, but I noticed she was smiling.
“Better than I expected,” she mused.
“I imagine I’ll get the worse version once we actually get to Sanctuary,” I replied.
She slowed then, eying the head of the column where Prima and Gryfon waited, now on horseback and speaking to Rainier and his crew.
“I’ll catch up with you once we’re there," she said, starting to turn away.
My brow wrinkled in confusion and I reached for her, grabbing her hand and holding her steady.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“They want you at the front, Adrian,” she said, tone serious. “Not me.”
“You’re with me, Zya. Always.”
She hesitated but must have seen the meaning in my eyes because she nodded, tension falling from her shoulders as she smiled at me.
“And the others too,” I added. “Darius, Kane, Roxy, Hugh. Where are they?”
Her smile faltered.
“Hugh is still recovering. Darius and Roxy aren’t coming,” she admitted. “But I’ll get Kane.”
A moment later, I nodded but she'd already walked away. I turned and joined Prima and Gryfon as one of the general’s warriors led a massive black horse over to me.
“I don’t know how to ride that thing,” I said with a grimace as the man tried to hand me the reins.
“You’ll catch on quickly enough,” Gryfon said as Prima grinned down at me.
“I can walk,” I told him.
“This is faster,” Gryfon argued and then, before I could say anything else, reached down and lifted me by the armor onto the back of the horse.
Prima snorted as I stared at him, lips parted in shock.
“How did you—” I started.
“Amazed by my incredible strength?” he asked with a grin.
Prima snorted again as my eyes narrowed into a dangerous glare.
Then I caught sight of movement behind him.
A familiar captain making his way across the sand on his own horse to join us at the front.
His spy was on his left, striding forward with her prowling Zver at her side.
And on his right was Dante, sat atop another horse, the same he'd been brought on.
I frowned, gaze whipping to Prima who frowned as well at their approach.
"You didn't tell me he was coming," I hissed.
"He had no intention of remaining in this camp," she informed me. "And why should he? He's a Victor in an encampment created and maintained by the Fallen. He's public enemy number one. He would be a fool to remain here without our protection."
Even though her explanation made sense, I couldn't help but glare at Dante as he drew nearer. This was a mission to create peace and build trust. I didn't trust him. I never would again.
“Kane?” Prima asked, drawing my attention away from my former partner as her frown faded into surprised confusion. “Zya?”
“Oh yeah,” I said with a smile. “We’re going to need two more horses.”
***
As it turned out, the riding wasn’t the hard part.
Neither was the camping since we barely stopped long enough to pull out a sleeping bag before Prima and her General were ordering us all to march again.
I slept in the saddle more often than not and spent my waking hours wondering how an exhausted army was going to fare in taking an entire city. The hardest part was the hope.
Men and women in armor of varying states approached me every time we stopped.
They gave me their portions at mealtimes, spoke to me of their losses during rests, and a few actually bowed to me when I passed by.
I hated it. It reminded me of the Geist, but I wasn’t a god.
Treating a being containing a great power that way was how we'd gotten into this in the first place.
So I tried to discourage it as often as I could but that only seemed to make them more determined to appeal to me despite my perceived humility.
Gryfon trained me at odd intervals whenever we had a moment to ourselves which wasn’t often.
He was frequently off with a chosen sect of his warriors discussing battle plans or checking on men or supplies.
It didn’t matter. I was finding it easier and easier to call the dark now that I understood the feeling I was searching for.
I memorized it, became familiar with it, and called it whenever I closed my eyes.
That power which had laid dormant within me for so long rolled restless just beneath the surface now.
And it was mine. More than anything I’d ever had, this was mine.
Because no one could take it away. Not without killing me. And I supposed then it wouldn’t matter.
I clung to it at night and during the day when I was nearly slipping from the saddle in my exhaustion.
I drew strength from it when no one was looking.
I let it guide me, be within me like the breath in my lungs or the blood in my veins.
I no longer feared that vacant dreamland because, even there, it was with me.
It was mine, intimately and personally and, though I didn’t have the slightest idea how I was going to call it in the volume I would need to take down the wards surrounding Sanctuary, somehow I knew I could.
I didn't sense a bottom to the well of this power.
I didn't sense a limit. I was sure it existed but somehow I knew it lied far beyond the city-freeing amount I needed.
I worried about failure. I worried about risking the lives of all the people who'd come with us to wait outside the human walls and then journey with a whole new army to free my homeland.
I worried about fighting the famous Pavosian squadrons who'd already killed so many of our own. I knew we would lose more. I knew there was a possibility all of this was for nothing, if I couldn’t take down the wards in the end.
But I also knew we were doing the right thing.
Sanctuary deserved to be free. The Underground deserved to be free. I deserved to be free.
“There’s a color code we didn’t get the memo for,” Kane said on the third day of our journey.