Chapter 34
SEAN
It wasn’t so bad, Sean told himself the next morning.
Of all the life-changing things that had happened over the last months, the news of a baby was by far the happiest—and the most normal. Far better news than being told he was some messiah sent to save the world. Far more believable, too.
He left Isobel sleeping in her bed to head down to the training grounds for his meeting with Bowenn.
“I hear congratulations are in order!” the warrior chieftain shouted as Sean entered the designated tent.
Sean stiffened. Beside Bowenn, Kywyn’s expression morphed into one of guilt. “I’m sorry,” his father said, shifting uncomfortably on his stool. “I was too excited to keep it to myself.”
Bowenn laughed heartily, standing to clasp Sean’s wrist. “Why keep such a blessing secret?” He kissed Sean’s temple, and the pixie spark spread down his nerves, warm and comforting.
“I’m not.” Sean scratched his neck. “Just…still processing.”
“Ah.” Bowenn nodded, his blue eyes turning quite serious. “Kassandra’s prophecy draws nigh.”
Sean’s mouth tightened as he fought the urge to argue.
We live or die by the grace of a willing martyr.
Maybe he’d be the one to martyr himself. Why did they all assume the martyr in this scenario was Bel?
He settled in the chair reserved for him and took stock of the dossiers littered across the table. “So where do we start?”
Bowenn reseated himself and pushed a stack toward Sean. “I’ve had the Shamans write up reports for every soldier who takes part in the Exorcism. I believe the first step, if I may make a suggestion, should be assigning each squad so they can become accustomed to each other.”
Sean glanced at the hundreds of papers on the table, his heart sinking as he realized he was far better at the action part of things. “You know who would be good at this?” he said.
Bowenn cast him a curious look.
“David.”
Both Bowenn and Kywyn blinked at Sean, stunned to silence.
“The heir of Manae?” Bowenn asked.
He cocked his head. “Do you know another David?”
“Is it wise to reveal strategy to…” The pixie’s cheeks flared as he caught himself.
“To who?” Sean challenged. “An ally?”
Bowenn did not reply. Kywyn stared at the table. A thin vein of tension wrapped about the tent.
“Perhaps we start with stacking each of these according to race?” his father said after a moment. “We do want to distribute healers and guardians evenly, yes?”
Sean nodded and reached for a pile of papers.
That day, he worked mostly in silence, reading dossiers until his eyes ached. The next day, he dragged David to the tent with him.
Bowenn crossed his arms as David entered, his blue eyes narrowing.
“Lovely to see you, Bowenn, as always,” David said as the tent flap swung closed.
“Ashanta,” the pixie said, shifting his gaze to Sean, “I do not feel—”
“David has graciously agreed to help us,” he interrupted. “Isn’t that nice?”
David set a hand over his heart. “I am nothing if not nice.”
Lips tight with displeasure, Bowenn sat in silence while Kywyn hid his smile behind a cough.
Sean lowered himself into the same chair he’d used yesterday, and David pulled up one beside him. “We sorted everyone by race yesterday and started assigning them into squads,” Sean explained to him, though they’d already discussed this.
“How big are the squads?” David asked.
“Five or so,” Bowenn answered without looking up from his current stack of papers.
“Shouldn’t you consider making some larger squads for bigger areas?”
Bowenn’s eyes slowed on his current page. “Perhaps. Or perhaps we combine squads for areas that need greater coverage.”
“You have hundreds of warriors here,” David said, gesturing to the table. “That makes for dozens of squads. They’ll need to be grouped with a common commander.”
“This is what my Shamans will do.”
He dipped his chin. “And what about squad leaders?”
“The squad member with the most experience will lead,” Bowenn said with finality.
David picked up a sheet of paper, his long fingers careful with the page as he studied its contents. “Experience doesn’t necessarily equate to leadership skills.”
Bowenn opened his mouth.
“Look at Sean, for example,” David said, the corner of his mouth quirking a smidge.
The pixie answered with a frown, “He’s an exception.”
David’s gaze stole toward Sean. “You hear that? You’re exceptional.”
He shrugged, making a show of skimming his document. “I tried to tell you.”
David cleared his throat, more serious now. “Leaders should be assigned by aptitude, not experience.”
“I must say,” Kywyn interjected, “I do agree with him, Bowenn. Devas, particularly, do not make the best leaders, no matter their level of knowledge.”
