Field training: Day 15, hour 1
First battle
Flames exploded.
Monsters roared in falling snow.
I gasped, hyperventilating with my hands pressed desperately against a stone wall. I dug my nails into dirt.
Suffocated.
And learned my lesson.
Death was petulant in his brutality, and the rumors that he served the sun god were a lie.
Death served no one but himself.
A weapon cracked against my cheekbone.
I whirled.
My twin daggers skewered through stomach muscle, and my nails buried in organs.
A person convulsed atop me.
We embraced.
Blood gushed in a warm spurt as it slowly drained.
They were still.
And for the first time, I understood that death was not just a part of life.
He was evil.
In a crumbling hut on the side of a mountain, I lost a piece of myself—and as I breathed in snowy air stained with ashes and the shrieks of the dying, I knew I’d never get it back.
For death had arrived.
And once he came, he never left.
Five hours earlier
We RJE’d back from the forest. Rich browns and greens were replaced with malignant reds and blacks.
The sulfuric air stung the senses, and the wind shrieked at the frothing ocean. Waves bellowed as they crashed.
All sense of inner peace evaporated as gravity slammed us to the rocks.
I missed floating.
Before any of us could do anything, Lothaire shoved twin daggers into our hands.
He yelled over the wind, “You will wield these blades as you fight the ungodly!”
What?
There was a whooshing sensation in my ears as I struggled to keep my wits about me. But I knew in my bones that everything was about to change.
I gripped the daggers tightly.
Lothaire walked back and forth as he ordered, “About two dozen ungodly have taken over a remote village in an uncivilized realm. You will not be permitted to leave until you have eliminated the threat. Do you understand, soldiers?”
“Yes, sir!” we answered.
Lothaire stared at me. “You will not use any powers that you possess. Your only weapon is the daggers. If you disobey, you will wish you were never fucking born. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!”
Lothaire’s upper lip pulled back with disgust as he looked us over. “We’re RJEing to the base of the mountain, then we’ll be hiking up to the village. I’ll be watching from a distance, but under no circumstances will I interfere.”
He paused.
“Link arms, soldiers.”
I threaded my arms through John’s and Horace’s. The eight of us were linked in a chain.
“There is no strategy! The village has already been compromised, and there are enough of you that you should be able to handle them.”
Sweat streaked down my side.
The whooshing became a buzzing roar.
Lothaire stopped in front of me and leaned close. He smelled like death. “Not all of us have met the ungodly. This will be an introduction.”
Eyes dead, expression blank, I stared back and showed him nothing. Didn’t give away that I was freaking the fuck out.
My fingers itched for the enchanted pipe in my pocket.
I craved the release of hard drugs. Anything but reality.
Lothaire took a step back, and sea foam sprayed around him as a wave pummeled the rocks behind him.
“The rest of you have met the ungodly, but not like this. They are growing more advanced, and there are more of them than we’ve ever faced.”
I swallowed thickly.
That didn’t sound good.
“The next few hours are going to get messy. But like always, after the battle, we will analyze every second of it and each one of your choices. You will not disappoint me! Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Lothaire lunged forward with the white, ball-shaped RJE in his palm.
Flames exploded.
And once again, we disappeared.
The cold prickled. Snow crunched beneath me as I stumbled into a pine tree. Icy needles clattered.
My feet burned.
We stood barefoot on the side of a snowy mountain.
Lothaire pointed up the side of the jagged mountain, where huts smoked far above us. “The ungodly are up there! Remember, don’t be fooled.”
Don’t be fooled?
I breathed out rapid puffs of frosty air.
“What are you fucking waiting for? Climb!” was Lothaire’s parting comment as he disappeared into the forest.
We moved.
Malum led us at the front with Scorpius and Orion trailing close behind. Zenith and Vegar were close on their heels, followed by Horace.
John and I climbed at the rear.
Numb fingers balanced as I dug my toes into icy cracks and pushed upward with my thighs.
