Two grueling days later, our convoy landed in Tartaris.
Even though I had known that it was an abandoned village, I wasn’t prepared for how abandoned it was. The island was tiny, small enough that on Ignimitra’s back I could see clear to the other end. Coconut trees stretched up from the earth. There was little grass—only muddy pathways that connected the houses. Tartaris’ white sand shore sloped into the choppy waters of the Lesser Pyralian Sea.
Every structure in the village was made with wood and thatch, something that I hadn’t seen since leaving my own village nearly a year ago. Most of the houses were small two-roomed structures, arranged in neat rows that encircled a grand marble monument in the center of the island.
This place was worlds different from the Academy, and a pang of sadness struck me at the thought. This was our home now.
I miss the tree in our backyard, Ignimitra told me when we arrived at the house we had been assigned to. Whitewash was stripping from aged wood, and the thatch roof was almost gone in some places. The front door was rotting so badly that I had to kick it in just to get inside. As unbelievable as it was, outside the house looked better than what lay beyond the front door.
The floors were made of rough plaster that sloped towards the center of the room. A thick wooden pole held the roof up, and apart from a questionable bed frame the room was devoid of any kind of furniture. A tiny room attached to the main one served as bathroom—it had a rusting rainwater shower and a composting toilet that had seen better days.
Outside, Ignimitra wasn’t faring much better than me. She didn’t have a yard to sleep in. Her bed was the narrow strip of land that separated our house from the one next door. There was hardly any room to stretch.
At least you’re closer to the water, I tried to stay positive.
She scoffed. Lucky that when I’m tired, I can sleep anywhere, was all the warning she gave me before she collapsed into her “bed” with a thud so loud I was afraid the rickety house would collapse on me.
That’s where she had me beat.
I knew that even after I put my pallet on the bed frame, it would be hard to fall asleep—the past few nights hadn’t been good to me. Heck, I had been struggling to fall asleep on a duck-feather mattress wrapped in wool blankets back at the Academy.
If I had known that things would have turned out this way, maybe I would’ve tried to sleep more when I had the chance.
Despite its age, the rainwater shower worked well. I lost track of time as I scrubbed three days’ worth of grime from my hair and skin. The water was nearly black as it pooled by my feet.
The shower improved my mood more than I expected. But I didn’t have much time to enjoy it, for the moment I stepped out of my house I was approached by a soldier I recognized from my Advanced Training session, he carried a clipboard with him.
With more verve than I expected for someone who had just flown a three-day trip from the Isle of Un, he told me that all teams were to report to the northeast quadrant of the island for debriefing. Then he left to accost another soldier.
I found Solra and Irikai on the way.
We had to join another line, and this one moved even slower than the last. Logistics didn’t seem to be the strong suit of the Guard, but after Avek’s rebuke a couple nights ago, I kept my thoughts to myself.
Solra and Irikai were having one of their moments.
He was in front of her in the line, but she had her fingers threaded through his. She leaned against him, whispering through the crook of his arm. Irikai’s smile was wide at whatever it was she said.
My heart felt warm looking at them. As far as compatibility went, they were definitely right for each other. I guess I just never noticed it before this.
“Yo, Kaos!” Someone in the line beside ours caught my attention.
My stomach flipped at the sight of her.
“Jules!” I pulled a smile, willing the feeling of uneasiness to go away. But when I caught sight of Avek standing behind her, it came back stronger than ever. Avek smirked at me. Cuinn was behind her and mouthed a hello.
Jules looked much like what I remembered. Her violet hair was cut shorter now, curling up against her scalp. It felt surreal to see her—especially after the ambush. After reminding myself that she was a friend for the tenth time, I got back to the place where I was happy to see her. Perhaps her unwillingness to save Avek had affected me more than I was admitting to myself.
My eyes broke away from her just as Avek’s settled on me. An entirely new sensation filled me—warmth spreading from my chest to my toes. Hopefully we would have time to see each other again before we went off on our missions.
I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t get to tell him goodbye.
THAT NIGHT, I WOKEN from my sleep.
“Kaos?” The voice sounded familiar but I was groggy.
Through the makeshift door I created—it was a blanket draped over the empty space—I saw a shadow. The sleep burned from my eyes almost instantly, and I was outside barefoot in the next second.
But it wasn’t Avek like I had hoped.
“Cuinn? What are you doing here?”
The moonlight made his red hair a pastel hue. He was dressed in a sleeveless shirt and his uniform pants, and there wasn’t even the hint of sleep in his eyes. I imagined that I looked the complete opposite dressed in my night clothes with messy hair.