Bowenn grunted. “Because all they care about is fucking.”
Sean snorted, but David gazed upon the pixie with exaggerated adoration. “We’re going to be friends, Bowenn,” he said. “I can tell.”
After that, the tension eased, though Bowenn still eyed David with suspicion at regular intervals. Within a few hours, they’d made more progress than the previous day. Sean stretched and yawned while Kywyn organized their work into piles.
The next day, Bowenn laid out a large map of Viterra. “Tell me, Ashanta, where will we place these outposts?”
Sean gazed at the map, David at his side, and considered the sheer amount of space depicted.
They didn’t have enough manpower to conquer the entirety of Viterra.
The outposts needed to be strategic, positioned in places of high enough Indy activity to be efficient without incurring excessive danger.
He and David discussed at length, avoiding certain cities while arguing over others.
“Not there,” David would say. “They’ll be slaughtered.”
“That’s too far from the city,” Sean would point out. “It’s a waste of time.”
Luxoria had almost three hundred squads to send into Viterra. Ideally, at least a third could be on duty at any given time. That meant they’d need at least one hundred outposts.
As they considered exactly what this meant, both David and Sean fell silent.
“Problem?” Bowenn asked after a full minute.
“It’s…impossible,” David said, his tone almost surprised.
“Of course it isn’t!” the pixie snapped. “We have the Savior.”
But Sean agreed with David. Viterra was simply too big, and there were far too few lavanié to invade it. “I am just one man,” he said, his gaze on the map. “One man cannot win a war.”
“He can if he is the Savior.”
Sean released a slow breath. “The Sending never mentions triumph. It only mentions liberty. They aren’t the same thing.”
A pall fell over the four of them, and Bowenn blinked down at the map as if it had never before occurred to him that Sean might lose.
“We will do what we can,” Kywyn said into the thick silence. “The Great Mother will guide us on the correct course.”
“Aye,” Bowenn agreed, perking up.
Sean exchanged a glance with David.
I don’t think it’s that simple, he wanted to say.
David’s wry tone echoed through their connection. Of course it is, Savior. You’ll save us all.
The days progressed much the same, and Sean itched to return to the training grounds.
His limbs practically vibrated with the need to best Anna or Cathaire in a match.
David, on the other hand, reveled in the lack of hitting things.
“I’ve been suffering with you and the misery maestro you call a trainer for months.
It’s about time we do something I like to do. ”
Sean pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until sparks erupted behind his eyelids. “But organization is tedious.”
Kywyn chuckled. “It’s said Lhynion also detested these things.”
“The groundwork must be laid correctly, or everything falls through the cracks you leave,” David said as he made a note on a sheet of paper.
Bowenn grunted. “The golden one is wise.”
“He’s warming up to me,” David whispered.
“I am merely stating a fact,” Bowenn said, his mouth pulled into a deep frown.
Sean leaned closer to his father as the two of them argued. “We’ll need to form an exploration party soon. We can set up a single outpost and see where the problems arise.”
Kywyn nodded. “We’ll ask for volunteers.” He gestured toward the map. “Which location do you think would be safest to start?”
Sean considered each pin, discarding all options in regions he didn’t know the language. “What about Sacramento? It’s close to where I lived—”
David’s head shot up, green eyes latching onto Sean. His body language remained at ease and his expression blank, but a wildfire of panic ripped through their bond. “Do you think that’s wise?” he asked carefully.
“I—” Sean paused as an image drifted through his mind. He stood in a dark alleyway, the asphalt gritty and fragrant from a recent rain. Before him laid a man, his legs mangled and crimson. Sean looked down at the wooden baseball bat in his hand, its barrel studded with bloody spikes.
You’ll get us the money? Sean asked, but it wasn’t his voice. It was David’s.
Yes, the man replied. Just please don’t kill me.
The hollow thud as the doctored bat hit the rain-soaked asphalt jolted Sean back to his consciousness.
“Maybe not,” he said, his voice suddenly raspy. He’d wondered whether David’s memories would ever make it into his own brain, and now he knew. David’s past would become Sean’s own. “Farther away would probably be better.”
David’s face was likely infamous among the seedier population of Sacramento. He wouldn’t blend into the background. If he was recognized, there would be trouble.