Snow weighed down my eyelashes as I kept myself pressed against the rock face to avoid the icy wind that whistled against us.
Thighs burning.
Precise foothold after precise foothold.
I’d learned how to rock climb in the shifter realm when we fought arachnid monsters on the sides of snowy mountains.
What would they have done if I couldn’t climb?
My biceps trembled with fear.
Breath in. Hold. Exhale. Hold.
I buried any emotion until I was as unfeeling as the rock I scaled.
Seconds crawled into endless minutes.
“Keep up! We don’t have all day.”
I tipped my head back to see Malum hanging off the side of the cliff with one hand. He glowered down at me.
He was barely fifteen feet ahead. There was no reason for him to stop and yell at me.
I glared, toes pressed painfully in an icy crack, as I removed one hand from the rocks and flipped him off.
Fuck off.
The bastard mimed shooting me with his fingers, and Orion smirked down at me. Then they kept climbing.
Higher into the sky.
As I peered down, ice and rocks clattered off the rocks and fell around me, and I couldn’t see the bottom.
One wrong move and I’d splatter across jagged rocks at the base of the mountain. But I wouldn’t die unless someone scooped up my heart matter and consumed it.
When I was a child, a traveling diplomatic wolf shifter from the beast realm had thrown a banned explosive device at Mother.
Before anyone had realized what had happened, she was blown to smithereens. Gore and blood had splattered across the throne.
I’d almost clapped.
But palace guards had slaughtered the wolf shifter, and I’d watched in horror as the pieces of Mother’s body slowly coagulated back together and re-formed.
It was a lesson—the power of the fae monarch was not a joke.
Consuming their hearts was the only way to kill them. Kill us.
There was nothing else to it. No secret weakness that could be exploited.
It didn’t offer much comfort as I trembled against the ice-slicked surface. Because I knew I was going to suffer heinous atrocities over and over again.
The memories smothered me.
Bullets ripping through my flesh; an enchanted knife carving up my back; blue flames that burned without heat eating me alive; red flames that were nothing but heat, melting the skin off my face.
So much pain.
The truth fucking sucked. But then again, would it even be the truth if it didn’t?
Finally, after a half hour of ascent, I hauled my ass over the edge of the outcrop. No one offered me a hand. And I didn’t expect one.
“The ungodly are stronger than ever. Don’t be fooled by them,” Lothaire’s voice echoed.
For a long second, the eight of us stood staring at the smoking village before us. Boulders were piled up in dozens of makeshift huts that had pine branches for roofs.
They were all on fire.
The air reeked of the all-too-familiar scent of burning flesh.
My eyes watered as smoke and icy wind slammed against us like battering rams. Malum gestured with his hand, and we all crouched and squinted through the smoke.
Goose bumps prickled the back of my neck—the howling wind and crackling flames were the only sounds.
Eerie silence prevailed.
I swallowed thickly as I slowed my breathing and lowered my heart rate. My body shook infinitesimally to the beat of the blood rushing through my veins.
A punishing gust of wind cleared smoke from the village, and a teenage girl dressed in furs stood in front of a hut.
Tears streamed down her face, and she screamed, “Help me!” Blood coated every inch of her skin.
My heart twisted with sympathy, but Malum motioned for us not to move.
None of us did.
She looked helpless and desperate. Her pretty cheeks immediately inspired a visceral reaction—anyone would want to save her. Protect her.
“Please help me! Please! It hurts so bad.” Her voice trailed off into gulping sobs.
Who did this to her?
There was a loud roar in my brain, and my monster bellowed.
I closed my eyes.
Forced myself to ignore the emotions welling hot and desperate in my chest and focus on the reality.
Ten, nine, eight.
I focused on the numbers and the cold facts.
The teen was covered in blood…too much blood. Deep gashes covered her arms and legs, but there was also a lime-green substance mixed with the blood.
She shouldn’t be standing.
Her wounds were too severe.
But she was.
Suddenly, the teen didn’t look so weak and pathetic; she looked fucking terrifying.