“I came to wish you good luck,” he smiled with trembling lips. “We leave early tomorrow, and I wasn’t sure if I would get to talk to you.”
A pang of guilt heated my neck.
He clearly cared about me more than I cared about him.
“Thanks,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “Good luck to you too. You have some amazing people on your team.”
Cuinn smiled, “I do.”
Footsteps filled the silence between us. Apparently, Cuinn wasn’t the only person who had the idea of visiting me tonight. Avek appeared from behind the house across from mine, his eyebrows wrinkling when he caught sight of us.
I looked over at Cuinn as he approached us, his jaw forming a hard line.
“It was nice seeing you, Kaos,” Cuinn said to me, with a hand on my shoulder. He didn’t so much as look at Avek, just turned and left quietly.
Avek’s composure was fracturing, and it was amusing to watch. Who knew that somebody I wasn’t even interested in could ruffle his feathers this much?
“I was wondering if you would ever visit,” I said with a smile.
He rolled his eyes. “So, you find Cuinn?”
I stifled a laugh and put a hand on his forearm. “We’re at my house. Obviously, he came to me.”
“Whatever,” he ducked into the house.
I followed him, and the two of us settled on my bed. I lit a glowstick and propped it on the windowsill so we’d have a little light. We sat in silence until Avek’s mood evened out. At some point, I’d have to talk to him about that.
“We leave at sunrise,” he said, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “And I just wanted to see you before I leave because…”
I took his hand and squeezed. “You don’t know if we’ll make it back.” I finished his sentence for him. It hurt to say, but that was our life now.
Hiding from it didn’t make it any easier to deal with.
“Yeah,” his voice was soft.
He squeezed my hand tighter, and I rested my cheek on his shoulder. I took a deep breath, trying to commit his smell to memory—it was warm and fresh, like the morning breeze after a rainy night. My toes tingled.
His lips found my temple.
“I’ll do my best to make it back,” he whispered against my skin. “I promise.”
“Me too,” I replied.
With a hand on my cheek, he moved me to face him.
“Promise me,” he said. His eyes were as hard as cut steel, burning holes into my soul. “Promise me you’ll stay safe.”
I started to smile, but realized he wasn’t joking. How could I promise something that I had no control over? Yet, his promise had comforted me somehow.
“I promise,” I said. “I’ll come back to you.”
“Good.” Our lips met in a fervently pure kiss.
When we broke apart, it felt like someone had took all the air from my lungs. I closed my eyes to still my heartbeat, and when I opened them, Avek was looking at me with a smile on his face.
A blush heated my cheeks.
“You’re my sun and moon and stars, Kaos,” he said. “As stupid as it sounds for us, I want a lifetime with you.” Suddenly, there was an urgency in his eyes that I had never seen before. “And I didn’t want to leave without telling you that. I…I love you.”
My heart exploded in my chest, thundering through my thoughts. Avek just told me that he loved me. Loved. LOVED. My shock swirled into happiness a moment later.
“You don’t have to say it back right now,” he said, a satisfied smile on his face. Had my feelings played out all over my face? “Say it to me when you’re sure.” He placed a kiss on the inside of my wrist.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. He chuckled and wrapped his arms around me. Leaning into him, I put my head against his chest. His heartbeat was soothing. I wanted to memorize that too.
He was the one to break the silence.
“Our mission takes us to the village you’re from,” he said softly. His hot breath danced along my scalp.
Images of Hakan came to mind then. He must’ve looked so much different from the last time I had seen him. Had he gotten my letter? Had he replied? The day of the attack was usually when mail was brought in. Had his message to me gotten lost in the attack?
“Will you visit him for me?” I asked. Hakan would’ve remembered Avek since he had been one of the soldiers who showed up at my house all those months ago.
Avek replied instantly. “Of course, I will. What do you want me to tell him?”
Another blush heated my cheeks as I realized that sending Avek with a message for Hakan was equivalent to announcing our relationship to him. If Avek got his wish, Hakan would have to know eventually.
“That I miss him, and that he should stay safe. I’ll come to visit him as soon as things clear up.” I had been saying that for the longest time, and things didn’t seem like they were clearing up any time soon. If anything, they were getting worse.
“Will do, Captain Kressin,” Avek said in mock salute.
I giggled. “Thank you, Avek.”
Loosening myself out of his grasp, I reached up to kiss him again.