His soulmate returned his attention to the list before him, though his eyes remained frozen on it. Sean’s gaze fell to the map once more, and he pointed randomly at a pin somewhere in the American Midwest. “This place is fine.”
A palpable awkwardness permeated the air, worsened by shuffling papers and delicately cleared throats. Outside the tent, the sounds of training reached them, and Sean longed to join in. It would take his mind off everything.
Like he’d called to her, the tent flap opened, and Anna poked her head in, blue eyes shining. “Mind if I pop in for a moment?”
Sean straightened, smiling as a strange treacly sensation warmed his insides. “Hey, you.”
Anna bowed to Bowenn and Kywyn, and each of them kissed her temple.
“Hello, Anna,” Kywyn said, while Bowenn Signed, Tribe eternal.
Everybody was obsessed with this woman, the only pixie with mortal blood in the realm—other than himself and Kywyn. She was proof that pixies didn’t always stay with pixies, like they said. It made her a curiosity, a fascination, a deviation from the norm.
Everyone—even the warrior chieftain of the Selgovae clan—knew of Anna Ainslan. She was adored by all.
Sean couldn’t blame them. She made it so easy.
David’s gaze swung lazily her way, eyeing the sweat and mud still clinging to her skin from training. “You are very dirty.”
She shot him a sassy stare.
“You might want to consider bathing,” he said, casually setting his list aside. “I could help, if you’d like.”
Ignoring him, Anna stepped further into the tent and took stock of the map. She raised a brow at Sean. “Wow. You’ve been busy.”
“It would really be no trouble,” David continued before he could answer. “I think we’d both—”
Anna cupped a hand over his mouth to shush him. Green eyes glinted up at her, mocking and amused.
“We still have a ways to go,” Sean said, “but we’re almost ready to start work in Viterra.”
Anna’s shoulders fell, and she released David to lean over the table. “Ugh. But I miss you.”
Sean ignored the small pang of longing the sight of her fresh from training inspired. He missed her, too. More than he’d admit. He only wanted a few hours away from this tent. Was that too much to ask?
“Cathaire is punishing me for your absence,” she added.
David lit up. “Are you a bad girl, Anna?”
She sighed. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
“I lack self-control.”
A snort ripped through her nose. “I thought control was your superpower?”
Mouth pulled into its usual smirk, he said, “Maybe. Before I met you.”
She smacked the back of his head. “Dear Mother, you are obnoxious.”
Sean couldn’t help but snicker. “I like this version of David. He weaponizes flirting.”
“I call it flirtillery,” David deadpanned.
Bowenn let out a chuffing sound that Sean would definitely deem laughter, though he was certain the pixie would deny it to his dying breath.
Chuckling, Anna sank into Sean’s empty chair and pressed a quick kiss to David’s temple. “Why did I even come in here? I knew what I was getting myself into.”
David leaned close to her ear and whispered something that made her cheeks glow. Shaking herself, she turned toward Sean. “When are they going to let you come out to play?”
Sean glanced at Bowenn, who grunted out a nonanswer.
“I make Honor Guard next month,” she said, “and then I won’t be able to train with you. I’ll have to train with whatever squad you give me—”
“Who says you aren’t in our squad?” David said.
She paused. “Am I?”
“Apprentices will not be sorted into squads until they raise rank,” Bowenn said.
“Just don’t put me with a bunch of devas,” she said, to which he chuckled.
Sean threw her a wink. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Alright,” she said, standing. “I can see I’m distracting you. Let me know if you want an afternoon session.”
David caught her hand before she left. “I’m interested in an afternoon session.”
Anna rolled her eyes but allowed him to pull her closer until she finally relented and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Later,” she whispered.
She slipped from the tent, rosy-cheeked, refusing to look at them again. At her departure, every pair of eyes landed on David, who shrugged.
“What?” he asked.
“You are so down bad,” Sean said.
Bowenn groaned. “That charming woman went for a keila?”
David said nothing, though the self-satisfaction blooming through their connection was hard to ignore.
“You should be ashamed, Djiante, seducing a pixie out of the network,” Bowenn said.
He returned to his papers. “And yet I can’t find it in me to care.”
The tense edge at Bowenn’s mouth spoke of a smile suppressed. “You are a menace.”
David looked up, his green eyes sharp on the pixie. “Better than a plague.”