Chapter 39
Chapter thirty-nine
Annalise
I’m beyond tired as I step into the infirmary for my first Combat Med rotation.
Since turning in our track selections a few weeks ago, our classes have only gotten more intense. Weapon drills, field exercises, dragon mounting and take-off training, and survival illusions. And whenever I’m not in class, I’m usually studying.
“You’re late, Recruit Corvin,” the stern woman with deep frown lines says as she shoves a clipboard into my hands.
“My shift doesn’t start for five more minutes?”
“But I’ve needed an extra set of hands for fifteen, so you’re late.”
This is off to a fantastic start.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” I say with a fake smile. How can I be failing before my shift has even begun?
“Healer Sara. Now, stay close. Don’t talk. And do not touch anything unless I tell you to,” she says, walking toward the treatment bays.
The first patient is half-sitting, half-slumped in bed, his chest wrapped in spelled bandages. His chart says he was accidentally shot in the chest by another Bravo recruit during a Vanguard exercise. Luckily, nothing vital was hit, but still, his chest is rattling with every breath.
Across from him, someone’s entire left side is bruised in a spectacular blend of plum and green.
Leg elevated, ribs bound. His flight apparently ended with unexpected turbulence when the dragon he was riding chose not to catch him.
They were already descending, so the fall didn’t kill him, but I would say it’s fair to assume they won’t be bonding.
“Don’t hover,” my instructor warns without looking back as we leave his room.
“I’m not hovering,” I mutter.
I’m absolutely hovering.
Walking into the next room, I can’t help but smile as I see Ian lying in the bed looking much cozier than any of our other patients so far.
He’s shirtless with fleece pajama pants sitting low on his hips. His left hand is wrapped, the layers of bandages much thicker than I’ve seen on any other patient.
“What in the world did you do, Ian?” I ask, earning a glare from Healer Sara. Oops, so much for not talking.
“Uh—user error,” he says, cheeks pink. “I was sharpening my dagger and didn’t brace the blade right.
It slipped, and I caught it tip-first in my palm.
It’s a minor cut, but the metal was spelled, so—” He wiggles the bandaged fingers for emphasis, then immediately winces. “Ow. Yeah. Shouldn’t do that.”
“Since you two seem comfortable, I’ll leave you to change his wraps. Find me when you’re done.” Sara says before stalking away.
“I didn’t mean to get you in trouble,” he says.
“Oh, you didn’t. I was bound to break the no-talking rule at some point; you just helped me get there earlier in the night than I expected.”
I look over his chart to make sure I pull the same wraps he has already been using from the drawer, then clean his wound and rewrap it.
“Am I gonna make it, Doc?” he teases.
“You’ll live,” I tease, “but maybe next time you don’t try to catch it. Just let the blade fall to the ground and pick it back up.”
He snorts. “I swear it jumped at me.”
“So now we have feral weapons roaming the dorms?”
“Absolutely savage creatures,” he deadpans.
“Someone alert the king!” I pretend to shout.
“I’ll say a prayer for whoever has to take them on.”
I smile despite myself. “Alright, I need to go find my keeper. Hang out for a bit and let the meds do their thing…and try not to lose a finger, I don’t hate fighting you in combat class.”
“I’ll do my best,” He says, lifting his uninjured hand in a small salute as I leave his room and become Sara’s silent shadow once more.
When my shift finally ended sometime past midnight last night, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being followed.
Not only was the same eerie feeling of being watched making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, but I could have sworn I heard twigs snapping from the woods next to my barracks building.
Not wanting to be caught alone in the dark with Lucas and whoever he had hiding with him, waiting to make good on his pig note, I unsheathed my dagger and sprinted to my room. I didn’t stop until I was in my room with the door locked.
After a few calming breaths, I turned around to find Aiden sprawled across my bed, sleeping like the dead…fully clothed, one arm hanging off the side, and his phone in his hand as if he’d tried to stay up until I got done with my shift but had lost the battle.
I didn’t have the heart to wake him, knowing he would immediately go on high alert and not sleep the rest of the night if I told him what happened.
Instead, I shot Matt my nightly home safe text so he wouldn’t come banging down my door, put on sleep shorts and a sweatshirt, and collapsed onto the tiny strip of bed Aiden had left unoccupied.
I swear I blinked once, and suddenly it’s morning, and I’m sitting in Strategy class with my notebook open and absolutely no idea how I got here.
The classroom goes quiet the moment Professor Calderon enters.
“Open your maps.” No greeting. No preamble. Same as always.
The room rustles as everyone unfurls the parchment sheets left on our desks. A sketched valley, a river bend, a cluster of buildings labeled Harrow’s Rest—a small town close to the Clowess border.
“Scenario,” he begins, voice clipped. “You’re leading a team tasked with intercepting a Clowessian unit heading North. They will pass by Harrow’s Rest within an hour.” He glances at the map. “Population: three hundred and forty-one. Mostly farmers. No defenses. Limited escape routes.”
His gaze sweeps the room.
“Your objective is to prevent them from passing through and into the valley…without allowing civilian casualties.”
He waits.
“Who can tell me the first priority when preparing for combat near civilian centers?”
A few hands rise, but mine is not one of them.
“Recruit Voss,” Calderon calls on a boy two rows up.
“Evacuate the town?” Voss says.
“No.” Calderon’s jaw ticks. “You do not have enough time, resources, or the authority to force an evacuation on locals.” His tone hardens. “Try again.”
Emily Tarlows’s hand shoots up, and Calderon nods for her to answer. “Sir, we could divert them. Make noise deeper in the valley, fake a larger force. Lights. Disturbances. A misdirection.”
“A deception tactic,” Calderon says, consideringly. “Executed by whom?”