Roof branches crackled with fire as the negative temperature scraped against us like needles.
The girl kept crying.
We kept waiting.
Suddenly, my stomach was twisted into hundreds of knots as I realized that I’d only ever fought in battles in the shifter realm.
We’d fought massive spider monsters that had been too large for the forest. Their clunky bodies were easy to hunt. Easy to anticipate. And we’d killed them with enchanted machine guns.
Fighting in the shifter realm had been messy and unorganized. Loud and dramatic.
I’d been surrounded by dozens of soldiers with guns as we faced down a clear enemy.
The battles had been simple.
“Please. Please help me,” she kept sobbing and begging.
Five. Four. Three.
Now I crouched on a cliffside beside seven men with sixteen small daggers among us all.
Abruptly, a woman dressed in furs and covered in blood and the same lime-green substance walked out of the hut and stood beside the teen. “Please help us. They’re hurting us.”
Her voice was filled with emotion, eyes large and glassy, as she stared at us like we were her salvation.
Malum slowly shook his head again, and his grip tightened around his daggers. “On my count of three,” he breathed quietly.
“Please, they’re killing us!” An injured man hobbled out and stood beside the woman. He gripped her arm and held the hand of the girl. He looked the same as them and was covered in similar gore.
A family.
In a desolate realm, begging for our help.
Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.
My stomach knotted further, and I closed my eyes one more time.
The gash on the man’s forehead was deep enough that you could see his skull. He shouldn’t be standing let alone pleading for help.
“One,” Malum said under his breath.
“Please.” A matching teen walked out and stood beside the girl. They were twins. The sight of them side by side triggered a memory that was just out of my grasp. It felt like it was important, but I didn’t know why,
“Please help us.”
“We need your help.”
“They’ve hurt us so bad.”
Choked sobs.
Malum’s lips didn’t move. “Two.”
Another man walked out and joined the group.
Then another.
Then another.
People streamed out of the huts until there were at least two dozen bloody villagers standing in front of huts begging for our help.
The oldest were gray and hunched over, and the youngest were teens.
They all looked the same—covered in blood mixed with green.
Malum whispered, “Three.”
There was a whoosh, and a dagger flew through the air and landed between the eyes of the man with the gash on his forehead.
I winced.
Scorpius held one blade in his hand.
His white eyes looked off into the distance with his head tilted to the side. He’d used his hearing to hit the man perfectly between the eyebrows.
I expected Malum to charge forward or for there to be a battle cry as we attacked…whatever the ungodly were.
We kept waiting.
Bright-green goo oozed out of the wound.
The villager fell to his knees. “How could you?” he babbled with the hilt protruding from his forehead.
His hand was still gripping the girl’s.
She screamed, “Dad!”
The knots in my stomach became boulders that weighed me down.
Intellectually, I understood that everything was not as it seemed because something was wrong with these people. But emotionally, I couldn’t distinguish anything.
A girl sobbing over her dying father.
It was heinous.
Nine. Eight. Seven.
However, the man didn’t pitch face-first into the rocks like he should have.
For a long time, he wobbled back and forth, then a horrible smile contorted his face, and he said, “You ruined this suit.”
His skin wriggled and pulled like something was crawling beneath it.
There was a horrible ripping noise.
The man’s mutilated body was torn in half and thrown to the ground like a used coat.
A creature like nothing I’d ever seen before emerged from his flesh—it looked like an insect melded with a man.
It stood tall and naked with light-pink skin covered in patches that resembled an exoskeleton.
The hard carapace-like substance covered its face in a mask.
It had a neck, arms, legs, all covered in exoskeleton patches like armor.
It also had six long, spindly legs protruding from its back with massive pincers on the ends.
Somehow, the towering creature had been inside the short man.
The mask moved, and I realized it was a face.
It smiled.
And in that moment, I knew exactly why Lothaire had called it an ungodly.
No god would create such a monstrosity.
I covered my ears as it emitted an awful screeching sound.
Then it charged.