Emily hesitates. “Uh. Our team?”
“You have a very short window of opportunity, and trainees who barely slept last night, it won’t work. Next.”
A few students snicker.
The professor turns, eyes scanning, and landing directly on me.
But before he can utter a word, Recruit Reyna Ashford, a girl with sharp cheekbones and sharper opinions, raises her hand, then speaks without waiting to be called on. “Why don’t we collapse the north ridgeline?” she says. “Trap them between the landslide and us.”
The room erupts.
“That could kill civilians—”
“The debris would be massive—”
“What if the landslide hits Harrow’s Rest?”
Calderon lifts one hand. Silence.
“Recruit Ashford,” he says, “tell me how many civilians live along the ridgeline trail.”
She blinks. “I—I don’t know.”
“Which is why we do not bury terrain we have not surveyed.”
Across the room, Recruit Meren snorts. “So what? We just charge in and hope for the best?”
Calderon’s eyes snap to him. “Recruit Meren. If your strategy is ‘run forward and pray,’ transfer to the infantry…they admire that kind of idiocy.”
Laughter ripples.
Calderon steps closer to the board.
“This,” he says, tapping the map sharply, “is why strategy matters. Civilians complicate everything. Their panic becomes your problem. Their unpredictability becomes your liability. Their deaths become your failure.”
His gaze sweeps the room.
“Teams of four,” Calderon says abruptly. “Draft your engagement plans. Hand them in at the end of class. I expect competence.”
Chairs scrape. Students scramble.
Matt spins toward me. “Okay, team up? Please say yes, or I’m going to get stuck with Ashwood and her murderous strategies.”
Sasha drops her notebook onto my desk.
Reyna leans over from behind. “I’m your fourth. I refuse to listen to Meren butcher tactics again.”
Nodding, I pull my map closer. “Right, so let’s plan another battle.”
I practically fall through the door after Environmental Tactics and thank the powers that be that I don’t have track classes on Saturdays.
My bedroom is empty, but sitting in the center of my bed are two identical white boxes, each crowned with a sparkly silver bow.
What in the world? I slowly lift the first lid, and lose the ability to breathe entirely.
Inside lies the most breathtaking dress I have ever seen. Black satin gleams like spilled ink. A Sweetheart neckline sculpted to perfection. A daringly high slit that promises danger and elegance all at once. Designer. Exquisite. Expensive.
I lift it carefully, reverently… like it might dissolve if the breeze blows the wrong way.
“Welcome home, Ana.” Aiden's voice cuts through my admiration.
I spin, still clutching the dress to my chest. He’s standing in the bathroom doorway, his devastating, million-dollar grin aimed entirely at me.
“What is this?”
He chuckles. “A dress?”
“Aiden,” I breathe, “why is there a very beautiful, very, very expensive dress on my bed?”
“There’s a very expensive dress on our bed,” he corrects softly, stepping toward me, “because I’m hoping you’ll go as my date to my track gala next week. And when I saw this—” his eyes roam over the gown like he’s already imagining it on my body, “I just knew. It was the only one worthy of you.”
My heart squeezes. “I can’t wear this. You have to return it. It costs too much.”
He closes the distance in two strides, sliding his hands around my waist, pulling me, and the gown, against him.
“I have the money,” he murmurs, lips brushing my hair. “And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, I would rather spend it on than you.”
“Aiden.”
“Sweetheart,” he whispers, tilting my chin up, “the only way this dress goes back is if you don’t like it. Do you like it?”
I swallow hard. “I love it.”
The smile breaking across his face is pure, unfiltered joy, so beautiful it hurts to look at.
“Good,” he says, voice filled with satisfaction. “Now open the other box. Make sure they’re worthy of my wife, too.”
“Aiden—”
“Ana,” he mock-warns, dragging out my name with a teasing growl that sends my pulse spiraling.
I lift the lid of the second box to find three smaller boxes inside, each open faced, and glittering up at me.
The first holds a pair of gold heels—strappy, shimmering, catching the sunlight like they were forged from it.
The second: a delicate chain of marquise-cut stones, a tennis necklace glinting even without much light.
The third: matching chandelier drop earrings, elegant and luminous.
My breath leaves me in a rush and tears fill my eyes. “Aiden—these are—”
His arms wind around me from behind, his lips brushing the shell of my ear.
“Only a small fraction of what you deserve,” he finishes for me before gently taking the dress from my hands, just to toss it onto the bed like it’s nothing more than a discarded sweatshirt instead of a small fortune in satin.
“I hope you don’t mind, but Sasha’s already called dibs on helping you get ready.”
“Sasha already knows about all this?” I ask in surprise.
He winces, which on him looks stupidly adorable. “I may have forgotten to check your shoe size when I got your clothing sizes, and then I kinda panicked and second-guessed myself after I bought everything, so Matt checked it out to make sure it was something you’d love.”
I pull back just enough to stare at him. “Wait. You called Matt about fashion?”
“Should I not have asked him?” He shifts his weight, suddenly uncertain. “You said you grew up going to events together, so I figured no one here would know your taste for dresses as much as he would.”
The insecurity in his voice cracks something inside me. I grab the collar of his shirt and pull him back down into a kiss I hope conveys everything I’m feeling.
“I don’t deserve you,” I whisper against his lips when I finally stop kissing him.
His hands slide to my hips, holding me like he disagrees with everything I’ve ever said. “Honey,” he murmurs, “you deserve so much more than me. But I’m selfish and I’m keeping you anyway.”
“Ace?”
“Yeah?”
“No calling me your wife at the gala, okay?” I try to sound stern, but his smile ruins me.
He brushes his thumb along my jaw. “Alright,” he says quietly. “No wife.”